Professor Denies Global Warming TheoryPhysics professor William Happer GS ’64 has some tough words for scientists who believe that carbon dioxide is causing global warming.
“This is George Orwell. This is the ‘Germans are the master race. The Jews are the scum of the earth.’ It’s that kind of propaganda,” Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, said in an interview. “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Every time you exhale, you exhale air that has 4 percent carbon dioxide. To say that that’s a pollutant just boggles my mind. What used to be science has turned into a cult.”
Happer served as director of the Office of Energy Research in the U.S. Department of Energy under President George H.W. Bush and was subsequently fired by Vice President Al Gore, reportedly for his refusal to support Gore’s views on climate change. He asked last month to be added to a list of global warming dissenters in a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee report. The list includes more than 650 experts who challenge the belief that human activity is contributing to global warming
Though Happer has promulgated his skepticism in the past, he requested to be named a skeptic in light of the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, whose administration has, as Happer notes, “stated that carbon dioxide is a pollutant” and that humans are “poisoning the atmosphere.”
Happer maintains that he doubts there is any strong anthropogenic influence on global temperature.
“All the evidence I see is that the current warming of the climate is just like past warmings. In fact, it’s not as much as past warmings yet, and it probably has little to do with carbon dioxide, just like past warmings had little to do with carbon dioxide,” Happer explained.
Happer is chair of the board of directors at the George C. Marshall Institute, a nonprofit conservative think tank known for its attempts to highlight uncertainties about causes of global warming. The institute was founded by former National Academy of Sciences president and prominent physicist Frederick Seitz GS ’34, who publicly expressed his skepticism of the claim that global warming is caused by human activity. Seitz passed away in March 2008.
In 2007, the Institute reported $726,087 in annual operating expenses, $205,156 of which was spent on climate change issues, constituting the largest portion of its program expenses, according to its I-990 tax exemption form.
In a statement sent to the Senate as part of his request, Happer explained his reasoning for challenging the climate change movement, citing his research and scientific knowledge.
“I have spent a long research career studying physics that is closely related to the greenhouse effect, for example, absorption and emission of visible and infrared radiation, and fluid flow,” he said in the statement. “Based on my experience, I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken.”
Geosciences professor Michael Oppenheimer, the lead author of the fourth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — whose members, along with Gore, received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize — said in an interview that Happer’s claims are “simply not true.”
Oppenheimer, director of the Wilson School’s Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy, stressed that the preponderance of evidence and majority of expert opinion points to a strong anthropogenic influence on rising global temperatures, noting that he advises Happer to read the IPCC’s report and publish a scientific report detailing his objections to its findings.
The University is home to a number of renowned climate change scientists. Ecology and evolutionary biology professor Stephen Pacala and mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Robert Socolow, who are co-chairs of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI) and the Princeton Environmental Institute, developed a set of 15 “stabilization wedges.” These are existing technologies that would, by the year 2054, each prevent 1 billion tons of carbon emissions. They argue that the implementation of seven of these wedges would be needed to reach a target level of carbon in the atmosphere.
Neither Pacala nor Socolow could be reached for comment.
Happer said that he is alarmed by the funding that climate change scientists, such as Pacala and Socolow, receive from the private sector.
“Their whole career depends on pushing. They have no other reason to exist. I could care less. I don’t get a dime one way or another from the global warming issue,” Happer noted. “I’m not on the payroll of oil companies as they are. They are funded by BP.”
The CMI has had a research partnership with BP since 2000 and receives $2 million each year from the company. In October, BP announced that it would extend the partnership — which had been scheduled to expire in 2010 — by five years.
The Marshall Institute, however, has received at least $715,000 from the ExxonMobil Foundation and Corporate Giving division from 1998 to 2006, according to the company’s public reports. Though Exxon has challenged the scientific models for proving the human link to climate change in the past, its spokesmen have said that the company’s stance has been misunderstood. Others say the company has changed its stance.
Happer explained that his beliefs about climate change come from his experience at the Department of Energy, at which Happer said he supervised all non-weapons energy research, including climate change research. Managing a budget of more than $3 billion, Happer said he felt compelled to make sure it was being spent properly. “I would have [researchers] come in, and they would brief me on their topics,” Happer explained. “They would show up. Shiny faces, presentation ready to go. I would ask them questions, and they would be just delighted when you asked. That was true of almost every group that came in.”
The exceptions were climate change scientists, he said.
“They would give me a briefing. It was a completely different experience. I remember one speaker who asked why I wanted to know, why I asked that question. So I said, you know I always ask questions at these briefings … I often get a much better view of [things] in the interchange with the speaker,” Happer said. “This guy looked at me and said, ‘What answer would you like?’ I knew I was in trouble then. This was a community even in the early 1990s that was being turned political. [The attitude was] ‘Give me all this money, and I’ll get the answer you like.’ ”
Happer said he is dismayed by the politicization of the issue and believes the community of climate change scientists has become a veritable “religious cult,” noting that nobody understands or questions any of the science.
He noted in an interview that in the past decade, despite what he called “alarmist” claims, there has not only not been warming, there has in fact been global cooling. He added that climate change scientists are unable to use models to either predict the future or accurately model past events.
“There was a baseball sage who said prediction is hard, especially of the future, but the implication was that you could look at the past and at least second-guess the past,” Happer explained. “They can’t even do that.”
Happer cited an ice age at the time of the American Revolution, when Londoners skated on the Thames, and warm periods during the Middle Ages, when settlers were able to farm southern portions of Greenland, as evidence of naturally occurring fluctuations that undermine the case for anthropogenic influence.
“[Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration] was exactly the same then. It didn’t change at all,” he explained. “So there was something that was making the earth warm and cool that modelers still don’t really understand.”
