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S. Fred Singer
Born (1924-09-27) September 27, 1924 (age 100)
Vienna, Austria
NationalityAustrian, American
EducationB.E.E in electrical engineering (1943)
A.M. in physics (1944)
Ph.D. in physics (1948)
Alma materOhio State University, Princeton University
OccupationAtmospheric physicist
Organization(s)Professor emeritus of environmental science, University of Virginia
Founder and president, Science & Environmental Policy Project
Known forFirst director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service (1962–1964); involvement in global warming controversy
AwardsHonorary doctorate, University of Ohio, 1970; Special Commendation from President Eisenhower for the early design of satellites; Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Federal Service

Siegfried Fred Singer (born September 27, 1924 in Vienna) is an American atmospheric physicist, and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia, where he worked from 1971 to 1994. He is the author or editor of a number of books, including The Changing Global Environment (1975), Global Climate Change (1989), and Hot Talk, Cold Science (1997), and co-author of Unstoppable Global Warming (2007) with Dennis Avery, and Climate Change Reconsidered (2009) with Craig Idso.

Singer has had a varied career in government, academia, and the military. After obtaining his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1948, he worked as a scientific liaison officer in the U.S. Embassy in London, and designed mines for the Navy. He became a leading figure in the early development of earth observation satellites, serving as special adviser on space development to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and establishing the National Weather Bureau's Satellite Service Center in 1962. He was later the founding dean of the University of Miami's School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences, deputy assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, and chief scientist for the Department of Transportation. In 1990 he founded the Science & Environmental Policy Project, a non-profit research institute, where he serves as president.

Singer has been involved for a number of years as a skeptic in the debate on climate change—The New York Times writes that his supporters and critics call him the dean of climate contrarians. He argues that there is no evidence that increases in carbon dioxide produced by human beings cause global warming, that the temperature of the planet has always varied, and that if temperatures rise it will be good for humankind. He is an outspoken opponent of the Kyoto Protocol, and has said of the climate models that scientists use to predict future trends that "models are very nice, but they are not reality and they are not evidence."

Education

Singer emigrated to the United States from Vienna in 1940, fleeing from the Nazis, and was naturalized in 1944. He received a B.E.E. in electrical engineering from Ohio State University in 1943, and an A.M. in physics from Princeton in 1944. He taught physics at Princeton from 1943 to 1944 as a doctoral candidate, and obtained his Ph.D. there in 1948; his thesis committee included J. Robert Oppenheimer and Neils Bohr.

Career

Positions held

Singer worked for the United States Navy on mine warfare from 1944 until 1946, then joined the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Program at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland, working there until 1950.He designed the first instruments used in satellites to measure cosmic radiation and ozone, including the MOUSE—Minimal Orbital Unmanned Satellite, Earth—in 1951. It weighed 100 pounds, 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. He also invented the backscatter photometer ozone-monitoring instrument for early versions of U.S. weather satellites.

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. He moved back to the United States in 1953, where he served as director of the Center for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and worked as an associate professor, then from 1959 a full professor, at the University of Maryland until 1962. He was chosen as one of the country's ten outstanding young men of 1959 by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce.

By this time Singer was a leading figure in the development of earth observation satellites, and became a special adviser on space developments to President Eisenhower. In 1962, he established the National Weather Service's Satellite Service Center, serving as its director until 1964. He founded and became the first dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences, University of Miami (1964-1967). In the late 1960s and early 1970s he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water Quality and Research, U.S. Department of the Interior (1967-1970), and Deputy Assistant Administrator for Policy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1970-1971). He then accepted a professorship in Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, a position he held from 1971 until 1994, when he came Distinguished Research Professor at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University until 2000. He held a number of other government positions during this period, including Chief Scientist for the United States Department of Transportation (1987-1989).

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; 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 Institute, the American Council on Science and Health, and Frontiers of Freedom.

Awards

He received an honorary doctorate from Ohio State University in 1970, and was recognized by President Eisenhower for his contribution to the early design of satellites, receiving a Special Commendation. When he stepped down as the first director of the National Weather Bureau's Satellite Service Center he received a U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Federal Service.

