OUR MISSION
At the heart of CFACT, our goal is to enhance the fruitfulness of the earth and all of its inhabitants. CFACT accomplishes this through four main strategies:
- Prospering Lives. CFACT works to help people find better ways to provide for food, water, energy and other essential human services.
- Promoting Progress. CFACT advocates the use of safe, affordable technologies and the pursuit of economic policies that reduce pollution and waste, and maximize the use of resources.
- Protecting the Earth. CFACT helps protect the earth through wise stewardship of the land and its wildlife.
- Providing Education. CFACT educates various sectors of the public about important facts and practical solutions regarding environmental concerns.
In 1985, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) was founded to promote a much-needed, positive alternative voice on issues of environment and development. Its co-founders, David Rothbard and Craig Rucker, strongly believed the power of the market combined with the applications of safe technologies could offer humanity practical solutions to many of the world’s most pressing concerns. A number of leading scientists, academics, and policy leaders soon joined them, along with thousands of citizens from around the U.S. and around the world.
Today, CFACT is a respected Washington D.C.-based organization whose voice can be heard relentlessly infusing the public-interest debate with a balanced perspective on environmental stewardship and oth er important issues. With an influential and impressive scientific advisory board, effective collegiate program on U.S. college campuses, CFACT Europe, official United Nations’ NGO representation, Adopt-A-Village project, Global Social Responsibility program, and “Just the Facts” daily national radio commentary, CFACT continues to offer genuine solutions to today’s most important global challenges.
CFACT has been termed “invaluable” by the Arizona Republic, it has been lauded for its “effort to bring sound science to the environmental debate” by a former president of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been praised by a respected Boston Herald columnist for “a record of supplying absolutely solid information.”
OUR STAFF
BOARD OF ADVISORS
Director of Research and Education, Center for Global Food Issues
Hudson Institute
Alex Avery was the director of research and education with the Center for Global Food Issues at Hudson Institute. Prior to joining Hudson in 1994, he was a McKnight research fellow at Purdue University, where he worked on a team developing drought- and disease-resistant sorghum varieties for sub-Saharan Africa.
Former Senior Fellow and former Director, Center for Global Food Issues, Hudson Institute
From 1980-1988, Dennis T. Avery served as agricultural analyst for the U.S. Department of State, where he was responsible for assessing the foreign-policy implications of food and farming developments worldwide. At Hudson, Avery continued to monitor developments in world food production, farm product demand, the safety and security of food supplies, and the sustainability of world agriculture. As a staff member of the President’s National Advisory Commission on Food and Fiber, he wrote the Commission’s landmark report, “Food and Fiber for the Future.” Avery is the author of Global Food Progress 1991 (Hudson Institute, 1991) and Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Hudson Institute, 1995). The second edition of Saving the Planet was published in 2000. He is the editor of Global Food Quarterly, the newsletter of the Center for Global Food Issues, and writes a weekly column for The BridgeNews Forum.
Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D. served as part Deputy Director of Mount Wilson Observatory and as Senior Scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, DC, and chairs the Institute’s Science Advisory Board and is past contributing editor to the World Climate Report. Her awards include the Newton-Lacy-Pierce Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the Petr Beckmann Award for Scientific Freedom and the Bok Prize from Harvard University. She has written over 200 scientific research articles. In 1991 Discover magazine profiled her as one of America’s outstanding women scientists. She was technical consultant for a science-fiction television series, “Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict,” airing 1997 – 2001. She received her M.A. (1975) and Ph.D. (1980) degrees in Astrophysics from Harvard University.
Professor, Dept. of Geographical Sciences, Arizona State University
Robert Ballinghas a long history of conducting research on the climate change issue with a special interest in blending in applications involving Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Balling has written four books on the climate change issue, he has served as a science consultant to the United Nations, and he was the 2011 ASU Professor of the Year awarded by Order of Omega Greek Honorary Society. He is also the director of the Master of Advanced Study in Geographic Information Systems program.
