Dear Prof Gallagher
I write again on behalf of Prof Paul Crutzen, Drs Arvin Mosier and Wilfried Winiwarter, and myself, concerning that part of your Review of the Indirect Effects of Biofuels Production, published a few weeks ago that relates to the work which we did on N2O emissions.
The material to which I refer is discussed in detail in the document I previously sent to you and your coauthors on behalf of our group on 17 July (attached here also), and, as we said then, some very damning language was used in the Review to disparage our findings and conclusions. The consultants you used, North Energy, not only demonstrated a serious lack of understanding of the fundamental scientific arguments we made in our paper in /Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions/, *7*, 11191-11205, 2007, but also took material in the paper out of context to suggest we were making inappropriate comparisons with IPCC emission factors, and even failed to notice the appearance of the final version of our paper, in /Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics/, *8*, 389-395, 2008.
However, so far, in spite of our protests, the only response has been the letter from Aaron Berry sent on your behalf, which was, frankly, rather dismissive and failed to address ANY of the detailed scientific arguments that we put forward. After receiving this letter Paul Crutzen contacted BobWatson at DEFRA. As you will see from the email exchange attached. Paul didn't realise your organisation is not part of DEFRA, but nonetheless Bob Watson has made it crystal clear that he and other government advisers looked at it before publication, but failed to see that your Review had got it wrong about our paper and misrepresented our arguments. Bob Watson says:
"I am sorry that the Gallagher review misunderstood your paper and I and the other government chief scientific advisors who reviewed the main conclusions missed the misrepresentation."
You may also be interested to hear that Arvin Mosier has just presented our work at a US conference on biofuels in the Midwest, and in discussion it turned out that two people there had read your Review; he reports that they were "astonished" by what it said about our work.
Finally, I wish to draw attention specifically to the final paragraph of Box 2.1 in your Review. The language used here in the first sentence is offensive and derogatory, and potentially damaging to our reputations as scientists. We deplore the fact that it has been included in such a high-profile official document. We believe we have provided sufficient evidence in our response document to show how unjustified this description of our work is, and we request a full public retraction on your website, where, we note, you have already published the correction of another, lesser, error.
Yours sincerely
Keith Smith
Last Modified: 13 Feb 2009