Public debates

Singer has taken part in the public debate about a number of scientific issues. His views include that 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. He has questioned the link between secondhand smoke and lung cancer. He has said there is a connection between UV-A and melanoma, as well as between the shorter-wavelength UV-B radiation and basal and squamous cell skin cancers, but argues there is no clear relation between UV-B and melanoma rates. He has suggested there is no connection between CFCs and stratospheric ozone loss. He has been a proponent of manned and unmanned missions to Mars and the Martian moons, and in 1994 contributed to a paper on the results from the Interplanetary Dust Experiment using data from the Long Duration Exposure Facility satellite.

Kuwait oil fires

During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Singer debated Carl Sagan on the impact of the Kuwaiti petroleum fires on the ABC News program Nightline. Sagan argued that, based on the nuclear winter investigation, the smoke from the fires could loft into the upper atmosphere and that the effects could be 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, and in serious human suffering, including starvation. Sagan predicted the same for south Asia, and perhaps for a significant fraction of the northern hemisphere. Singer, on the other hand, argued that calculations showed the smoke would go to an altitude of about 3,000 feet then be rained out after about three to five days, and thus the lifetime of the smoke would be limited. The fires had little environmental or climatic effect beyond the Gulf region and no measurable ill effects globally. Sagan conceded in his The Demon-Haunted World that this prediction did not turn out to be correct: "it was pitch black at noon," he wrote, "and temperatures dropped 4°-6°C over the Persian Gulf, but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared." Several sources concluded that lack of predicted and modeled global climatic cooling indicates that Singer was correct in his hypothesis.

Passive smoking

In 1994 Singer was an author of the first draft and principal reviewer of a report by Kent Jeffreys called "Science, economics, and environmental policy: a critical examination," published by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, of which he was a senior fellow. 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". Singer also appeared on a tobacco industry list of people who could write op-ed pieces defending the industry’s views, according to Derek Yacht and Stella Aguinaga Bialous. British journalist George Monbiot wrote in The Guardian in 2006 that in 1993 APCO, a public relations firm, sent a memo to Ellen Merlo, vice-president of Philip Morris USA, the tobacco company, which mentioned Singer. Philip Morris had just commissioned APCO to fight the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The memo said: "As you know, we have been working with Singer and Dr. Dwight Lee, who have authored articles on junk science and indoor air quality (IAQ) respectively ..." Monbiot writes that Singer's article, "Junk Science at the EPA," said: "the latest 'crisis'—environmental tobacco smoke—has been widely criticized as the most shocking distortion of scientific evidence yet," and alleged that the EPA had had to rig the numbers in its report on passive smoking. It was this report, according to Monbiot, that Philip Morris and APCO had wanted to discredit. Monbiot added that he had no evidence that Singer had been paid by Philip Morris.

Global warming

In March 2007, he appeared in the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle. He argues that climate change is a natural phenomenon, and not necessarily a threat. He has written that the urban heat island effect influences surface temperatures, and that the warming from surface thermometer data was contradicted by satellite and radiosonde data. Also 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.

In August 2007 a Newsweek cover story 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. ABC News reported that Singer insists he is not on the payroll of the energy industry, but says he once received an unsolicited $10,000 from Exxon. Singer subsequently stated that his connection ExxonMobil was more like being on their mailing list than holding a paid position, pointing out that this single charitable donation comprised a tiny fraction (1%) of all donations received. In the week following the Newsweek story, it published the contrary view of Robert Samuelson, a bi-weekly columnist at Newsweek, who characterized the story's conception of an industry-funded denial machine as contrived and fundamentally misleading.

In 2009 Singer was critical of the scientists involved in the Climatic Research Unit email controversy, accusing the involved scientists of suppressing data, smearing opponents, and misusing the peer review process. He argued that "Climategate exposed , and now it turns out that global warming might have been ‘man made’ after all."

NIPCC

In 2008, Singer's Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) completed the organization of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) as the culmination of a process that began in 2003. The NIPCC calls itself "an international coalition of scientists convened to provide an independent examination of the evidence available on the causes and consequences of climate change in the published, peer-reviewed literature – examined without bias and selectivity." SEPP received $143,000 for preparing the report in 2007. The 2008 NIPCC document titled Nature, Not Human Activity Rules the Climate: Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel of Climate Change, published by The Heartland Institute, was released in February-March 2008. Climate scientists from NASA, Stanford and Princeton who were contacted by ABC News dismissed the report as "fabricated nonsense." Singer called the ABC News piece "an appalling display of bias, unfairness, journalistic misbehavior, and a breakdown of ethical standards," and said it used "prejudicial language, distorted facts, libelous insinuations, and anonymous smears."

