Fred Singer
Encyclopedia
Siegfried Fred Singer is an Austrian-born American physicist and emeritus professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia. Singer trained as an atmospheric physicist
and is known for his work in space research, atmospheric pollution, rocket and satellite technology, and as an outspoken critic of the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming
. He is the author or editor of several books including Global Effects of Environmental Pollution (1970), The Ocean in Human Affairs (1989), Global Climate Change (1989), The Greenhouse Debate Continued (1992), and Hot Talk, Cold Science (1997). He has also co-authored Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years
(2007) with Dennis Avery
, and Climate Change Reconsidered (2009) with Craig Idso.
Singer has had a varied career, serving in the armed forces, government, and academia. He designed mines
for the U.S. Navy
during World War II, before completing his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University in 1948 and working as a scientific liaison officer in the U.S. Embassy in London. He became a leading figure in early space research, was involved in the development of earth observation satellite
s, and in 1962 established the National Weather Bureau
's Satellite Service Center. He was the founding dean of the University of Miami School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences in 1964, and held several government positions, including deputy assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, and chief scientist for the Department of Transportation. He held a professorship with the University of Virginia from 1971 until 1994, and with George Mason University until 2000.
Singer has been an advocate of the skeptical stance in the global warming controversy
for a number of years. In 1990 he founded the Science & Environmental Policy Project
to advocate this position, and in 2006 was named by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as one of a minority of scientists said to be creating a stand-off on a consensus on climate change. Singer argues there is no evidence that global warming is attributable to human-caused increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and that humanity would benefit if temperatures do rise. He is an opponent of the Kyoto Protocol
, and has said of the climate model
s that scientists use to project future trends that "models are very nice, but they are not reality and they are not evidence."
in 1943, and an A.M. in physics from Princeton
in 1944. He taught physics at Princeton while he worked on his masters and his doctorate, obtaining his Ph.D. there in 1948 with a thesis on "Extensive Airshowers of Cosmic Rays." His supervisor was John Archibald Wheeler
, and his thesis committee included J. Robert Oppenheimer and Niels Bohr
.
, cosmic rays, and the ionosphere
, all measured using balloons and rockets launched from White Sands, New Mexico, or from ships out at sea. Rachel White Scheuering writes that for one mission to launch a rocket, he sailed with a naval operation to the Arctic, and also conducted rocket launching from ships at the equator.
From 1950 to 1953, he was attached to the U.S. Embassy in London as a scientific liaison officer with the Office of Naval Research, where he studied research programs in Europe into cosmic radiation and nuclear physics. While there, he was one of eight delegates with a background in guided weapons projects to address the Fourth International Congress of Astronautics in Zurich in August 1953, at a time when, as The New York Times reported, most scientists saw space flight as thinly disguised science fiction.
ozone-monitoring instrument for early versions of weather satellites.
He became one of 12 board members of the American Astronautical Society
, an organization formed in 1954 to represent the country's 300 leading scientists and engineers in the area of guided missiles—he was one of seven members of the board to resign in December 1956 after a series of disputes about the direction and control of the group.
In November 1957 Singer and other scientists at the university successfully designed and fired three new "Oriole" rockets off the Virginia Capes. The rockets weighed less than 25 pounds (11.3 kg) and could be built for around $2000. Fired from a converted Navy LSM, they could reach an altitude of 50000 feet (15,240 m) and had a complete telemetry system to send back information on cosmic, ultraviolet and X-rays. Singer said that the firings placed "the exploration of outer space with high altitude rockets on the same basis, cost-wise and effort-wise, as low atmosphere measurements with weather balloons. From now on, we can fire thousands of these rockets all over the world with very little cost."
In February 1958, when he was head of the cosmic ray group of the University of Maryland's physics department, he was congratulated in a telegram to the president of the university from President Eisenhower for his work in satellite research. In April 1958, he was appointed as a consultant to the House Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration, which was preparing to hold hearings on President Eisenhower's proposal for a new agency to handle space research, and a month later received the Ohio State University's Distinguished Alumnus Award. He became a full professor at Maryland in 1959, and was chosen that year by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce as one of the country's ten outstanding young men
.
In a January 1960 presentation to the American Physical Society, Singer sketched out his vision of what the environment around the earth might consist of, extending up to 40000 miles (64,373.6 km) into space. He became known for his early predictions about the properties of the electrical particles trapped around the earth, which were partly verified by later discoveries in satellite experiments. In December 1960, he suggested the existence of a shell of visible dust particles around the earth some 600 to 1000 miles (1,609.3 km) in space, beyond which there was a layer of smaller particles, a micrometre or less in diameter, extending 2,000 to 4000 miles (6,437.4 km). In March 1961 Singer and another University of Maryland physicist, E. J. Opik, were given a $97,000 grant by NASA to conduct a three-year study of interplanetary gas and dust.
(later mentioned in a 1966 book by Carl Sagan
and Shklovsky) that the orbit of the Martian
moon Phobos
suggests that it is hollow, which implies it is of artificial origin. Singer wrote: "My conclusion there is, and here I back Shklovsky, that if the satellite is indeed spiraling inward as deduced from astronomical observation, then there is little alternative to the hypothesis that it is hollow and therefore martian made. The big "if" lies in the astronomical observations; they may well be in error. Since they are based on several independent sets of measurements taken decades apart by different observers with different instruments, systematic errors may have influenced them." Later measurements confirmed Singer's big "if" caveat: Shklovsky overestimated Phobos' rate of altitude loss due to bad early data. Ufologists
continue to present Singer as an unconditional supporter of Shklovsky's artificial Phobos hypothesis.
Time magazine wrote in 1969 that Singer had had a lifelong fascination with Phobos and Mars's second moon, Deimos
. He told Time it might be possible to pull Deimos into the Earth's orbit so it could be examined. During an international space symposium in May 1966, attended by space scientists from the United States and Soviet Union, he first proposed that manned landings on the moons would be a logical step after a manned landing on the Earth's moon. He pointed out that the very small sizes of Phobos and Deimos—approximately 14 miles (22.5 km) and eight miles (13 km) in diameter and sub milli-g
surface gravity—would make it easier for a spacecraft to land and take off again.
