Fred Singer

Fred Singer, 2011

Siegfried Frederick Singer (born September 27, 1924 in Vienna , Austria ; † April 6, 2020 in Rockville , Maryland , United States ), or Fred Singer for short , was an American atmospheric physicist and a well-known figure in the climate denial scene . Among other things , he developed satellite cameras , which are used to measure the concentration of ozone in the stratosphere , and measuring systems for studying cosmic rays .

Singer was a prolific scientist in research until about 1970, but then went on to work as a “dealer of doubt” for various industrial interest groups to deny various environmental problems that were far outside his area of ​​expertise. Among other things, he denied the health dangers of tobacco smoking , the existence of the ozone hole and man-made global warming, and the dangers of acid rain and toxic waste. Because of these decades of activities for various branches of industry, Singer was described as the “most productive” of the “universally applicable commercial deniers” of scientific findings.

biography

In 1940, at the age of 16, Singer emigrated from Austria to the USA. He first studied electrical engineering at Ohio State University , where he graduated BEE in 1943. In Princeton he studied physics with an AM degree in 1944. In the same year he took on the US citizenship and entered the military, where he was employed in the mine defense development of the US Navy. From 1946 to 1950 he worked on the rocket program at Johns Hopkins University to study the upper atmosphere. In 1948 he completed his doctorate in physics from Princeton University. As a scientific liaison with the American Office of Naval Research at the US Embassy in London, he observed research in Europe in the fields of nuclear, space and geophysics between 1950 and 1953. In 1953 he became Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland and Director of the Center for Atmospheric and Space Physics there. In 1962 he moved to the Department of Commerce's Department of Weather satellites as director (now at NOAA ) and returned to science in 1964 as founding dean of the environmental and planetary science department at the University of Miami . From 1967 to 1971 he worked again in the federal administration, until 1970 in the US Department of the Interior as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of Water Supply, which was then also responsible for atmospheric and oceanography activities. 1970 to 1971 he was Deputy Assistant Administrator (Policy) at the US Federal Environment Agency . In 1971 he took over the professorship in environmental sciences at the University of Virginia , where he retired in 1994.

Singer also worked for a large number of conservative think tanks funded by the fossil energy industry , for which he denied the knowledge of climate research. He has worked for the Cato Institute , the American Council on Science and Health , the National Center for Policy Analysis , the Indenpendent Institute , the Institute for Humane Studies , the Frontiers of Freedom Institute , the Hoover Institution , the Heritage Foundation, among others , for TASSC ( The Advancement for Sound Science Coalition ) and for the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). All of these organizations received money, directly or indirectly, from ExxonMobil . He also received a monthly sum from the Heartland Institute for his work . The SEPP, which Singer himself founded in 1990, is a climate denial organization that describes itself as an independent educational project for environmental issues and presents concerns about environmental hazards as exaggerated. He was there alongside Frederick Seitz , who died in early 2008, as a leading head; and Richard Lindzen participates. He has worked as a consultant for various corporations, including Exxon , Shell , Ford , Sunoco and Lockheed Martin .

Positions

Singer was known for taking a position opposite to the current state of research on a variety of scientific topics. In an article in The Guardian , Singer is described as someone who "throughout his life has held the opposite opinion in virtually every scientific discipline imaginable - acid rain , nuclear winter , radioactive waste , nuclear war , ozone depletion , secondhand smoke , decline amphibious creatures and even the advantages of the minimum wage . ”Because of these decades of disputing scientific knowledge on environmental and health issues, he was considered one of the most important“ dealers of the doubt ”.

Passive smoking

Singer considered it unclear whether and to what extent secondhand smoke can lead to lung cancer . According to the American environmental organization Tobacco Scam , he was thereby supporting the tobacco industry in the fight against smoking restrictions. According to a report in The Guardian newspaper , Singer is said to have been part of a coalition of the oil and tobacco industry "against overregulation", which wants to question the credibility of the established science on the subject.

Ozone hole

Singer questioned the role of chlorine compounds such as CFCs in depleting ozone . Instead , he assigned responsibility to natural hydrogen compounds, particularly hydroxyl radicals .

Regardless of the ozone hole, he assumed that the connection between UV radiation and skin cancer is being exaggerated.

Global warming

Singer was one of the most active and outspoken climate deniers who deny man-made climate change , and has already been called the “godfather of climate change denial”. Unlike other climate deniers, Singer assumed that carbon dioxide emitted by humans intensified the greenhouse effect , but considered this effect to be of secondary importance to natural changes. The global warming is not yet sufficiently understood to justify costly restructuring. Until about 2003 Singer had denied that there was any measurable warming at all; then he assumed an unstoppable, natural cycle. A warmer planet is an asset. In December 2003, he and other scientists founded the “Non-Governmental Commission on Climate Change” NIPCC .

