Prominent Scientist Fired By Gore Says Warming Alarm ‘Mistaken’

Prominent Scientist Fired By Gore Says Warming Alarm ‘Mistaken’ December 22, 2008

Posted By Marc Morano – 8:25 AM – Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov

Prominent Scientist Fired By Gore Says Warming Alarm ‘Mistaken’

11 More Scientists Join Senate Report of More Than 650 Dissenters

‘The current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken’

Link to Full Printable PDF Report of More Than 650 Dissenting Scientists
WASHINGTON, DC – Award winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer, who was reportedly fired by former Vice President Al Gore in 1993 for failing to adhere to Gore’s scientific views, has now declared man-made global warming fears “mistaken.”

“I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken,” Happer, who has published over 200 scientific papers, told EPW on December 22, 2008. Happer made his remarks while requesting to join the 2008 U.S. Senate Minority Report from Environment and Public Works Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK) of over 650 (and growing) dissenting international scientists disputing anthropogenic climate fears. [Note: Joining Happer as new additions to the Senate report, are at least 10 more scientists, including meteorologists from Germany, Netherlands and CNN, as well as a professors from MIT and University of Arizona. See below for full quotes and bios of the new skeptical scientists added to the groundbreaking report, which includes many current and former UN IPCC scientists.]

“I had the privilege of being fired by Al Gore, since I refused to go along with his alarmism. I did not need the job that badly,” Happer said this week. Happer is a Professor at the Department of Physics at Princeton University and former Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy from 1990 to 1993, has published over 200 scientific papers, and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Sciences.

Senator Inhofe said that the continued outpouring of prominent scientists like Happer -- who are willing to publicly dissent from climate fears -- are yet another strike to the UN, Gore and the media’s claims about global warming. “The endless claims of a 'consensus' about man-made global warming grow less-and-less credible every day," Inhofe said.

Happer, who served as the Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy in 1993, says he was fired by Gore in 1993 for not going along with Gore’s scientific views on ozone and climate issues. “I was told that science was not going to intrude on policy," Happer explained in 1993.

“I have spent a long research career studying physics that is closely related to the greenhouse effect, for example, absorption and emission of visible and infrared radiation, and fluid flow,” Happer said this week. “Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science. The earth's climate is changing now, as it always has. There is no evidence that the changes differ in any qualitative way from those of the past,” he added.

“Over the past 500 million years since the Cambrian, when fossils of multicellular life first became abundant, the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been much higher than current levels, about 3 times higher on average. Life on earth flourished with these higher levels of carbon dioxide,” he explained. “Computer models used to generate frightening scenarios from increasing levels of carbon dioxide have scant credibility,” Happer added.

Below are the full entries of the scientists just added to the 2008 U.S. Senate Minority Report: “More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims”: (Updated December 22, 2008)

Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Dr. W. M. Schaffer, Ph. D., of the University of Arizona - Tucson, past member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, who has authored more than 80 scientific publications and authored the paper “Human Population and Carbon Dioxide,” dissented in 2008. “My principal objections to the theory of anthropogenic warming are as follows: 1) I am mistrustful of ‘all but the kitchen sink’ models that, by virtue of their complexity, cannot be analyzed mathematically. When we place our trust in such models, what too often results is the replacement of a poorly understood physical (chemical, biological) system by a model that is similarly opaque,” Schaffer told EPW on December 19, 2008. “2) I am troubled by the application of essentially linear thinking to what is arguably the ‘mother of all nonlinear dynamical systems’ - i.e., the climate. 3) I believe it likely that "natural climate cycles" are the fingerprints of chaotic behavior that is inherently unpredictable in the long-term. As reviewed in a forthcoming article (Schaffer, in prep), these cycles are "dense" on chaotic attractors and have the stability properties of saddles. Evolving chaotic trajectories successively shadow first one cycle, then another. The result is a sequence of qualitatively different behaviors - what climatologists call "regime shift" - independent of extrinsic influences. Tsonis and his associates discuss this phenomenon in terms of network theory and ‘synchronized chaos,’ but these embellishments are not necessary. To be chaotic is to dance the dance of the saddles,” Schaffer explained. “The recent lack of warming in the face of continued increases in CO2 suggests (a) that the effects of greenhouse gas forcing have been over-stated; (b) that the import of natural variability has been underestimated and (c) that concomitant rises of atmospheric CO2 and temperature in previous decades may be coincidental rather than causal,” he added. “I fear that things could easily go the other way: that the climate could cool, perhaps significantly; that the consequences of a new Little Ice Age or worse would be catastrophic and that said consequences will be exacerbated if we meanwhile adopt warmist prescriptions. This possibility, plus the law of unintended consequences, leads me to view proposed global engineering ‘solutions’ as madness. ‘First do no harm’ should be the watchword of those who propose policy; the fate of Icarus, the example uppermost in their minds,” he continued. “I believe that the enthusiasm of many of my colleagues for the ‘consensus’ view of climate change is partly motivated by considerations outside of science. If I am correct, the truth of the matter will inevitably become widely known and the consequences to science, severe. Think Lysenko and the demise of Soviet genetics,” he concluded. (LINK) (LINK)(LINK)

CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers, an meteorologist for 22 years, certified by the American Meteorological Society, spoke out against anthropogenic climate claims in 2008. “You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said during a December 18, 2008 appearance on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure,” Myers explained. “But this is like, you know you said – in your career – my career has been 22 years long. That’s a good career in TV, but talking about climate – it’s like having a car for three days and saying, ‘This is a great car.’ Well, yeah – it was for three days, but maybe in days five, six and seven it won’t be so good. And that’s what we’re doing here,” he added. “We have 100 years worth of data, not millions of years that the world’s been around,” Myers concluded. (LINK) (LINK)

Engineer and Physicist J.K. “Jim” August, formerly of the U.S. Navy nuclear power program, and former chair of professional standard committees in both the American Nuclear Society and the American Society of Mechanical Engineering, dissented from climate fears in 2008. “Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth is not scientifically based,” August wrote in a December 15, 2008 analysis titled “An Inconvenient Truth, or a Calculating Deception.” “The book denies the legitimacy of science for review. The irony is, of course, the treatise that Mr. Gore uses to make his points, which could only have any value based on some scientific certainty basis, is not based on science nor the scientific method -- nor can scientists even use science to review it, or follow its logic,” August explained. “Gore argues we’re morally obliged to support his conclusions, precluding objective review with the same scientific methods that he claims to have supported his work. Presenting consequences as facts, he categorically rejects their testing with the same scientific method. Should we be surprised, then when Mr. Gore says that anyone who doubts this must be morally corrupt?” August added. “Fighting religion with reason, we scientists sadly can’t contest. Mr. Gore even shared a Nobel Prize with the IPCC. So, isn't it ironic? The only truth that's inconvenient here is that Mr. Gore’s successfully sold his message as if it were science!” he added. (LINK)

Biologist and Neuropharmacologist Dr. Doug Pettibone, who has authored 120 scientific publications and holds ten patents and is a past member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, dissented in 2008. “There is currently no satisfactory answer to the central question: ‘What is the actual proof that humans are causing catastrophic global warming?’ All of the climate computer models in the world do not provide the proof,” Pettibone wrote to EPW on December 11, 2008. “It boils down to a matter of faith that the 30-year positive correlation between man-made CO2 and global temperature provides the proof. But correlations are not proof of cause-and-effect. Blaming global warming on human activity is terribly premature and any legislation designed to curtail CO2 will likely be misguided, costly and ineffective based on the available evidence. Since there has not been any significant increase in global temperatures in the last decade, it is not even clear where temperatures are going to go from here,” Pettibone explained. (LINK)