, and directed a program for using satellites to forecast the weather. He stayed there until 1964. He told Time magazine in 1969 that he enjoyed moving around. "Each move gave me a completely new perspective," he said. "If I had sat still, I'd probably still be measuring cosmic rays, the subject of my thesis at Princeton. That's what happens to most scientists." When he stepped down as director he received a Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Federal Service.
In 1964, he became the first dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences at the University of Miami in 1964, the first school of its kind in the country, dedicated to space-age research. In December 1965, The New York Times reported on a conference Singer hosted in Miami Beach during which five groups of scientists, working independently, presented research identifying what they believed was the remains of a primordial flash that occurred when the universe was born.
In October 1967, Singer wrote an article for The Washington Post from the perspective of 2007. His predictions included that man-made satellites had been orbiting the earth for 50 years. Planets had been explored but not colonized, and although rockets had become more powerful they had not replaced aircraft and ramjet vehicles. None of the fundamental laws of physics had been overturned. There had been a managerial revolution; the creation by early space exploration of a cadre of highly trained technologist-managers was one of the most important spin-offs of the space program. There was increased understanding of the natural environment, and the relationships between the atmosphere, oceans, and the land. As the scale of human activity increased, so had the understanding of the subtle relationships between large-scale irrigation schemes and the climate. Weather satellites were able to indicate the trend of climate change. Population in the U.S. had doubled and the demand for water and energy had risen by a factor of four. There was increased reliance on the electronic computer and data processor; the most exciting development was the increase in human intellect by direct electronic storage of information in the brain—the coupling of the brain to an external computer, thereby gaining direct access to an information library.
satellite. When he retired from Virginia in 1994, he became Distinguished Research Professor at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University until 2000.
, the American Council on Science and Health
, and Frontiers of Freedom.
During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, he argued that smoke from the Kuwaiti oil fires
would have little impact, in opposition to most commentators. He debated the astronomer Carl Sagan
on ABC's Nightline, Sagan arguing that the smoke might loft into the upper atmosphere and lead to massive agricultural failures. Singer argued that it would rise to 3000 feet (914.4 m) then be rained out after a few days. Singer's position proved correct: the fires had little impact beyond the Gulf region.
The public debates in which Singer has received most criticism have been about secondhand smoke and global warming. He has questioned the link between secondhand smoke and lung cancer, and has been an outspoken opponent of the mainstream scientific view on climate change; he argues there is no evidence that increases in carbon dioxide produced by human beings is causing global warming and that the temperature of the earth has always varied. A CBC Fifth Estate documentary in 2006 linked these two debates, naming Singer as a scientist who has acted as a consultant to industry in both areas, either directly or through a public relations firm. Naomi Oreskes
and Erik Conway named Singer in their book, Merchants of Doubt
, as one of three contrarian physicists—along with Fred Seitz and Bill Nierenberg
—who regularly inject themselves into the public debate about contentious scientific issues, positioning themselves as skeptics, their views gaining traction because the media gives them equal time out of a sense of fairness.
. He was involved in 1994 as writer and reviewer of a report on the issue by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
, where he was a senior fellow. The report criticized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for their 1993 study about the cancer risks of passive smoking, calling it "junk science". Singer told CBC's The Fifth Estate in 2006 that he stood by the position that the EPA had "cooked the data" to show that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer. CBC said that tobacco money had paid for Singer's research and for his promotion of it, and that it was organized by APCO. Singer told CBC it made no difference where the money came from. "They don't carry a note on a dollar bill saying 'This comes from the tobacco industry,'" he said. "In any case I was not aware of it, and I didn't ask APCO where they get their money. That's not my business." In December 2010 he wrote in American Thinker that he is nonsmoker who finds secondhand smoke an unpleasant irritant that cannot be healthy; he also wrote that his father, a heavy smoker, died of emphysema when relatively young. According to Singer, he serves on the advisory board of an anti-smoking organization, and has never been paid by Philip Morris or the tobacco lobby, or joined any of their front organizations.
. Singer argues there is no evidence that the increases in carbon dioxide produced by humans cause global warming, and that if temperatures do rise it will be good for humankind. He told CBC: "It was warmer a thousand years ago than it is today. Vikings settled Greenland. Is that good or bad? I think it's good. They grew wine in England, in northern England. I think that's good. At least some people think so." "We are certainly putting more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," he told The Daily Telegraph in 2009. "However there is no evidence that this high CO2 is making a detectable difference. It should in principle, however the atmosphere is very complicated and one cannot simply argue that just because CO2 is a greenhouse gas it causes warming." He believes that radical environmentalists are exaggerating the dangers. "The underlying effort here seems to be to use global warming as an excuse to cut down the use of energy," he said. "It's very simple: if you cut back the use of energy, then you cut back economic growth. And believe it or not, there are people in the world who believe we have gone too far in economic growth." As early as 1992, Singer was charged publically by a CO2 scientist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography of unethical conduct in certain publications , which same charge was reiterated in 2006.
(SEPP) to argue against preventive measures against global warming. After the 1991 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Earth Summit
, Singer started writing and speaking out to cast doubt on the science. He predicted disastrous economic damage from any restrictions on fossil fuel use, and argued that the natural world and its weather patterns are complex and ill-understood, and that little is known about the dynamics of heat exchange from the oceans to the atmosphere, or the role of clouds. As the scientific consensus grew, he continued to argue from a skeptical position. He has repeatedly criticized the climate models that predict global warming. In 1994 he compared model results to observed temperatures and found that the predicted temperatures for 1950–1980 deviated from the temperatures that had actually occurred, from which he concluded in his regular column in The Washington Times—with the headline that day "Climate Claims Wither under the Luminous Lights of Science"—that climate models are faulty. In 2007 he collaborated on a study that found tropospheric temperature trends of "Climate of the 20th Century" models differed from satellite observations by twice the model mean uncertainty.
Rachel White Scheuering writes that, when SEPP began, it was affiliated with the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, a think tank run by Sun Myung Moon
's Unification Church
. A 1990 article for the Cato Institute
identifies Singer as the director of the science and environmental policy project at the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, on leave from the University of Virginia. Scheuering writes that Singer cut ties with Moon, and is funded by foundations and oil companies. She writes that he has been a paid consultant for many years for ARCO, ExxonMobil, Shell, Sun Oil Company, and Unocal, and that SEPP has received grants from ExxonMobil. Singer has said his financial relationships do not influence his research. Scheuering argues that his conclusions concur with the economic interests of the companies that pay him, in that the companies want to see a reduction in environmental regulation.