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 Avery. 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).

See also

Notes

  1. Singer, Siegfried Fred. "Climate policy—from Rio to Kyoto: a political issue for 2000—and beyond", Essays in public policy, Issue 102, Hoover Press, 2000, p. 52; S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., Science & Environmental Policy Project, accessed May 13, 2010.
  2. Current biography yearbook, Volume 10, H. W. Wilson Company, 1956; "Astrophysics: Capturing a Moon and Other Diversions", Time magazine, February 21, 1969.
  3. Levy, Lillian. Space, Its Impact on Man and Society. Ayer Publishing, p. xiii; S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., Science and Environmental Policy Project, accessed May 13, 2010.
  4. Revkin, Andrew. "Skeptics Dispute Climate Worries and Each Other", The New York Times, March 8, 2009.
  5. Gray, Louise. "Fred Singer to speak at climate change sceptics conference", The Daily Telegraph, November 18, 2009.
  6. Tierney, John. "Lessons from the Skeptics' Conference", The New York Times, March 4, 2008; Stevens, William K. "Global Warming: The Contrarian View", The New York Times, February 29, 2000.
  7. ^ Begley, Sharon. "The Truth About Denial", Newsweek, August 13, 2007.
  8. ^ S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., Science & Environmental Policy Project, accessed May 13, 2010; Smithsonian Institution Research Information Service. "S. Fred Singer Papers, 1953-1989 (bulk 1960-1980)", accessed May 15, 2010.
  9. Misner, Charles W. "John Archibald Wheeler and the recertification of General Relativity as True Physics", University of Maryland, October 3, 2006, accessed May 15, 2010; Singer, S. Fred. "The Father of the H-Bomb Tells His Story", Hoover Digest, 2002, No. 1, accessed May 15, 2010.
  10. ^ S. Fred Singer, Ph.D. Professional background, Science & Environmental Policy Project, accessed May 13, 2010.
  11. "Satellite, MOUSE, Concept Model", Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, accessed May 15, 2010.
  12. Harris, Paul G. The Environment, International Relations, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Georgetown University Press, 2001, p. 130; Hogan, James P. Catastrophes, Chaos & Convolutions. Baen Books, 2005; Lal, Deepak. The Limits of International Co-operation. Institute of Economic Affairs, 1990.
  13. Current biography yearbook, Volume 10, H. W. Wilson Company, 1956; S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., Science & Environmental Policy Project, accessed May 15, 2010.
  14. The New York Times. "10 Young Men Cited by Junior Chamber", January 5, 1960.
  15. The New York Times. "Physicist to Help U.S. Speed Weather Satellite System", July 6, 1962.
  16. S. Fred Singer: The Independent Institute, accessed May 15, 2010; Scientific advisors, American Council on Science and Health, May 15, 2008, accessed May 15, 2010; Frontiers of Freedom—Staff, December 15, 2003, accessed May 15, 2010.
  17. Lehr, Jay H. Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns. John Wiley and Sons 1992, p. 393; Levy, Lillian. Space, Its Impact on Man and Society. Ayer Publishing 1973, p. xiii; Singer, S. Fred. The Changing Global Environment. Springer Publishers 1975, p. 401.
  18. Gray, Louise. "Fred Singer to speak at climate change sceptics conference", The Daily Telegraph, November 18, 2009.
  19. Singer, S. Fred. "About the Project", Science & Environmental Policy Project, October 16, 2009; Singer, S. Fred. "The Week That Was", July 22, 2006, accessed May 15, 2010.
  20. Singer, S. Fred. "Environmental Strategies with Uncertain Science", Cato Institute; Singer, S. Fred. "Lecture at St. Vincent College: The Use and Misuse of Science", Science & Environmental Policy Project, February 1, 1995; Singer, S. Fred. "Testimony in the U.S. House of Representatives on Ozone Depletion", Science & Environmental Policy Project, August 1, 1996; Singer, S. Fred. "Ozone, Skin Cancer, and the SST", Science & Environmental Policy Project, July 1994; Singer, S. Fred. "The hole truth about CFCs", Science & Environmental Policy Project, March 21, 1994.
  21. Singer, S. Fred. "Five Scientific Questions On The CFC-Ozone Issue", Science & Environmental Policy Project, October 16, 2009: "Both theory and measurements suggests that hydrogen-containing molecules, not chlorine, are the main destruction agent for ozone in the lower stratosphere."
  22. S. Fred Singer. "A Manned Mission to the Mysterious Moons of Mars", Philosophical Society of Washington, November 22, 2002, accessed May 13, 2010; "Astrophysics: Capturing a Moon and Other Diversions", Time magazine, February 21, 1969.