According to an eight-page memo that was leaked to the press, there was a meeting at the headquarters of the American Petroleum Institute in April 1998 at which Fred Singer had been working on PR strategies, with deliberate public uncertainty about the state of the art To disseminate climate research in order to influence policy makers. Representatives from Exxon and conservative think tanks were also involved in the meeting.

In a 2012 budget plan leaked to the press, the Heartland Institute noted : "Our current budget includes support for well-known people who regularly contradict statements made by global warming alarmists," including Fred Singer with $ 5,000 a month.

In view of his climate protection efforts , Singer accused the then US President Barack Obama of leading a “regulatory anti-energy jihad” and “favoring fanatics from the far left who would pose as environmentalists”.

Singer's thesis, published in a 2018 Wall Street Journal article , that global warming will not cause sea levels to rise, has been consistently rejected by five other scientists.

Publications (selection)

• (Ed.): Nature, not human activity, determines the climate . TvR Medienverlag, Jena 2008, ISBN 978-3-940431-08-0 .
• The density spectrum and latitude dependence of extensive cosmic ray air showers . Princeton University , 1949. ( Dissertation )

Web links

Commons : Fred Singer  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Fred Singer in the catalog of the German National Library
• S. Fred Singer Dossier at Desmog
• Fred Singer on SourceWatch

supporting documents

1. ^ John Schwartz: S. Fred Singer, a Leading Climate Change Contrarian, Dies at 95. In: The New York Times , April 11, 2020. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
2. ↑ "Grandfather of Climate Change Deniers" Fred Singer dies . In: Der Standard , April 13, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
3. ↑ Naomi Oreskes , Erik M. Conway : The Machiavellis of Science. The network of denial. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2014, u. a. P. 347.
4. ↑ James Lawrence Powell: The Inquisition of Climate Science . New York 2012, pp. 54-58.
5. ↑ Michael E. Mann , Tom Toles: The madhouse effect. How climate change denial threatens our planet, destroys our politics and drives us insane . Erlangen 2018, pp. 83–86.
6. ^ Biography in the S. Fred Singer Papers, 1953-1989 of the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System
7. ↑ ^{a b} Yes, EVs are green and global warming is raising sea levels . In: The Guardian , May 21, 2018. Retrieved May 21, 2018.
8. ↑ James Hoggan, Richard Littlemore: Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming . Greystone Books 2009, p. 80.
9. ↑ Annika Joeres , Susanne Götze : The Heartland Institute: How US climate deniers make politics in Europe . In: Correctiv , February 4, 2020. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
10. ^ S. Fred Singer, Ph.D .: Resume ( Memento of May 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), faxed to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution in 1994
11. ↑ See Naomi Oreskes , Erik M. Conway : The Machiavellis of Science. The network of denial. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2014.
12. ↑ Derek Yach and Stella Aguinaga Bialous: Junking Science to Promote Tobacco . In: American Journal of Public Health . tape 91 , no. 11 , 2001, p. 1745–1748 , doi : 10.2105 / AJPH.91.11.1745 , PMID 11684592 , PMC 1446867 (free full text).
13. ↑ The Guardian : The denial industry , by George Monbiot , September 19, 2006
14. ↑ Fred Singer: Testimony of Dr. S. Fred Singer to the House Commerce Committee; Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. (pdf) August 1, 1995, accessed on September 3, 2018 (English). 
15. ↑ Brien Sparling: Controversy surrounding ozone depletion. In: NASA. 2001, accessed September 3, 2018 . 
16. ↑ Aaron McCright, Dealing with climate change contrarians , in: Susanne C. Moser, Lisa Dilling (ed.) Creating a Climate for Change. Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change . Cambridge University Press 2007, 200-212, p. 200 and especially footnote 2.
17. ↑ ^{a b} Mark Romeo Hoffarth, Gordon Hodson: Green on the outside, red on the inside: Perceived environmentalist threat as a factor explaining political polarization of climate change . In: Journal of Environmental Psychology . tape 45 , 2016, p. 40-49 , doi : 10.1016 / j.jenvp.2015.11.002 .
18. ↑ Singer's criticism of the EPA , accessed on June 8, 2011.
19. ^ Dennis T. Avery, S. Frederick Singer, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years , Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2007, ISBN 978-0742551176
20. ↑ Global Warming Denier: Fraud or 'Realist'? ABC News of March 23, 2008, accessed June 8, 2011
21. ↑ Newsweek : The Truth About Denial ( October 23, 2007 memento on the Internet Archive ) , by Sharon Begley, August 13, 2007
22. ↑ Anita Blasberg and Kerstin Kohlenberg : " Die Klimakrieger " - Die Zeit, 48/2012, page 17 ff.
23. ↑ Wall Street Journal commentary grossly misleads readers about science of sea level rise. In: climatefeedback.org. May 18, 2018, accessed May 21, 2018 .