In August 2007 Newsweek reported that in April 1998 a dozen people from what it called "the denial machine" met at the American Petroleum Institute
's Washington headquarters. The meeting included Singer's group, the George C. Marshall Institute
, and ExxonMobil. Newsweek said that, according to an eight-page memo that was leaked, the meeting proposed a $5-million campaign to convince the public that the science of global warming was controversial and uncertain. The plan was leaked to the press and never implemented. The week after the story, Newsweek published a contrary view from Robert Samuelson, one of its columnists, who said the story of an industry-funded denial machine was contrived and fundamentally misleading. ABC News reported in March 2008 that Singer said he is not on the payroll of the energy industry, but he acknowledged that SEPP had received one unsolicited charitable donation of $10,000 from ExxonMobil, and that it was one percent of all donations received. Singer said that his connection to Exxon was more like being on their mailing list than holding a paid position. The relationships have discredited Singer's research among members of the scientific community, according to Scheuering. Congresswoman Lynn Rivers questioned Singer's credibility during a congressional hearing in 1995, saying he had not been able to publish anything in a peer-reviewed scientific journal for the previous 15 years, except for one technical comment.
(IPCC) issued a report
reflecting the scientific consensus that the balance of evidence suggests there is a discernible human influence on global climate. Singer responded with a letter to Science saying the IPCC report had presented material selectively. He wrote: "the Summary does not even mention the existence of 18 years of weather satellite data that show a slight global cooling trend, contradicting all theoretical models of climate warming." Scheuering writes that Singer acknowledges the surface thermometers from weather stations show warming, but he argues that the satellites provide better data because their measurements cover pole to pole.
Singer wrote the "Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change in the U.S.
" in 1995, updating it in 1997 to rebut the Kyoto Protocol
. The Kyoto Protocol was the result of an international convention held in Kyoto, Japan, during which several industrialized nations agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Singer's declaration read: "Energy is essential for economic growth ... We understand the motivation to eliminate what are perceived to be the driving forces behind a potential climate change; but we believe the Kyoto Protocol—to curtail carbon dioxide emissions from only a part of the world community—is dangerously simplistic, quite ineffective, and economically destructive to jobs and standards-of-living."
Scheuering writes that Singer circulated this in the United States and Europe and gathered 100 signatories, though she says some of the signatories' credentials were questioned. At least 20 were television weather reporters, some did not have science degrees, and 14 were listed as professors without specifying a field. According to Scheuering, some of them later said they believed they were signing a document in favour of action against climate change.
Singer set up the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) after a 2004 United Nations climate conference in Milan. NIPCC organized an international climate workshop in Vienna in April 2007, to provide what they called an independent examination of the evidence for climate change. Singer prepared an NIPCC report called "Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate," published in March 2008 by the Heartland Institute
, a conservative think tank. ABC News said the same month that unnamed climate scientists from NASA, Stanford, and Princeton who spoke to ABC about the report dismissed it as "fabricated nonsense." In a letter of complaint to ABC News, Singer said their piece used "prejudicial language, distorted facts, libelous insinuations, and anonymous smears."
from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit
—a controversy that came to be known as "Climategate"—Singer wrote an opinion piece for Reuters in which he said the scientists had misused peer review, pressured editors to prevent publication of alternative views, and smeared opponents. He said the leaked e-mails showed that the "surface temperature data that IPCC relies on is based on distorted raw data and algorithms that they will not share with the science community." He argued that the incident exposed a flawed process, and that the temperature trends were heading downwards even as greenhouse gases like CO2 were increasing in the atmosphere. He wrote: "This negative correlation contradicts the results of the models that IPCC relies on and indicates that anthropogenic global warming is quite small," concluding "and now it turns out that global warming might have been 'man made' after all." A British House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee
later issued a report that largely exonerated the scientists.
Atmospheric physics
Atmospheric physics is the application of physics to the study of the atmosphere. Atmospheric physicists attempt to model Earth's atmosphere and the atmospheres of the other planets using fluid flow equations, chemical models, radiation balancing, and energy transfer processes in the atmosphere...
and is known for his work in space research, atmospheric pollution, rocket and satellite technology, and as an outspoken critic of the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
. He is the author or editor of several books including Global Effects of Environmental Pollution (1970), The Ocean in Human Affairs (1989), Global Climate Change (1989), The Greenhouse Debate Continued (1992), and Hot Talk, Cold Science (1997). He has also co-authored Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years
Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years
Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years is a book about climate change, written by Siegfried Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, which asserts that natural changes, and not CO2 emissions, are the cause of Global Warming...
(2007) with Dennis Avery
Dennis Avery
For the Indiana State Representative, see Dennis Avery Dennis T. Avery is the director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, where he edits Global Food Quarterly....
, and Climate Change Reconsidered (2009) with Craig Idso.
Singer has had a varied career, serving in the armed forces, government, and academia. He designed mines
Naval mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...
for the U.S. Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
during World War II, before completing his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University in 1948 and working as a scientific liaison officer in the U.S. Embassy in London. He became a leading figure in early space research, was involved in the development of earth observation satellite
Earth observation satellite
Earth observation satellites are satellites specifically designed to observe Earth from orbit, similar to reconnaissance satellites but intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, meteorology, map making etc....
s, and in 1962 established the National Weather Bureau
National Weather Service
The National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...
's Satellite Service Center. He was the founding dean of the University of Miami School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences in 1964, and held several government positions, including deputy assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, and chief scientist for the Department of Transportation. He held a professorship with the University of Virginia from 1971 until 1994, and with George Mason University until 2000.
Singer has been an advocate of the skeptical stance in the global warming controversy
Global warming controversy
Global warming controversy refers to a variety of disputes, significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature, regarding the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming...
for a number of years. In 1990 he founded the Science & Environmental Policy Project
Science & Environmental Policy Project
The Science & Environmental Policy Project is a research and advocacy group financed by private contributions based in Arlington, Virginia in the United States. It was founded in 1990 by atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer. SEPP disputes the prevailing scientific views of climate change and ozone...
to advocate this position, and in 2006 was named by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as one of a minority of scientists said to be creating a stand-off on a consensus on climate change. Singer argues there is no evidence that global warming is attributable to human-caused increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and that humanity would benefit if temperatures do rise. He is an opponent of the Kyoto Protocol
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , aimed at fighting global warming...
