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Deniers: Fred Singer
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[edit] Details
President, The Science & Environmental Policy Project.
Editorial Advisory Board Member, Cato Institute. Advisory Board Member, American Council on Science and Health. Adjunct Scholar, National Center for Policy Analysis. Research Fellow, Independent Institute. Distinguished Research Professor, Institute for Humane Studies, George Mason University. Former Adjunct Fellow, Frontiers of Freedom. Former Fellow, Hoover Institution. Former Fellow, Heritage Foundation. Former Fellow, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition. Editor, Global Climate Change newsletter.
Singer, a leading climate change skeptic, is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and other publications.
In a February 12, 2001 Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post, Singer denied receiving funding from the oil industry, except for consulting work some 20 years prior:
It is ironic that the attempt by two environmental activists to misrepresent my credentials [letters, Feb. 6] coincides with a sustained cold spell in the United States that set a 100-year record. As for full disclosure: My resume clearly states that consulted for several oil companies on the subject of oil pricing, some 20 years ago, after publishing a monograph on the subject. My connection to oil during the past decade is as a Wesson Fellow at the Hoover Institution; the Wesson money derives from salad oil. -- S. FRED SINGER
SEPP, however, received multiple grants from ExxonMobil, including 1998 and 2000. In addition, Singer's current CV on the SEPP website states that he served as a consultant to several oil companies. The organizations Singer has recently been affiliated with - Frontiers of Freedom, ACSH, NCPA, etc. - have received generous grants from Exxon on an annual basis.
Singer is listed as a $500 plus contributer to the conservative Center for Individual Rights. Singer's publications include "The Scientific Case Against the Global Climate Treaty" (SEPP, 1997), "Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate" (The Independent Institute, 1997). Singer signed the Leipzig Declaration.
PhD in Physics, Princeton. Former Director, US National Weather Satellite Center. Former Professor of Environmental Sciences, Univeristy of Virginia (1971-94). Former Deputy Administrator EPA (1970-71). Click here for full bio.
[edit] Key Quotes
[edit] 29 July, 1998
"Climate science does not support the Kyoto Protocol and its emission controls on carbon dioxide. As will become apparent from my testimony, the climate is not warming and climate models used to predict a future warming have not been validated. In any case, a warmer climate would be generally beneficial for agriculture and other human activities."
Source: Transcript, S. Fred Singer's testimony before House Small Business Committee 7/29/98
[edit] 26 October, 2003
"The irony is that there is no convincing evidence that the global climate is actually warming...Mr Gore and company are stirring the pot, trying to create public anxiety in order to impose a form of energy rationing on the economy - like the recently defeated Senate bill of McCain-Lieberman, which would have forced a cap on emissions, equivalent to an energy tax. President George W. Bush has termed such a policy 'fatally flawed'."
Source: "Climate concern is just a tax ruse," Financial Times 11/26/03
[edit] 13 November, 2003
"Even if the climate is warming, it does not mean it is due to human activities."
Source: "In Sen. Inhofe, Greens See Red," The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 13, 2003
[edit] 10 May, 2004
"[T]he administration is acting like this is a real problem, as though the problems the protocol was supposed to address are real. So they have a great big research program on hydrogen cars and so on, or sequestering carbon dioxide. It makes no sense. It tells people, 'This is a problem after all.' Why would you want to sequester carbon dioxide? To do so implies carbon dioxide is bad when it's not bad, it's good. We should have more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It's good for plants. It makes them grow faster."
Source: "Singer Cool on Global Warming," Insight on the News, 5/10/04
[edit] 18 May, 2004
"And most would agree that tackling the problems of 'climate change' requires adaptation -- again best handled by overcoming poverty. There is lively scientific debate on whether the climate is really warming, whether human influence is significant, and whether a future warming is good or bad. A group of prestigious economists has already concluded that a modest greenhouse warming is on the whole beneficial and will raise standards of living. Why then allocate resources to avoid a putative warming?"
Source: Wall Street Journal 05/18/04 (via Heartland Institute).
[edit] 19 August, 2004
"So, to all who worry about global warming, to all who think people threatening to blow up millions to get their political way is no big deal by comparison, chill out. The science is settled. The "skeptics," the strange name applied to those whose work shows the planet isn't coming to an end, have won."
Source: Cato Institute website 08/19/04
[edit] 1 April, 2005
"To all these concerns about the Kyoto Protocol, add the lack of science. The claimed consensus on substantial future warming simply does not exist ... The twentieth century has turned out not to be "unusual," as was claimed. The most accurate measurement of atmospheric temperatures from weather satellites shows little, if any, current warming."
Source: Environment News (Heartland Institute, April 1, 2005)
[edit] 20 June, 2006
"The current warming trend is not unusual: Climate is always either warming or cooling, and ice is either melting or accumulating. ... The human contribution to global warming appears to be quite small and natural climate factors are dominant."
Source: Op-Ed, Wall Street Journal 06/20/06, (via Heartland Institute).
[edit] 19 March, 2007
"There is no proof at all that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from human activities, such as the generation of energy from the burning of fuels."
