William Happer

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William Happer, 2018

William Happer (born July 27, 1939 in Vellore , India ) is an American physicist in the fields of atomic physics , optics and spectroscopy . He is Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor Emeritus of Physics at Princeton University and was Senior Director of the National Security Council in the Trump Cabinet from September 2018 to September 2019 .

Happer has worked for numerous political advisory bodies and think tanks . He has been a member of the JASON Defense Advisory Group , a group of scientists advising the US government on engineering and national security issues, since 1976 and was its chairman from 1987 to 1990. There he contributed in particular to the development of adaptive optics . During the George HW Bush administration , Happer was on the Science Advisory Board of the Department of Energy from 1991–93 . From 2002-2005, he served on the US Department of Homeland Security's Technical Advisory Committee .

He denies man-made climate change and is associated with various climate denial organizations . Among other things, he was director of the George Marshall Institute think tank and its successor organization, the CO2 Coalition . He is a trustee of MITER Corporation and also works for the Richard Lounsbery Foundation .

Act

Happer was born in India to a couple of doctors. The father was a military doctor of Scottish origin, the mother a doctor and missionary for the Lutheran Church of North Carolina. During the Second World War, the family was settled in the vicinity of the Manhattan Project in Tennessee Oak Ridge . His uncle Karl Ziegler Morgan is one of the founders of radiation medicine, and Happers' mother supported him. After the war and a temporary return to India and Scotland, the family lived in North Carolina .

Happer graduated from the University of North Carolina , where he received his BS in 1960. He received his doctorate in physics from Princeton University in 1964 . He then moved from 1964 to 1980 to Columbia University , where he headed the radiation laboratory. In 1970 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society . Since 1980 he has taught at Princeton University. During a two-year hiatus from 1991 to 1993 at the United States Department of Energy , he managed a research budget of $ 3 billion. High energy and nuclear physics, materials science, nuclear fusion research , environmental science, the human genome project and other research fields were budgeted under his aegis . With the return to Princeton he became chairman of the research council there. He names optical pumping and adaptive optics as his research interests. He uses the physics of spin-polarized atoms and molecules in various applications. Among other things, he researched polarized He3 and Xenon for magnetic resonance imaging in medical applications. The corresponding surface effects are little researched.

Climate change denial

Happer, by his own admission not a climatologist, denies man-made climate change . He was a board member and chairman of the conservative think tank George C. Marshall Institute , which had a significant influence on the climate and energy policy of the US administration under George HW Bush in the early 1990s , and was also a founding member and board member of its successor organization CO2 Coalition . He is also on the scientific advisory board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation .

From 1991-1993, Happer headed energy research at the United States Department of Energy under the George HW Bush administration. Among other things, he signed the Oregon petition , which was supported by the George C. Marshall Institute and directed against the Kyoto Protocol , in 1999. In an interview in 2014, he said in an interview that carbon dioxide is beneficial for the earth, while "the demonization of carbon dioxide" is " like the demonization of the Jews under Hitler ".

Ahead of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference , he offered Greenpeace activists, posing as representatives of oil and gas companies, in a work about the benefits of higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to write, to cast doubt on the need for climate protection measures to sprinkle. He emailed that this work was unlikely to pass peer review . Although he could submit the work to a scientific journal , this would delay publication. In addition, the appraisal process could mean that, at the request of the reviewer, it would have to make such large changes that carbon dioxide would no longer appear beneficial but rather harmful. This is not in his interest and probably also not in the interest of the company. Instead, he suggested that the work be sent to a specially selected group of people who are to review the work. "Purists" wouldn't see this as a peer review, but he thinks it's okay to call it peer review.

In 2017 he was invited to an interview by the future US President Donald Trump, the details of which were not disclosed. Happer was considered the top candidate for the post of top science advisor in the Trump cabinet . In this context, he described climate research in an interview as a weeping cult stirred up by collective madness. In September 2018 he was appointed to the National Security Council by the Trump administration and tasked with contradicting the government's own climate research. In this role, he reached out to the Heartland Institute in 2019 for assistance in challenging the results of climate research. There he prevented a scientist from the State Department from making a written statement about the dangers of climate change for the national security of the USA. In September 2019, he announced his resignation after failing to convince the White House to conduct a "hostile review" of the state of scientific research on climate change intended as an attack on climate research. He then returned to the CO2 Coalition.

In December 2019, it became known that he was planning this hostile review more than a year before his nomination for office. Among other things, he submitted a multi-layered plan in an email as early as 2017, with which he wanted to refute climate science . Happer also admitted that the White House originally wanted to hire him as a technology advisor, but that he made his commitment conditional on being able to push through his climate agenda. Trump personally welcomed his plan, but he was given up by "brainwashed" officials. He also recommended that Trump cut government funds for climate research when he was re-elected.