, and has said of the climate model
Climate model
Climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and ice. They are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the climate system to projections of future climate...
s that scientists use to project future trends that "models are very nice, but they are not reality and they are not evidence."
Early life and education
Singer was born in Vienna, Austria, where his father was a jeweler and his mother a homemaker. When the Nazis invaded, the family fled, Singer leaving on a children's transport train with other Jewish children. He ended up in England, where he lived in Northumberland, working for a time as a teenage optician. Several years later he emigrated to Ohio and became an American citizen in 1944. He received a B.E.E. in electrical engineering from Ohio State UniversityOhio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
in 1943, and an A.M. in physics from Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
in 1944. He taught physics at Princeton while he worked on his masters and his doctorate, obtaining his Ph.D. there in 1948 with a thesis on "Extensive Airshowers of Cosmic Rays." His supervisor was John Archibald Wheeler
John Archibald Wheeler
John Archibald Wheeler was an American theoretical physicist who was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in explaining the basic principles behind nuclear fission...
, and his thesis committee included J. Robert Oppenheimer and Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in...
.
1950: United States Navy
After his masters, Singer joined the Armed Forces, working for the United States Navy on mine warfare and countermeasures from 1944 until 1946. While with the Naval Ordnance Laboratory he developed an arithmetic element for an electronic digital calculator that he called an "electronic brain." He was discharged in 1946 and joined the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Program at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland, working there until 1950. He focused on ozoneOzone
Ozone , or trioxygen, is a triatomic molecule, consisting of three oxygen atoms. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope...
, cosmic rays, and the ionosphere
Ionosphere
The ionosphere is a part of the upper atmosphere, comprising portions of the mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere, distinguished because it is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an important part in atmospheric electricity and forms the inner edge of the magnetosphere...
, all measured using balloons and rockets launched from White Sands, New Mexico, or from ships out at sea. Rachel White Scheuering writes that for one mission to launch a rocket, he sailed with a naval operation to the Arctic, and also conducted rocket launching from ships at the equator.
From 1950 to 1953, he was attached to the U.S. Embassy in London as a scientific liaison officer with the Office of Naval Research, where he studied research programs in Europe into cosmic radiation and nuclear physics. While there, he was one of eight delegates with a background in guided weapons projects to address the Fourth International Congress of Astronautics in Zurich in August 1953, at a time when, as The New York Times reported, most scientists saw space flight as thinly disguised science fiction.
1951: Design of early satellites
The New York Times wrote in 1962 that Singer was one of the first scientists to urge the launching of earth satellites for scientific observation during the 1950s. He designed the first instruments used in satellites to measure cosmic radiation and ozone, and in 1951 or 1952 designed the MOUSE—the Minimal Orbital Unmanned Satellite, Earth. It weighed 100 pounds (45.4 kg), and according to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum contained Geiger counters for measuring cosmic rays, photo cells for scanning the earth, telemetry electronics for sending data back to earth, a magnetic data storage device, and rudimentary solar energy cells. The Baltimore News Post reported in 1957 that had Singer's arguments about the need for satellites been heeded, the U.S. could have beaten Russia by launching the first earth satellite. He also invented the backscatter photometerPhotometer
In its widest sense, a photometer is an instrument for measuring light intensity or optical properties of solutions or surfaces. Photometers are used to measure:*Illuminance*Irradiance*Light absorption*Scattering of light*Reflection of light*Fluorescence...
ozone-monitoring instrument for early versions of weather satellites.
1953: University of Maryland
Singer moved back to the United States in 1953, where he took up an associate professorship in physics at the University of Maryland, and at the same time served as the director of the Center for Atmospheric and Space Physics. Scheuering writes that his work involved conducting experiments on rockets and satellites, remote sensing, radiation belts, the magnetosphere, and meteorites. He developed a new method of launching rockets into space: firing them from a high-flying plane, both with and without a pilot. The Navy adopted the idea and Singer supervised the project. He received a White House Special Commendation from President Eisenhower in 1954 for his work.He became one of 12 board members of the American Astronautical Society
American Astronautical Society
Formed in 1954, the American Astronautical Society is an independent scientific and technical group in the United States dedicated to the advancement of space science and exploration. AAS supports NASA's Vision for Space Exploration and is a member of the Coalition for Space Exploration and the...
, an organization formed in 1954 to represent the country's 300 leading scientists and engineers in the area of guided missiles—he was one of seven members of the board to resign in December 1956 after a series of disputes about the direction and control of the group.
In November 1957 Singer and other scientists at the university successfully designed and fired three new "Oriole" rockets off the Virginia Capes. The rockets weighed less than 25 pounds (11.3 kg) and could be built for around $2000. Fired from a converted Navy LSM, they could reach an altitude of 50000 feet (15,240 m) and had a complete telemetry system to send back information on cosmic, ultraviolet and X-rays. Singer said that the firings placed "the exploration of outer space with high altitude rockets on the same basis, cost-wise and effort-wise, as low atmosphere measurements with weather balloons. From now on, we can fire thousands of these rockets all over the world with very little cost."
In February 1958, when he was head of the cosmic ray group of the University of Maryland's physics department, he was congratulated in a telegram to the president of the university from President Eisenhower for his work in satellite research. In April 1958, he was appointed as a consultant to the House Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration, which was preparing to hold hearings on President Eisenhower's proposal for a new agency to handle space research, and a month later received the Ohio State University's Distinguished Alumnus Award. He became a full professor at Maryland in 1959, and was chosen that year by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce as one of the country's ten outstanding young men
Ten Outstanding Young Americans
The Ten Outstanding Young Americans program is an annual award given by The United States Junior Chamber organization. It is given to ten Americans between 18 and 40 years of age who "exemplify the best attributes of the nation’s young people."People considered for the award are often submitted...
.
