Fred Singer - Misplaced Pages

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Siegfried Frederick Singer (born September 27, 1924 in Vienna) is an American electrical engineer and physicist. He is best known as president and founder (in 1990) of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, which disputes the prevailing scientific views of climate change, ozone depletion, and secondhand smoke and is science advisor to the conservative journal NewsMax.

Singer is also skeptical about the connection between CFCs and ozone depletion, between UV-B radiation and melanoma and between second hand smoke and lung cancer,and, in 1960, proposed that the Martian moon Phobos is a space station built by Martians. Singer has also worked with organizations with similar views, such as the Independent Institute, the American Council on Science and Health, Frontiers of Freedom, the Marshall Institute, and the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Singer is Professor Emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia.

Degrees and awards

Singer holds a degree in Electrical engineering from Ohio State University and a PhD in Physics from Princeton University.

Career

In the 1940s and 50s Singer was involved in designing instruments used in satellites to measure cosmic radiation and ozone.

Previous government and academic positions:

Director of the Center for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Maryland (1953-62)
Special advisor to President Eisenhower on space developments (1960)
First Director of the National Weather Satellite Service (1962-64)
Founding Dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences, University of Miami (1964-67)
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water Quality and Research, U.S. Department of the Interior (1967- 70)
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Policy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1970-71)
Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia (1971-94)
Chief Scientist, U.S. Department of Transportation (1987- 89)

Space and exploration

In 1994, Singer contributed to a paper on the results from the Interplanetary Dust Experiment using data from the Long Duration Exposure Facility satellite. Singer also has been a proponent of manned exploration to Mars.

Kuwait oil fires debate

During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Dr. S. Fred Singer debated Carl Sagan on the impact of the Kuwaiti petroleum fires on the ABC News program Nightline. Sagan said we know from the nuclear winter investigation that the smoke would loft into the upper atmosphere and that he believed the net effects would be very similar to the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the year without a summer, in massive agricultural failures, in very serious human suffering and, in some cases, starvation. He predicted the same for south Asia, and perhaps for a significant fraction of the northern hemisphere as well as a result. Singer, on the other hand, said that calculations showed that the smoke would go to an altitude of about 3,000 feet and then be rained out after about three to five days and thus the lifetime of the smoke would be limited. In retrospect, we now know that smoke from the Kuwait Oil Fires dominated the weather pattern throughout the Persian Gulf and surrounding region during 1991, and that lower atmospheric wind blew the smoke along the eastern half of the Arabian Peninsula, and cities like Dhahran, Riyadh and Bahrain experienced days with smoke filled skies and carbon fallout.."

Global warming

As recently as 2003, Singer said that the atmosphere had not warmed in recent decades. Singer has emphasized natural factors over anthropogenic causes to explain global warming. Singer wrote:

The scientific world had known about the sunspot connection to Earth’s climate for some 400 years. British astronomer William Herschel claimed in 1801 that he could forecast wheat prices by sunspot numbers, because wheat crops were often poor when sunspots (and thus solar activity) were low. Not only did the Maunder minimum (1645-1715) coincide with the coldest period of the Little Ice Age, the Spörer Minimum (1450–1543) aligned with the second-coldest phase of that period.

His most recent sole-author publication on global warming was a letter about other scientists' research which appeared in Eos, December 16, 1997. However, Singer is also listed as co-author of two 2004 articles in Geophysics Research Letters.

A 2007 Newsweek cover story on climate change denial reported that: "In April 1998 a dozen people from the denial machine — including the Marshall Institute, Fred Singer's group and Exxon — met at the American Petroleum Institute's Washington headquarters. They proposed a $5 million campaign, according to a leaked eight-page memo, to convince the public that the science of global warming is riddled with controversy and uncertainty." The plan was reportedly aimed at "raising questions about and undercutting the 'prevailing scientific wisdom'" on climate change. According to Newsweek, the plan was leaked to the press and therefore was never implemented.

In 2007, the nonprofit advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists called Singer a "climate contrarian."

Publication on health effects of tobacco

In 1994 Singer was Chief Reviewer of the published report Science, economics, and environmental policy: a critical examination published by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI), a conservative think tank of which he was a Senior Fellow. Singer was a co-author of early drafts of the report and had been singled out as the man for the job in a memo from AdTI to the Tobacco Institute . A notation on that memo from Walter Woodson, Vice President-Public Affairs of the Tobacco Institute to Sam Chilcote, Jr, President of the Tobacco Institute, said that the job would be well worth the $20,000. The report attacked the United States Environmental Protection Agency for their 1993 study about the cancer risks of passive smoking and called it "junk science".

Writing for The Guardian, George Monbiot stated that in 1993 APCO, a public relations firm, sent a memo to Philip Morris vice-president Ellen Merlo stating: "As you know, we have been working with Dr. Fred Singer and Dr. Dwight Lee, who have authored articles on junk science and indoor air quality (IAQ) respectively ..." Monbiot wrote that he did not have direct evidence that Singer had been paid by Philip Morris.

References

Science & Environmental Policy Project - About the Project
S. Fred Singer. "Environmental Strategies with Uncertain Science". Cato Institute. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
S. Fred Singer (1995-02-01). "Lecture at St. Vincent College: The Use and Misuse of Science". SEPP. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
S. Fred Singer (1996-08-01). "Testimony in the U.S. House of Representatives, on Ozone Depletion". SEPP. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
S. Fred Singer (1994). "Ozone, Skin Cancer, and the SST". SEPP. Retrieved 2007-02-26. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
S. Fred Singer (1994-03-21). "The hole truth about CFCs". SEPP. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
S. Fred Singer (2006-07-22). "The Week That Was". SEPP. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
S. Fred Singer (1999-01-10). "Parting green clouds". SEPP. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
S. Fred Singer (2006-11-22). "Public misled". Retrieved 2007-02-26.
Singer, S. F., Astronautics, February 1960
S. Fred Singer: The Independent Institute
Warming Caused by Natural Cycle | Not Humans | News | E-Team
^ S. Fred Singer. "Professional Background S. FRED SINGER, Ph.D." Retrieved 2007-11-07.
http://spiedl.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PSISDG002214000001000076000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes
2153rd Meeting, Friday, November 22, 2002 8:15 PM
"FIRST ISRAELI SCUD FATALITIES OIL FIRES IN KUWAIT". Nightline. 1991-01-22. ABC. yes. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
Patrick K. Dowling. "The Meteorological Effects of the Kuwait Oil Fires" (PDF).
S. Fred Singer (2003). "McLieberman Bill Unsupported By Science: Voted Down by Senate". SEPP. Retrieved 2007-04-23. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
S. Fred Singer (2003). "EPA Bias on Global Warming". SEPP. Retrieved 2007-04-23. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
S. Fred Singer (2005). "The Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500-Year Climate Cycle" (PDF). SEPP. Retrieved 2007-02-26. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
However, an article from the Journal Science describes how the Sun's role in climate variation is ambiguous. A more detailed discussion of the lack of evidence of a link between the sun and the earth's climate can be found at RealClimate
Unknowns About Climate Variability Render Treaty Targets Premature, EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Volume 78, page 584, December 16, 1997
See SEPP, "Further reading"
The Truth About Denial, by Sharon Begley. Published in Newsweek on August 13 2007; accessed November 8 2007.
Scientist Calls Global Warming Theories 'Bunk,' Cites Errors of Logic
The EPA and the science of environmental tobacco smoke /
"Junking Science to Promote Tobacco".
"Junking Science to Promote Tobacco" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-02-26.
George Monbiot (2006-09-19). "The denial industry". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-02-26.