Source: Commentary by S. Fred Singer, Independent Institute 2007
[edit] Quotes
[edit] 10 May, 2004
"The best we have now are coal, oil, and gas and these will be with us a long time, long enough until they become too expensive, meaning scarce. But we have other sources of energy. We have nuclear energy, for example, nuclear energy which works. One of the real curious things about this whole debate is that the people who are concerned about global climate change are also the people who are opposed to advancing nuclear energy."
Source: "Singer Cool on Global Warming", Insight on the News, May 10, 2004
[edit] 10 May, 2004
"There are, of course, many areas in science that are disputed, but because they have no policy significance, they don't really make the papers. As far as policy significance goes, global warming is still the top one."
Source: "Singer Cool on Global Warming", Insight on the News, May 10, 2004
[edit] 10 May, 2004
"It would be in the EPA's interest to show that air pollution is a serious problem and maybe even getting worse. But in fact, the outdoor air has become so clean that probably the greater health hazard is indoor air. Most of us spend 80 percent or so of our lives indoors, so in a sense outdoor air pollution is almost irrelevant."
Source: "Singer Cool on Global Warming", Insight on the News, May 10, 2004
[edit] 31 October, 2003
"The McCain-Lieberman proposal is also clearly contrary to the clear mandate delivered by the Senate in 1997. In reality, McCain-Lieberman would be worse than Kyoto since it would require a unilateral reduction of emissions, even if Kyoto fails to go into force -- a situation that appears increasingly likely since Russia, an essential country, appears to be leaning against ratifying it."
Source: "Energy Rationing by Another Name Still Spells Kyoto", Investors Business Daily, October 31, 2003
[edit] 31 October, 2003
"Senators thankfully rejected a proposal by Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman that would have imposed an energy-rationing scheme similar to that of the Kyoto Protocol."
Source: "Energy Rationing by Another Name Still Spells Kyoto", Investors Business Daily, October 31, 2003
[edit] Key Deeds
[edit] December 12th, 2007
Singer signed an open letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations alleging that that the "UN climate conference is taking the World in entirely the wrong direction." It claimed that the process resulting in the IPCC report was flawed, and that if Global Warming really was human-caused that energy would be better spent trying to mitigate the damage it would do, as opposed to trying to stop it. The letter was signed by 100 so-called "Prominent Scientists."
Source:Open Letter taken from Science and Public Policy website, 12.18.07
[edit] 1996
Wrote the Leipzig Declaration in 1996, arguing that there was no scientific consensus on global warming and therefore no grounds for an international agreement regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Singer claimed the Declaration was signed by "more than 100 European and American climate scientists". In fact, most of the signers were not climate experts, and many were not scientists.
Source: "A Fred of All Trades: A case study of Dr. S. Fred Singer", Ozone Action, 1999
[edit] 29 July, 1998
Testified before the House Small Business Committee that climate science did not justify the Kyoto Protocol and that climate change was not a legitimate concern.
Source: Transcript, S. Fred Singer's testimony before House Small Business Committee 7/29/98]
[edit] 28 July, 2003
Co-author of Independent Institute report "New Perspectives in Climate Change: What the EPA Isn't Telling Us" criticizing the EPA's 2001 Climate Action Report.
Source: Independent Institute report 2003
[edit] 8 March, 2007
Appeared in documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle"
Source: The Great Global Warming Swindle (Documentary)
[edit] Key Events
Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years
March 13, 2007, presentation at the Heritage Foundation.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/ev031307b.cfm
The relationship of S. Fred Singer to the event: Speaker
Experts Discuss Why United States Should Withdraw Its Signature From Kyoto; Whatever Happened To Global Warming Anyway?
May 14, 2002, presentation at National Press Club, Washington D.C., for Frontiers of Freedom.
(via archive.org)
The relationship of S. Fred Singer to the event: Speaker
[edit] Organizations
Science and Environmental Policy Project
Source: SEPP website
American Council on Science and Health
Source: ACSH website 4/04 (Scientific Advisors include Singer)
The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC)
Source: PR Watch.org
Cato Institute
Source: Cato Institute website (Singer is on the editorial board for Cato's publication, Regulation)
ECO or Environmental Conservation Organization
Source: ECO website
National Policy Forum
Source: sourcewatch.org, Mother Jones
Frontiers of Freedom
Source: Sourcewatch.org entry, documents Singer's removal from the FFI's staff list in 2004 (archive.org shows him on the list through June 2004)
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University
Source: Former fellow, author of Hoover Institution Public Policy Essay "Climate Policy—From Rio to Kyoto: A Political Issue for 2000—and Beyond", among others.
National Center for Policy Analysis
Source: NCPA publications; Singer co-authored "The Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500-Year Climate Cycle".
Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy
Source: Weidenbaum Center website. Singer published "What Do We Know about Human Influence on Climate Change?" for their predecessor, the Center for the Study of American Business.
Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Source: Federalist Society website 4/04
Independent Institute
Source: Singer's bio on the Independent Institute website.
Heritage Foundation
Source: Heritage Foundation
"Policy Experts" website.
Centre for the New Europe
Source: CNE publications: "Climate Policy from Rio to Kyoto" (pdf),