In a January 1960 presentation to the American Physical Society, Singer sketched out his vision of what the environment around the earth might consist of, extending up to 40000 miles (64,373.6 km) into space. He became known for his early predictions about the properties of the electrical particles trapped around the earth, which were partly verified by later discoveries in satellite experiments. In December 1960, he suggested the existence of a shell of visible dust particles around the earth some 600 to 1000 miles (1,609.3 km) in space, beyond which there was a layer of smaller particles, a micrometre or less in diameter, extending 2,000 to 4000 miles (6,437.4 km). In March 1961 Singer and another University of Maryland physicist, E. J. Opik, were given a $97,000 grant by NASA to conduct a three-year study of interplanetary gas and dust.
1960: Artificial Phobos hypothesis
In 1960, Singer commented in an article in Astronautics on the hypothesis of Iosif ShklovskyIosif Shklovsky
Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky was a Soviet astronomer and astrophysicist...
(later mentioned in a 1966 book by Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
and Shklovsky) that the orbit of the Martian
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
moon Phobos
Phobos (moon)
Phobos is the larger and closer of the two natural satellites of Mars. Both moons were discovered in 1877. With a mean radius of , Phobos is 7.24 times as massive as Deimos...
suggests that it is hollow, which implies it is of artificial origin. Singer wrote: "My conclusion there is, and here I back Shklovsky, that if the satellite is indeed spiraling inward as deduced from astronomical observation, then there is little alternative to the hypothesis that it is hollow and therefore martian made. The big "if" lies in the astronomical observations; they may well be in error. Since they are based on several independent sets of measurements taken decades apart by different observers with different instruments, systematic errors may have influenced them." Later measurements confirmed Singer's big "if" caveat: Shklovsky overestimated Phobos' rate of altitude loss due to bad early data. Ufologists
Ufology
Ufology is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of those who study reports and associated evidence of unidentified flying objects . UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years by governments, independent groups, and scientists...
continue to present Singer as an unconditional supporter of Shklovsky's artificial Phobos hypothesis.
Time magazine wrote in 1969 that Singer had had a lifelong fascination with Phobos and Mars's second moon, Deimos
Deimos (moon)
Deimos is the smaller and outer of Mars's two moons . It is named after Deimos, a figure representing dread in Greek Mythology. Its systematic designation is '.-Discovery:Deimos was discovered by Asaph Hall, Sr...
. He told Time it might be possible to pull Deimos into the Earth's orbit so it could be examined. During an international space symposium in May 1966, attended by space scientists from the United States and Soviet Union, he first proposed that manned landings on the moons would be a logical step after a manned landing on the Earth's moon. He pointed out that the very small sizes of Phobos and Deimos—approximately 14 miles (22.5 km) and eight miles (13 km) in diameter and sub milli-g
G-force
The g-force associated with an object is its acceleration relative to free-fall. This acceleration experienced by an object is due to the vector sum of non-gravitational forces acting on an object free to move. The accelerations that are not produced by gravity are termed proper accelerations, and...
surface gravity—would make it easier for a spacecraft to land and take off again.
1962: National Weather Center and University of Miami
In 1962, on leave from the university, Singer was named as the first director of meteorological satellite services for the National Weather Satellite Center, now part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , pronounced , like "noah", is a scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce focused on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere...
, and directed a program for using satellites to forecast the weather. He stayed there until 1964. He told Time magazine in 1969 that he enjoyed moving around. "Each move gave me a completely new perspective," he said. "If I had sat still, I'd probably still be measuring cosmic rays, the subject of my thesis at Princeton. That's what happens to most scientists." When he stepped down as director he received a Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Federal Service.
In 1964, he became the first dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences at the University of Miami in 1964, the first school of its kind in the country, dedicated to space-age research. In December 1965, The New York Times reported on a conference Singer hosted in Miami Beach during which five groups of scientists, working independently, presented research identifying what they believed was the remains of a primordial flash that occurred when the universe was born.
1967: Public policy and predictions
In 1967 he accepted the position of deputy assistant secretary with the U.S. Department of the Interior, where he was in charge of water quality and research. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was created on 1970, he became its deputy assistant administrator of policy. Scheuering writes that the creation of the EPA heralded a new age of government responsibility toward the environment and the need to translate that into policy.In October 1967, Singer wrote an article for The Washington Post from the perspective of 2007. His predictions included that man-made satellites had been orbiting the earth for 50 years. Planets had been explored but not colonized, and although rockets had become more powerful they had not replaced aircraft and ramjet vehicles. None of the fundamental laws of physics had been overturned. There had been a managerial revolution; the creation by early space exploration of a cadre of highly trained technologist-managers was one of the most important spin-offs of the space program. There was increased understanding of the natural environment, and the relationships between the atmosphere, oceans, and the land. As the scale of human activity increased, so had the understanding of the subtle relationships between large-scale irrigation schemes and the climate. Weather satellites were able to indicate the trend of climate change. Population in the U.S. had doubled and the demand for water and energy had risen by a factor of four. There was increased reliance on the electronic computer and data processor; the most exciting development was the increase in human intellect by direct electronic storage of information in the brain—the coupling of the brain to an external computer, thereby gaining direct access to an information library.
1971–1994 University of Virginia
Singer accepted a professorship in Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia in 1971, a position he held until 1994, where he taught classes on environmental issues such as ozone depletion, acid rain, climate change, population growth, and public policy issues related to oil and energy. In 1987 he took up a two-year post as chief scientist at the Department of Transportation, and in 1989 joined the Institute of Space Science and Technology in Gainesville, Florida where he contributed to a paper on the results from the Interplanetary Dust Experiment using data from the Long Duration Exposure FacilityLong Duration Exposure Facility
NASA's Long Duration Exposure Facility, or LDEF, was a school bus-sized cylindrical space experiment rack that exposed various material samples to outer space for about 5.7 years, completing 32,422 Earth orbits.- Construction :...
satellite. When he retired from Virginia in 1994, he became Distinguished Research Professor at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University until 2000.