  23. Long duration exposure facility (LDEF) interplanetary dust experiment (IDE) impact detector results
  24. "First Israeli Scud Fatalities Oil Fires in Kuwait", Nightline, ABC News, January 22, 1991.
  25. Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World. p. 257.
  26. The Washington Times. "When advocacy beclouds science," June 2, 1993; The Washington Times. "Mr. Gore in the balance," March 2, 1994; Michael, Patrick J. Sound and fury: the science and politics of global warming. 1992.
  27. Singer, Fred and Jeffreys, Kent. "Science, economics, and environmental policy: a critical examination" (pdf). Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  28. Jeffreys, Kent (11 August 1994). "Science, economics, and environmental policy: a critical examination" (pdf). Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Retrieved 2008-11-26.
  29. Yach, Derek (2001). "Junking Science to Promote Tobacco" (PDF). Vol 91, No. 11. American Journal of Public Health. pp. 1745–1748. Retrieved 2008-08-16. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  30. Monbiot, George. "The denial industry", The Guardian, September 19, 2006.
  31. Singer, S. Fred (2000). (Interview). Interviewed by Jon Palfreman http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/debate/singer.html. Retrieved 2008-11-26. {{cite interview}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |callsign= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help)
  32. Singer, S. Fred (2003). "McLieberman Bill Unsupported By Science: Voted Down by Senate". SEPP. Retrieved 2007-04-23. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help); Singer, S. Fred (2003). "EPA Bias on Global Warming". SEPP. Retrieved 2007-04-23. {{cite web}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help).
  33. Douglass, David H. (2007). "A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions" (PDF). International Journal of Climatology. 28: 1693. doi:10.1002/joc.1651. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  34. Douglass, David H. (2004). "Altitude Dependence of Atmospheric Temperature Trends: Climate Models vs Observation". Geophysical Research Letters. 31 (L13208). arXiv:physics/0407074v1 . {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  35. Harris, Dan (2008-03-23). "Global Warming Denier: Fraud or 'Realist'?". ABC News. ABCnews.com. Retrieved 2008-03-24. Singer insists he is not on the payroll of the energy industry, but stated he once accepted an unsolicited check from Exxon for $10,000. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  36. ^ Singer, S. Fred (2008-03-28). "Letter to ABC News from Dr. S. Fred Singer". News Releases > March 2008. Science & Environmental Policy Project. Retrieved 07/08/2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  37. Samuelson, Robert. "Greenhouse Simplicities", Newsweek, August 20–27, 2007.
  38. Singer, Fred (14 December 2009). "Climate skeptic: We are winning the science battle". Reuters. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
  39. Singer, S. Fred (2007-09-01-). "The Week that Was". SEPP. Retrieved 2008-05-09. Because of these omissions, which became evident from the initial drafts of AR4, the SEPP decided to set up a 'Team B' to produce an independent evaluation of the available scientific evidence. While the initial organization took place in 2004, Team B only became activated after the SPM appeared in February 2007; it changed its name to NIPCC and organized an international climate workshop in Vienna in April 2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  40. Harriette Johnson and Joseph L. Bast (2008-05-05). "Climate Change Conference Invigorates Global Warming Debate". Environment News. The Heartland Institute. Retrieved 2008-05-07.
  41. S. Fred Singer. "Form 990 SEPP 2007 Part VII line 93" (PDF). Guidestar.
  42. Singer, Editor, S. Fred (2008-03-02). "Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate". Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change / The Heartland Institute. Retrieved 2008-05-08. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  43. Report notice: Opinions expressed are solely those of the authors. Nothing in this report should be construed as reflecting the views of the Science and Environmental Policy Project or The Heartland Institute, or as an attempt to influence pending legislation.
  44. Harris, Dan (2008-03-23). "Global Warming Denier: Fraud or 'Realist'?". ABC News. ABCnews.com. Retrieved 2008-03-24. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

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