Meteorologist Tom Wysmuller, former weather forecaster at Amsterdam’s Royal Dutch Weather Bureau whose “Polynomial Regression algorithm is embedded in every high-end Texas Instruments calculator sold today,” dissented from man-made global warming fears and predicted a coming global cooling in 2008. Wysmuller said during his two-hour presentation of his latest scientific research titled "The colder side of global warming on December 6, 2008. Wysmuller believes that temperature increases of today are distinct from carbon dioxide levels. “Carbon dioxide is increasing but not dragging the temperatures up," Wysmuller said. "If we controlled pollution now, we still wouldn't stop the ice cap from melting,” he explained. “The largest contributor to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the warming oceans,” he continued. The December 11, 2008, article explained, “Wysmuller argues that the current spike in temperature and carbon dioxide levels are approaching levels that existed just prior to the most recent ice age. What that means, he said, is that we are nearing a period when temperatures will actually start to decrease and weather patterns dramatically change.” Wysmuller’s research shows that open water at the Arctic will generate an abundance of "ocean effect" snow, similar to the lake effect snow that hits the upstate New York area. "[The Arctic] will have massive amounts of ocean effect snow," Wysmuller said. "The accumulated snowfall increases reflecting light, so temperatures will cool." (LINK) (LINK) (LINK)

MIT Scientist Dr. Robert Rose, a professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT with approximately 50 years of experience teaching various scientific, linked warming and cooling cycles to the “orbit and the tilt and wobble of the axis of the Earth's spin.” Rose also questioned climate model predictions on July 8, 2008, by stating, “Clearly, these are not ‘facts.’ They are computer models. They may be correct or at least lead us to the correct answer, but the earliest model appears to be incorrect,” Rose wrote. “Cooler heads [are] needed in global warming debate,” Rose wrote. “Global warming is occurring as it has many times in the past; and it will continue for some years before the cooling cycle begins and the glaciers take over, also as they have in the past. We are trying very hard to develop computer simulations to predict the contribution our activities are making to the warming, and the going has been difficult. These models can't be tested experimentally (unless we can find another planet on which to conduct our experiments) and are tested mostly by fitting them to past behavior, pretty much the same approach as handicapping horse races. (LINK)

Climate researcher Dr. Craig Loehle, formerly of the Department of Energy Laboratories and currently with the National Council for Air and Stream Improvements, who has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers, attended the skeptical 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City in March 2008. “The 2000-year [temperature] trend is not flat, so a warming period is not unprecedented,” Loehle said during the skeptical conference in March 2008. “The 1500-year [temperature] cycle as proposed by [Atmospheric physicist Fred] Singer and [Dennis] Avery is consistent with Loehle climate reconstruction,” Loehle explained. “The 1500-year cycle implies that recent warming is part of natural trend,” he added. (LINK) (LINK) (LINK) Loehl published a November 2007 study in Energy & Environment that found the Medieval Warm Period to be "0.3C warmer than the 20th century." The study was titled “A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies." (LINK) & (LINK)

German Meteorologist Dr. Gerd-Rainer Weber, a Consulting Meteorologist, attended the skeptical 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City in March. “Most of the extremist views about climate change have little or no scientific basis. The rational basis for extremist views about global warming may be a desire to push for political action on global warming,” Weber said during the conference. (LINK) Weber also endorsed the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, sponsored by the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) in 2008. The declaration reads in part, “There is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.”

Atmospheric Scientist Robert L. Scotto, who has more than 30 years air quality consulting experience, served as zone-wide QA Manager on a $300 million EPA Superfund contract, is co-founder of Minnich and Scotto, Inc., a full-service air quality consulting firm and a past member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Scotto, a meteorologist who has authored or co-authored numerous technical publications and reports, joined the 650 international scientists dissenting from man-made warming claims in 2008. “Proponents of AGW (anthropogenic global warming) analyses of recent surface temperature records which are suspect at best, as they clearly contradict much more reliable satellite data,” Scotto told EPW on December 22, 2008. According to satellite data, “the Earth has been cooling since 1998,” Scotto wrote. “This discrepancy is due principally to the spatially unrepresentative nature of the surface records, owing first to the fact that rural stations are increasingly being replaced by urban stations and, second, to the frequent failure of these new urban stations to meet basic siting criteria,” Scotto explained. “Based on the laws of physics, the effect on temperature of man’s contribution to atmospheric CO2 levels is minuscule and indiscernible from the natural variability caused in large part by changes in solar energy output. Acknowledgment of this true science is critical to implementation of much-needed practical measures for increasing domestic energy and world food supplies,” he added. (LINK) (LINK)