Consultancies
Singer has worked as a consultant for several government agencies, including the House Select Committee on Space, NASA, the Government Accountability Office, the National Science Foundation, the United States Atomic Energy Commission, National Research Council, the Department of Defense Strategic Defense Initiative, Department of Energy Nuclear Waste Panel, and the Department of the Treasury. Other clients have included the states of Virginia, Alaska, and Pennsylvania. In the private sector he has worked for Mitre Corp., GE, Ford, General Motors; during the late 1970s Singer consulted with Exxon, Shell, Unocal Sun Oil, and ARCO on oil pricing; and Lockheed Martin, Martin–Marietta, McDonnell-Douglas, ANSER, and IBM on space research. He has also advised the Independent InstituteIndependent Institute
The Independent Institute is a libertarian think tank based in Oakland, California. Founded in 1986 byDavid J. Theroux , the Institute sponsors studies of major political, social, economic, legal, environmental and foreign policy issues. It has more than 140 research fellows. The Institute was...
, the American Council on Science and Health
American Council on Science and Health
The American Council on Science and Health is a nonprofit organization founded in 1978 by Dr. Elizabeth Whelan that produces peer-reviewed reports on issues related to food, nutrition, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle, the environment and health...
, and Frontiers of Freedom.
Writing
Singer has written frequently in the mainstream press throughout his academic career, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, often striking up positions that go against mainstream thinking, his overall position one of distrust of federal regulations and a faith in the free market. He believes in what Rachel White Scheuering calls "free market environmentalism": that market principles and incentives should be sufficient to lead to the protection of the environment and conservation of resources. Regular themes in his articles have been energy, oil embargoes, OPEC, Iran, and rising prices. Throughout the 1970s, for example, he downplayed the idea of an energy crisis and said it was largely a media event. In several papers in the 1990s and 2000s he struck up other positions against the mainstream, questioning the link between UV-B and melanoma rates, and that between CFCs and stratospheric ozone loss.During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, he argued that smoke from the Kuwaiti oil fires
Kuwaiti oil fires
The Kuwaiti oil fires were caused by Iraqi military forces setting fire to 700 oil wells as part of a scorched earth policy while retreating from Kuwait in 1991 after invading the country but being driven out by Coalition military forces...
would have little impact, in opposition to most commentators. He debated the astronomer Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
on ABC's Nightline, Sagan arguing that the smoke might loft into the upper atmosphere and lead to massive agricultural failures. Singer argued that it would rise to 3000 feet (914.4 m) then be rained out after a few days. Singer's position proved correct: the fires had little impact beyond the Gulf region.
The public debates in which Singer has received most criticism have been about secondhand smoke and global warming. He has questioned the link between secondhand smoke and lung cancer, and has been an outspoken opponent of the mainstream scientific view on climate change; he argues there is no evidence that increases in carbon dioxide produced by human beings is causing global warming and that the temperature of the earth has always varied. A CBC Fifth Estate documentary in 2006 linked these two debates, naming Singer as a scientist who has acted as a consultant to industry in both areas, either directly or through a public relations firm. Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes is an American science historian, and Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California San Diego. She has worked on studies of geophysics, environmental issues such as global warming, and the history of science...
and Erik Conway named Singer in their book, Merchants of Doubt
Merchants of Doubt
Merchants of Doubt is a 2010 book by the American science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. It identifies parallels between the climate change debate and earlier controversies over tobacco smoking, acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer...
, as one of three contrarian physicists—along with Fred Seitz and Bill Nierenberg
William Nierenberg
William Aaron Nierenberg was an American physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and was director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1965 through 1986. He was a co-founder of the George C. Marshall Institute in 1984.- Background :Nierenberg was born on February 13, 1919, at 213 E...
—who regularly inject themselves into the public debate about contentious scientific issues, positioning themselves as skeptics, their views gaining traction because the media gives them equal time out of a sense of fairness.
Secondhand smoke
According to David Biello and John Pavlus in Scientific American, Singer is best known for his denial of the health risks of passive smokingPassive smoking
Passive smoking is the inhalation of smoke, called secondhand smoke or environmental tobacco smoke , from tobacco products used by others. It occurs when tobacco smoke permeates any environment, causing its inhalation by people within that environment. Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes...
. He was involved in 1994 as writer and reviewer of a report on the issue by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is a Washington, D.C.–based conservative think tank that produced reports and policy research....
, where he was a senior fellow. The report criticized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for their 1993 study about the cancer risks of passive smoking, calling it "junk science". Singer told CBC's The Fifth Estate in 2006 that he stood by the position that the EPA had "cooked the data" to show that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer. CBC said that tobacco money had paid for Singer's research and for his promotion of it, and that it was organized by APCO. Singer told CBC it made no difference where the money came from. "They don't carry a note on a dollar bill saying 'This comes from the tobacco industry,'" he said. "In any case I was not aware of it, and I didn't ask APCO where they get their money. That's not my business." In December 2010 he wrote in American Thinker that he is nonsmoker who finds secondhand smoke an unpleasant irritant that cannot be healthy; he also wrote that his father, a heavy smoker, died of emphysema when relatively young. According to Singer, he serves on the advisory board of an anti-smoking organization, and has never been paid by Philip Morris or the tobacco lobby, or joined any of their front organizations.
Global warming
In 2006, the CBC's Fifth Estate named Singer as one of a small group of scientists who have created what the documentary called a stand-off that is undermining the political response to global warming. The following year he appeared on the British Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming SwindleThe Great Global Warming Swindle
The Great Global Warming Swindle is a polemical documentary film that suggests that the scientific opinion on climate change is influenced by funding and political factors, and questions whether scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming exists....
. Singer argues there is no evidence that the increases in carbon dioxide produced by humans cause global warming, and that if temperatures do rise it will be good for humankind. He told CBC: "It was warmer a thousand years ago than it is today. Vikings settled Greenland. Is that good or bad? I think it's good. They grew wine in England, in northern England. I think that's good. At least some people think so." "We are certainly putting more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," he told The Daily Telegraph in 2009. "However there is no evidence that this high CO2 is making a detectable difference. It should in principle, however the atmosphere is very complicated and one cannot simply argue that just because CO2 is a greenhouse gas it causes warming." He believes that radical environmentalists are exaggerating the dangers. "The underlying effort here seems to be to use global warming as an excuse to cut down the use of energy," he said. "It's very simple: if you cut back the use of energy, then you cut back economic growth. And believe it or not, there are people in the world who believe we have gone too far in economic growth." As early as 1992, Singer was charged publically by a CO2 scientist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography of unethical conduct in certain publications , which same charge was reiterated in 2006.
SEPP and funding
In 1990 Singer set up the Science & Environmental Policy ProjectScience & Environmental Policy Project
The Science & Environmental Policy Project is a research and advocacy group financed by private contributions based in Arlington, Virginia in the United States. It was founded in 1990 by atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer. SEPP disputes the prevailing scientific views of climate change and ozone...
(SEPP) to argue against preventive measures against global warming. After the 1991 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Earth Summit
Earth Summit
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , also known as the Rio Summit, Rio Conference, Earth Summit was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 June to 14 June 1992.-Overview:...
, Singer started writing and speaking out to cast doubt on the science. He predicted disastrous economic damage from any restrictions on fossil fuel use, and argued that the natural world and its weather patterns are complex and ill-understood, and that little is known about the dynamics of heat exchange from the oceans to the atmosphere, or the role of clouds. As the scientific consensus grew, he continued to argue from a skeptical position. He has repeatedly criticized the climate models that predict global warming. In 1994 he compared model results to observed temperatures and found that the predicted temperatures for 1950–1980 deviated from the temperatures that had actually occurred, from which he concluded in his regular column in The Washington Times—with the headline that day "Climate Claims Wither under the Luminous Lights of Science"—that climate models are faulty. In 2007 he collaborated on a study that found tropospheric temperature trends of "Climate of the 20th Century" models differed from satellite observations by twice the model mean uncertainty.
Rachel White Scheuering writes that, when SEPP began, it was affiliated with the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, a think tank run by Sun Myung Moon
Sun Myung Moon
Sun Myung Moon is the Korean founder and leader of the worldwide Unification Church. He is also the founder of many other organizations and projects...
's Unification Church
Unification Church
The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea, as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity . In 1994, Moon gave the church...
. A 1990 article for the Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
identifies Singer as the director of the science and environmental policy project at the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, on leave from the University of Virginia. Scheuering writes that Singer cut ties with Moon, and is funded by foundations and oil companies. She writes that he has been a paid consultant for many years for ARCO, ExxonMobil, Shell, Sun Oil Company, and Unocal, and that SEPP has received grants from ExxonMobil. Singer has said his financial relationships do not influence his research. Scheuering argues that his conclusions concur with the economic interests of the companies that pay him, in that the companies want to see a reduction in environmental regulation.
In August 2007 Newsweek reported that in April 1998 a dozen people from what it called "the denial machine" met at the American Petroleum Institute
American Petroleum Institute
The American Petroleum Institute, commonly referred to as API, is the largest U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry...
's Washington headquarters. The meeting included Singer's group, the George C. Marshall Institute
George C. Marshall Institute
The George C. Marshall Institute is a politically conservative think tank established in 1984 in Washington, D.C. with a focus on scientific issues and public policy. In the 1980s, the Institute was engaged primarily in lobbying in support of the Strategic Defense Initiative...
, and ExxonMobil. Newsweek said that, according to an eight-page memo that was leaked, the meeting proposed a $5-million campaign to convince the public that the science of global warming was controversial and uncertain. The plan was leaked to the press and never implemented. The week after the story, Newsweek published a contrary view from Robert Samuelson, one of its columnists, who said the story of an industry-funded denial machine was contrived and fundamentally misleading. ABC News reported in March 2008 that Singer said he is not on the payroll of the energy industry, but he acknowledged that SEPP had received one unsolicited charitable donation of $10,000 from ExxonMobil, and that it was one percent of all donations received. Singer said that his connection to Exxon was more like being on their mailing list than holding a paid position. The relationships have discredited Singer's research among members of the scientific community, according to Scheuering. Congresswoman Lynn Rivers questioned Singer's credibility during a congressional hearing in 1995, saying he had not been able to publish anything in a peer-reviewed scientific journal for the previous 15 years, except for one technical comment.
Opposition to the IPCC
In 1995 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
(IPCC) issued a report
IPCC Second Assessment Report
The Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , published in 1996, is an assessment of the then available scientific and socio-economic information on climate change...
reflecting the scientific consensus that the balance of evidence suggests there is a discernible human influence on global climate. Singer responded with a letter to Science saying the IPCC report had presented material selectively. He wrote: "the Summary does not even mention the existence of 18 years of weather satellite data that show a slight global cooling trend, contradicting all theoretical models of climate warming." Scheuering writes that Singer acknowledges the surface thermometers from weather stations show warming, but he argues that the satellites provide better data because their measurements cover pole to pole.
Leipzig Declaration
The Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change is a statement made in 1995, seeking to refute the claim there is a scientific consensus on the global warming issue...
" in 1995, updating it in 1997 to rebut the Kyoto Protocol
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , aimed at fighting global warming...
. The Kyoto Protocol was the result of an international convention held in Kyoto, Japan, during which several industrialized nations agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Singer's declaration read: "Energy is essential for economic growth ... We understand the motivation to eliminate what are perceived to be the driving forces behind a potential climate change; but we believe the Kyoto Protocol—to curtail carbon dioxide emissions from only a part of the world community—is dangerously simplistic, quite ineffective, and economically destructive to jobs and standards-of-living."
Scheuering writes that Singer circulated this in the United States and Europe and gathered 100 signatories, though she says some of the signatories' credentials were questioned. At least 20 were television weather reporters, some did not have science degrees, and 14 were listed as professors without specifying a field. According to Scheuering, some of them later said they believed they were signing a document in favour of action against climate change.
Singer set up the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) after a 2004 United Nations climate conference in Milan. NIPCC organized an international climate workshop in Vienna in April 2007, to provide what they called an independent examination of the evidence for climate change. Singer prepared an NIPCC report called "Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate," published in March 2008 by the Heartland Institute
Heartland Institute
The Heartland Institute is a libertarian, American public policy think tank based in Chicago, Illinois which advocates free market policies. The Institute is designated as a 501 non-profit by the Internal Revenue Service and advised by a 15 member board of directors, which meets quarterly. As of...
, a conservative think tank. ABC News said the same month that unnamed climate scientists from NASA, Stanford, and Princeton who spoke to ABC about the report dismissed it as "fabricated nonsense." In a letter of complaint to ABC News, Singer said their piece used "prejudicial language, distorted facts, libelous insinuations, and anonymous smears."