Publications (selection)

  • Thad G. Walker, William Happer: Spin-exchange optical pumping of noble-gas nuclei. In: Rev. Mod. Phys. 69, 1997, pp. 629-642. doi: 10.1103 / RevModPhys.69.629
  • W. Happer, GJ MacDonald , CE Max , FJ Dyson : Atmospheric-turbulence compensation by resonant optical backscattering from the sodium layer in the upper atmosphere. In: J. Opt. Soc. At the. A. 11, 1994, pp. 263-276: abstract
  • William Happer: Optical Pumping. In: Review of Modern Physics. vol. 44, Issue 2, 1972, pp. 169-249. doi: 10.1103 / RevModPhys.44.169

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ William Happer. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on July 25, 2014 ; accessed on July 24, 2013 .
  2. ^ A b Alan Shaw: University research centers of excellence for homeland security . Ed .: National Academies Press. 2004, ISBN 0-309-09236-1 ( nap.edu ).
  3. ↑ Brackett, Cyrus Fogg (1833-1915) , first Joseph Henry Professor of Physics and founder of the Electrical Engineering Department at Princeton
  4. ^ William Happer biography ( Memento from July 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) at American Institute of Physics
  5. ↑ William Happer Interview | The Best Schools . In: The Best Schools . ( thebestschools.org [accessed January 16, 2017]).
  6. ^ Ann Finkbeiner: The Jasons: The Secret History of Science's Postwar Elite. Viking / Penguin, 2006, ISBN 0-670-03489-4 , pp. 222-225.
  7. ^ Alan Shaw: University research centers of excellence for homeland security. National Academies Press, 2004, ISBN 0-309-09236-1 , pp. 18 and 19.
  8. ^ William Happer , Princeton University
  9. ^ Zoë Carpenter: The Princeton Academic Testifying for Ted Cruz's Climate Hearing Is For-Hire by Fossil-Fuel Corporations. In: The Nation. December 8, 2015, accessed January 16, 2016 .
  10. ^ Board of Directors. George Marshall Institute, archived from the original on June 1, 2006 ; accessed on January 20, 2017 .
  11. ^ A b John H. Barnhill: Marshall Institute . In: S. George Philander (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Global Warming & Climate Change . 2nd ed. Doi : 10.4135 / 9781452218564.n445 .
  12. ↑ a b MyAnna Lahsen: Experiences of modernity in the greenhouse: A cultural analysis of a physicist '' trio '' supporting the backlash against global warming . In: Global Environmental Change . tape 18 , 2008, p. 204–219 , doi : 10.1016 / j.gloenvcha.2007.10.001 .
  13. ↑ a b White House physicist sought aid of rightwing think tank to challenge climate science . In: The Guardian , June 14, 2019. Retrieved June 15, 2019.
  14. ^ Gayathri Vaidyanathan: Advocacy: Think tank that cast doubt on climate change science morphs into smaller one. In: E&E News. December 10, 2015, accessed January 16, 2017 .
  15. ^ Members of the CO2 Coalition. (No longer available online.) CO2 Coalition, archived from the original on January 16, 2017 ; accessed on January 16, 2017 .
  16. ↑ a b Greenpeace exposes skeptics hired to cast doubt on climate science . In: The Guardian . December 8, 2015. Accessed December 8, 2015.
  17. ↑ Board Members. George Marshall Institute, archived from the original on September 9, 2015 ; accessed on January 20, 2017 .
  18. ^ William Happer: Global Warming Models Are Wrong Again . In: The Wall Street Journal . March 27, 2012. Retrieved December 6, 2013.
  19. ↑ Carbon Dioxide Suffers Just Like Jews In Nazi Germany, 'Expert' Says On CNBC . In: Huffington Post . July 15, 2014. Retrieved March 29, 2017.
  20. ↑ Chris Mooney: Trump meets with Princeton physicist who says global warming is good for us. In: Washington Post. January 13, 2017. Retrieved January 16, 2017 .
  21. ↑ US scientists dare to revolt against Trump . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . February 20, 2017. Retrieved February 20, 2017.
  22. ↑ Adviser who applauded rise in CO2 to leave administration . In: E & E-NEWS , September 11, 2019. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
  23. ^ Climate Denialist to Depart White House National Security Council . In: The New York Times , September 11, 2019. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
  24. ↑ Climate science denier says he resigned from White House post because officials are 'brainwashed' . In: DailyKos , December 4, 2019. Retrieved December 11, 2019.
  25. ↑ Emails: Trump aide had blueprint to unravel climate science . In: E & E-NEWS , December 10, 2019. Accessed December 11, 2019.
  26. ↑ Ex-Trump adviser: 'Brainwashed' aides killed climate review . In: E & E-NEWS , December 4, 2019. Accessed December 11, 2019.
  27. ^ Herbert P. Broida Prize. Retrieved July 24, 2013 .
  28. ^ Member History: William Happer. American Philosophical Society, accessed September 21, 2018 .
  29. ^ Prize Recipient William Happer Princeton University. Retrieved July 24, 2013 .
personal data
SURNAME Happer, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Vellore , India