Atmospheric Scientist Timothy R. Minnich, who has more than 30 years experience in the design and management of a wide range of air quality investigations for industry and government, specializes in the application of optical remote sensing (ORS) to a wide range of air-related issues. Minnich has worked with EPA as a Superfund contractor, is co-founder of Minnich and Scotto, Inc., a full-service air quality consulting firm. Minnich, who holds a masters degree in meteorology and taught courses at Rutgers University and University of Michigan, is a past member of the American Meteorological Society, specializes in issues like acid rain and ozone and has authored or co-authored numerous technical publications and reports. “I choose to take President-elect Obama at his word when, upon his appointment of John Holdren as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, he promised to “[protect] free and open inquiry . . . ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology,’” Minnich told EPW on December 22, 2008. Clearly the best means to fulfill on this commitment is to appoint to the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, over which Dr. Holdren will preside, several of the more than 650 distinguished and renowned scientists who have openly questioned the “consensus” on AGW in Senator Inhofe’s 2008 U.S. Senate Minority Report,” Minnich explained. “The late Michael Crichton said it well: ‘Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. . . . Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus [which] is the business of politics. . . . What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus,’” Minnich added. (LINK) (LINK)





Award Winning Physicist Dr. Will Happer, Professor at the Department of Physics at Princeton University and Former Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy from 1990 to 1993, who has published over 200 scientific papers, and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Sciences, dissented from warming fears and requested to be added to Senate dissenting scientist report in 2008. “I had the privilege of being fired by Al Gore, since I refused to go along with his alarmism. I did not need the job that badly,” Happer told EPW on December 22, 2008. Happer, who was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Award, the Broida Prize and the 1999 Davisson-Germer Prize of the American Physical Society, says he was fired by Gore in 1993 for failing to adhere to Gore’s scientific views on ozone and climate. “I was told that science was not going to intrude on policy," Happer said in 1993. In 2008, Happer publicly dissented from man-made warming fears. “I have spent a long research career studying physics that is closely related to the greenhouse effect, for example, absorption and emission of visible and infrared radiation, and fluid flow. Based on my experience, I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken,” Happer explained. “Mistakes are common in science and they can take a long time to correct, sometimes many generations. It is important that misguided political decisions do not block science's capacity for self correction, especially in this instance when incorrect science is being used to threaten our liberties and wellbeing,” Happer added. “Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science. The earth's climate is changing now, as it always has. There is no evidence that the changes differ in any qualitative way from those of the past. We are currently in a warming cycle that began in the early 1800's, at the end of the little ice age. Much of the current warming occurred before the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were significantly increased by the burning of fossil fuels. No one knows how long the current warming will continue, and in fact, there has been no warming for the past ten years,” he continued. “Carbon dioxide is a natural constituent of the atmosphere, and calling it a ‘pollutant’ is inaccurate. Humans exhale air containing 4 to 5 per cent carbon dioxide or 40,000 to 50,000 parts per million. Plants grow better with more carbon dioxide. The current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are about 380 parts per million, exceptionally low by the standards of geological history. Over the past 500 million years since the Cambrian, when fossils of multicellular life first became abundant, the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been much higher than current levels, about 3 times higher on average. Life on earth flourished with these higher levels of carbon dioxide,” he added. “Computer models used to generate frightening scenarios from increasing levels of carbon dioxide have scant credibility. There is little debate that the direct effects of doubling carbon dioxide concentrations would be very small, perhaps 1 to 2 C of warming. To generate alarming scenarios, computer modelers must invent positive feedback mechanisms that increase the greenhouse effect of water vapor, which is responsible for over 90 percent of greenhouse warming. Observations indicate that the feedback is very small and may actually be negative. Changes in atmospheric water vapor and cloud cover may diminish, not increase, the small direct effects of carbon dioxide,” he concluded. (LINK) (LINK) (LINK) (LINK)

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