Climategate
In December 2009, after the release of thousands of e-mailsClimatic Research Unit email controversy
The Climatic Research Unit email controversy began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia...
from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit
Climatic Research Unit
The Climatic Research Unit is a component of the University of East Anglia and is one of the leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change....
—a controversy that came to be known as "Climategate"—Singer wrote an opinion piece for Reuters in which he said the scientists had misused peer review, pressured editors to prevent publication of alternative views, and smeared opponents. He said the leaked e-mails showed that the "surface temperature data that IPCC relies on is based on distorted raw data and algorithms that they will not share with the science community." He argued that the incident exposed a flawed process, and that the temperature trends were heading downwards even as greenhouse gases like CO2 were increasing in the atmosphere. He wrote: "This negative correlation contradicts the results of the models that IPCC relies on and indicates that anthropogenic global warming is quite small," concluding "and now it turns out that global warming might have been 'man made' after all." A British House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee
Science and Technology Select Committee
The Science and Technology Select Committee is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.The original Science and Technology was abolished upon the creation of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee on November 6, 2007...
later issued a report that largely exonerated the scientists.
Selected publications
- Global Effects of Environmental Pollution (Reidel, 1970)
- Manned Laboratories in Space (Reidel, 1970)
- Is There an Optimum Level of Population? (McGraw-Hill, 1971)
- The Changing Global Environment (Reidel, 1975)
- Arid Zone Development (Ballinger, 1977)
- Economic Effects of Demographic Changes (Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, 1977)
- Cost-Benefit Analysis in Environmental Decisionmaking (Mitre Corp, 1979)
- Energy (W.H. Freeman, 1979)
- The Price of World Oil (Annual Reviews of Energy, Vol. 8, 1983)
- Free Market Energy (Universe Books, 1984)
- Oil Policy in a Changing Market (Annual Reviews of Energy, Vol. 12, 1987)
- The Ocean in Human Affairs (Paragon House, 1989)
- The Universe and Its Origin: From Ancient Myths to Present Reality and Future Fantasy (Paragon House, 1990)
- Global Climate Change: Human and Natural Influences (Paragon House, 1989)
- The Greenhouse Debate Continued (ICS Press, 1992)
- The Scientific Case Against the Global Climate Treaty (SEPP, 1997)
- Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate (The Independent Institute, 1997)
- with Dennis AveryDennis AveryFor the Indiana State Representative, see Dennis Avery Dennis T. Avery is the director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, where he edits Global Food Quarterly....
. Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) - with Craig Idso. Climate Change Reconsidered: 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) (2009).
External links
- Archive of articles by S. Fred Singer on American Thinker
Further reading
- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. "The Denial Machine", Fifth Estate, featuring Fred Singer, November 15, 2006.
- Cohen, Bonner and Lehr, Jay. An interview with Dr. S. Fred Singer, Environment & Climate News, February 2001, accessed May 13, 2010.
- Cushman, John H. "Industrial group plans to battle climate treaty", The New York Times, April 26, 1998.
- Gleick, James. "Science and Politics: 'Nuclear Winter' Clash", The New York Times, February 17, 1987.
- Jacoby, Jeff. "The jury is still out on global warming", The New York Times, August 20, 2007.
- NASA, Vanguard—A History, "Chapter 1 Background of Space Exploration" mentions S. Fred Singer's role in early US space exploration.
- Monbiot, GeorgeGeorge MonbiotGeorge Joshua Richard Monbiot is an English writer, known for his environmental and political activism. He lives in Machynlleth, Wales, writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain and Bring on the...
. "Junk science", The Guardian, May 10, 2005. - Needall, Alan A. and DeVorkin, David. "Oral History Transcript—Dr. S. Fred Singer", Niels Bohr Library & Archives, Center for History of Physics, April 23, 1991.
- Revkin, Andrew C. "Cool View of Science at Meeting on Warming", The New York Times, March 4, 2008.
- The Science & Environmental Policy Project, accessed May 13, 2010.
- Singer, S. Fred. "Lessons of the Split in OPEC", The New York Times, May 21, 1977.
- Singer, S. Fred. "A Crisis for OPEC", The New York Times, March 31, 1981.
- Singer, S. Fred. "Against Sending Troops to the Gulf", The New York Times, March 7, 1984.
- Singer, S. Fred. "Intervening in the Oil Market", The New York Times, April 13, 1986.
- Singer, S. Fred. "Rays and Fumes in the Air and in the News", The New York Times, April 1, 1988.
- Singer, S. Fred. "Environmental Strategies with Uncertain Science", Regulation 13(1), Winter 1990, Cato Institute.
- Singer, S. Fred; Revelle, Roger; and Starr, Chauncey. "What To Do about Greenhouse Warming: Look Before You Leap", Cosmos, Volume 5, No. 2, Summer 1992.
- Singer, S. Fred. "Global Warming's Doomsday Nowhere in Sight", The New York Times, September 28, 1993.
- Singer, S. Fred "Testimony of Prof. S. Fred Singer", Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Climate Change, July 18, 2000, accessed May 16, 2010.
- Singer, S. Fred. "Yes, the Ice Is Melting, But Not Because of Us", The New York Times, September 14, 2000.
- Singer, S. Fred. "The Revelle-Gore Story: Attempted Political Suppression of Science" in Michael Gough (ed.) Politicizing Science: The Alchemy of Policymaking. Hoover Press, 2003.
- Singer, S. Fred. "The End of the IPCC", American Thinker, February 10, 2010.
- Singer, S. Fred. "Secondhand Smoke, Lung Cancer, and the Global Warming Debate", American Thinker, December 19, 2010.
- Singer, S. Fred. "What do Climate Data Really Show? The Berkeley Climate Data Project". American Thinker, February 19, 2011
- Smithsonian Institution Research Information Service. "S. Fred Singer Papers, 1953–1989 (bulk 1960–1980)", accessed May 15, 2010.
- Solomon, Lawrence. The Deniers. Richard Vigilante Books, 2008, pp. 194–198.
- Sullivan, Walter. "Scientists Wonder If Shot Nears Moon", The New York Times, November 5, 1957
- Woodwell, George M. and Holdren, John P. "Climate-Change Skeptics Are Wrong", The New York Times, November 14, 1998.