The problem does not in fact exist, he said, and society should not sacrifice for nothing.
“[Climate change theory has] been extremely bad for science. It’s going to give science a really bad name in the future,” he said. “I think science is one of the great triumphs of humankind, and I hate to see it dragged through the mud in an episode like this.”
******************************************************************************************************************Commentary from the Frozen Northland
The alarmists, not having a scientific leg to stand on, always resort to ad hominem attacks, usually accompanied by accusations of being in the pay of the oil companies.
The fact remains that this planet has been warming for about 12,000 years and will continue to warm until it decides to have another 100,000 year ice age. During that time, sea levels have risen perhaps 400 feet and will likely continue to rise at a millimeter or two per year until long term cooling sets in again. Yes, we are currently in a cooling mode, but that means no more to me than the extra hot El Nino of 1998. The overall trend has been, and will continue to be, incrementally upward and frankly I like the warm weather and longer growing seasons this brief interglacial has provided us. It’s what allows our species to leave Africa and populate the world.
While many thousands of scientists have now stood up and stated that the emperor has no AGW clothes, I know of not a single person who once was a “denier” and has now decided to become an “alarmist” on the basis of science. The “deniers” are growing at such a rapid rate it won’t be long until even the vapid New York Times will have to face reality. Sadly, those who have the greatest power to quash this massive hoax, like Andrew Revkin and other journalists, lack the in-depth education in physics and mathematics to truly understand the astonishingly miss-labeled phenomenon we have so incorrectly named the “greenhouse effect”.
The general public and most journalists are so mathematically and scientifically illiterate, they are inclined to think that the largest number of votes on this subject will magically result in an accurate consensus, not realizing that those voting are as illiterate as they. The collateral damage to science itself will be massive.
Millions of school children, having been taught that the Arctic ice is vanishing along with the polar bear, will eventually learn that they have been lied to, and we can look forward to a whole new generation who will not respect, and not wish to participate in the profession of science. NASA, once a respected fountain of technical knowledge, has been almost irreparably damaged by the failed and fraudulent computer models of persons like James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt.
Time is undeniably on the side of the “deniers”, since none, zero, zip, and nada of the dire doom and gloom predictions of Al Gore and company have come to pass or show any sign of appearing, but this will be of little comfort if our economy is irrevocably damaged by inane and expensive carbon sequestration or cap and trade schemes which drain precious resources from the world’s fragile economy. Shame on all of them, and a pox on all their houses.
James A. Peden- better known as Jim or "Dad" - Webmaster of Middlebury Networks and Editor of the Middlebury Community Network, spent some of his earlier years as an Atmospheric Physicist at the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh and Extranuclear Laboratories in Blawnox, Pennsylvania, studying ion-molecule reactions in the upper atmosphere. As a student, he was elected to both the National Physics Honor Society and the National Mathematics Honor Fraternity, and was President of the Student Section of the American Institute of Physics. He was a founding member of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His thesis on charge transfer reactions in the upper atmosphere was co-published in part in the prestigious Journal of Chemical Physics. The results obtained by himself and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh remain today as the gold standard in the AstroChemistry Database. He was a co-developer of the Modulated Beam Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer, declared one of the "100 Most Significant Technical Developments of the Year" and displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.**************************************************************************************
By Craig James, AMS Fellow in the NYT DotEarth blog
I am a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and have just recently retired after a 40 year career as a television meteorologist. For the last two years of my career, I wrote a blog from the skeptics point of view in regards to AGW.
I came to this position largely through the writings of Dr. Richard Lindzen from MIT, Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. from Colorado State, Dr. Roy Spencer from UAH and yes, Joe D’Aleo. I believe Dr. Hansen would label these people as “court jesters” as he does anyone who criticizes his work, although doesn’t science progress through critical evaluation of another’s work by such excellent scientists as those mentioned?
I agree with Joe D’Aleo that it is indeed a sad day for the AMS when the society awards a man whose work has been shown to contain errors (such as proclaiming this past October the warmest October of record when September data was used). I believe Dr. Hansen’s political ideology has taken over his science and renders him no longer qualified to be the keeper of the global temperature data.
I have found it interesting that in my experience, many (if not a majority) of meteorologists involved in day to day operational forecasting question the catastrophic scenarios put forth by people like Dr. Hansen, whose educational background by the way is in physics and astronomy, not meteorology or climatology. Perhaps because the operational people live and die by the forecasts they make there has been a great distrust of computer models develop over the years. We need models that work and shun the climate models that we know don’t incorporate many of the driving forces behind the weather and ultimately climate, such as El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Atlantic Multidecal Oscillation. Those climate models have certainly missed the cooling of this decade and Dr. Hansen’s forecast of a super El Nino for the 2006-07 winter turned out to be as wrong as if I had made of forecast of snow and it turned out to be sunny. But yet he never seems to be held accountable, unlike those of us who live and die daily by those wretched models.
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Environmentalism Needs to be Tolerant of Scepticism: Freeman Dyson
“THERE is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world.“Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.
“Unfortunately, some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the belief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard.”
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From ‘The Question of Global Warming’ by Freeman Dyson, http://www.nybooks.com/contents/20080612
Freeman Dyson has spent most of his life as a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
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650 dissenting scientists
“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,” - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.
“The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” – . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.
“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet.” - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.
“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.
“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.
“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.
“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another….Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.” - Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.
“The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds.” - Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.
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"The science of AGW can withstand challenges if it's accurate, and if it's not, it needs to be challenged."
Brett Anderson
Senior Meteorologist AccuWeather
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Some Skeptics and their ideas, views and works.
( The Flat Earth Society)
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