Director, Africa Fighting Malaria
Roger Bate is an economist who researches international health policy, with a particular focus on tropical disease and substandard and counterfeit medicines. He also writes on general development policy in Asia and Africa. He writes regularly for AEI’s Health Policy Outlook.
Wildlife biologist, IWMC World Conservation Trust
Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota.
National Spokesman, Cornwall Alliance for Environmental Stewardship
Dr. Beisner is Founder and National Spokesman of The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, a network of over 60 Christian theologians, natural scientists, economists, and other scholars educating for Biblical earth stewardship, economic development for the poor, and the proclamation and defense of the good news of salvation by God’s grace, received through faith in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. Dr. Beisner was associate professor of historical theology and social ethics at Knox Theological Seminary from 2000 to 2008 and of interdisciplinary studies (focusing on the application of Biblical worldview, theology, and ethics to economics, government, and public policy) at Covenant College from 1992 to 2000.
Professor of Philosophy, University of Trier (Germany)
Bouillon studied art history and philosophy (MA). He was appointed Ph.D. in 1988 at the University of Trier. phil. obtained his doctorate and habilitated in 1995 in Political Philosophy. In 2008, he was awarded the title of unscheduled professor there . In the summer semester 2004 he was a visiting professor at the University of Economics in Prague . From the summer semester 2007 until the summer semester 2009 he was a substitute professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen . In the summer semester 2009 he was guest professor at the Friedrich A. v. Hayek Instituteat the Vienna University of Economics and Business . In the summer semester 2013 he became a professor at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
Author and Lecturer
James Bovard is the author of Public Policy Hooligan (2012), Attention Deficit Democracy (2006), Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (1994), and 7 other books. He is a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors and has also written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, and other publications. His articles have been publicly denounced by the chief of the FBI, the Postmaster General, the Secretary of HUD, and the heads of the DEA, FEMA, and EEOC and numerous federal agencies.
Director of International Affairs, Congress of Racial Equality (Uganda)
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) has been the focal point of Cyril’s adult life. While in College and later as he worked in various educational environments, he was an ardent and committed CORE volunteer. In 1970, he led a delegation of over 1200 people on a “pilgrimage” to Africa, organized by the National Director of CORE – Roy Innis. Cyril later became a full time employee of CORE, devoting himself to its principles of self-reliance. He has held the positions of Director of Cultural Affairs, Special Assistant to The National Chairman for Media Relations, Editor of CORE magazine and served as a National Board Member. He is responsible for CORE’s historic consultative status at the United Nations, Cyril is currently an integral part of CORE’s senior staff, serving as Director of International Affairs and Advisor to CORE’s NationalChairman.
Managing Editor, Environment & Climate News, Heartland Institute
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. is a Heartland senior fellow on environmental policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News. Prior to joining The Heartland Institute in 2014, Burnett worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, ending his tenure there as senior fellow in charge of environmental policy. He has held various positions in professional and public policy organizations, including serving as a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Task Force in the Texas Comptroller’s e-Texas commission.
Independent energy consultant (U.K.)
Richard S. Courtney is the Technical Editor for CoalTrans International, a journal of the international coal trading industry. In the early 1990s Courtney was a Senior Material Scientist of the National Coal Board (also known as British Coal) and a Science and Technology spokesman of the British Association of Colliery Management. Courtney is a member of the the editorial board of Energy & Environment.
Transportation consultant; Principal, Demographia
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris since 2002. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey.
Director, Oligo Synthesis, Keck Biotechnology Genomics Services
Yale University School of Medicine
Department of Economics, Loyola College of Maryland
Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland and a member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute. He is the author of The Real Lincoln; How Capitalism Saved America; Lincoln Unmasked; Hamilton’s Curse; Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government; and The Problem with Socialism.
Director of the University of Wyoming-Casper and Associate Dean for the University of Wyoming Outreach School
He is an adjunct scholar with the Midland, Mich.-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy.