CRAIG D. IDSO is the founder, former president, and currently chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. The Center was founded in 1998 as a non-profit public charity dedicated to discovering and disseminating scientific information pertaining to the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide enrichment on climate and the biosphere. The Center produces the online newsletter, CO2 Science, and maintains a massive online collection of editorials on and reviews of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles relating to global climate change.
Dr. Idso's research has appeared many times in peer-reviewed journals, including Geophysical Research Letters, Environmental and Experimental Botany, Forest Ecology and Management, Journal of Climate, Physical Geography, Atmospheric Environment, Technology, The Quarterly Review of Biology, Energy & Environment, and the Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science.
Dr. Idso is the author or coauthor of several books, including The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment (Vales Lake Publishing, LLC, 2011), CO2, Global Warming and Species Extinctions (Vales Lake Publishing, LLC, 2009), CO2, Global Warming and Coral Reefs (Vales Lake Publishing, LLC, 2009); Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World (Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, 2003); and The Specter of Species Extinction: Will Global Warming Decimate Earth's Biosphere? (George C. Marshall Institute, 2003). He contributed chapters to McKittrick, R. (Ed.), Critical Topics in Global Warming (Fraser Institute, 2009) and Encyclopedia of Soil Science (Marcel Dekker, 2002). Dr. Idso has also produced several short video works and three feature-length documentaries, Carbon Dioxide and the Climate Crisis: Reality or Illusion? (2008), Carbon Dioxide and the Climate Crisis: Avoiding Plant and Animal Extinctions (2008), and Carbon Dioxide and the Climate Crisis: Doing the Right Thing (2008).
In 2009, Dr. Idso became the lead author and editor for the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), overseeing a team of internationally renowned scientists in the production of several major reports on climate change. Those reports include Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science, and Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts. His most recent work with NIPCC is encapsulated in its 2019 report, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels, where he contributed as a lead or contributing author on several chapters.
Dr. Idso received a B.S. in Geography from Arizona State University, an M.S. in Agronomy from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, and a Ph.D. in Geography from Arizona State University, where he also studied as one of a small group of University Graduate Scholars. Prior work positions have included Director of Environmental Science at Peabody Energy in St. Louis, Missouri, faculty researcher in the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University, and lecturer in Meteorology at Arizona State University.
Dr. Idso's professional associations have included membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, Arizona-Nevada Academy of Sciences, Association of American Geographers, Ecological Society of America, Geological Society of America, and The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. Dr. Idso has also served as an adjunct scholar for the Cato Institute and he is presently a policy advisor for the CO2 Coalition, the Heartland Institute and the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.