alt.energy.renewable

Dude, you need a job.


00NBZ wrote:

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> March 27, 2008
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> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,342276,00.html
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> By any standard, atmospheric physicist Dr. S. Fred Singer is a
> remarkably accomplished scientist. But his outspoken questioning of
> global warming alarmism has just earned him one of the most outrageous
> mainstream media smear pieces I've ever seen.
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> ABC News reporter Dan Harris interviewed Singer for more than an hour
> at the recent International Climate Conference. From that interview,
> Harris produced a three-minute TV broadcast and Web site article that
> was about as fair and objective toward Singer as I might expect
> Greenpeace to be.
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> In fact, considering the activist group's dominant role in Harris'
> "report," it seems that ABC News was merely the production company for
> a Greenpeace propaganda hit.
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> Harris' piece starts out, "His fellow scientists call him a fraud, a
> charlatan and a showman, but Fred Singer calls himself 'a realist.'"
> And just who are these "fellow scientists"? Harris didn't identify them.
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> But I doubt anyone who knows anything about Singer could slander him
> like that in good conscience. Armed with a doctorate from Princeton
> University, Singer played a key role in the U.S. Navy's development of
> countermeasures for mine warfare during World War II.
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> From there, Singer achieved fame in space science. Some of his major
> accomplishments include using rockets to make the first measurements
> of cosmic radiation in space along with James A. Van Allen (1947-50);
> designing the first instrument for measuring stratospheric ozone
> (1956); developing the capture theory for the origin of the Moon and
> Martian satellites (1966); calculating the increase in methane
> emissions due to population growth that is not key to global warming
> and ozone depletion theories (1971); and discovering orbital debris
> clouds with satellite instruments (1990).
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> Singer is exceedingly modest about his career. Although I have known
> him for more than a decade, I only inadvertently learned of his
> earlier achievements last year while reading "Sputnik: The Shock of
> the Century" (Walker & Company, 2007), which chronicles the
> development of the U.S. Space Program.
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> The book described Singer, along with Van Allen, as a "pioneer of
> space science." The author also wrote, "America's journey into space
> can arguably be traced to a gathering at James Van Allen's house in
> Silver Spring, Maryland on April 5, 1950. The guest of honor was the
> eminent British geophysicist Sydney Chapman. The other guests were S.
> Fred Singer."
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> Among his many prominent positions, Singer was the first director of
> the National Weather Satellite Center and the first dean of the
> University of Miami's School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences.
> He's also held many senior administrative positions at federal
> agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of
> Transportation and Department of Interior.
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> Despite this illustrious bio, ABC News' Harris apparently was too busy
> swallowing the Greenpeace caricature of Singer to do any research on
> the actual man.
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> In a letter to ABC News, Singer complained that "Dan Harris also
> referred to unnamed scientists from NASA, Princeton and Stanford, who
> pronounced what I do as 'fraudulent nonsense'. They are easily
> identified as the well-known global warming zealots Jim Hansen,
> Michael Oppenheimer and Steve Schneider. They should be asked by ABC
> to put their money where their mouth is and have a scientific debate
> with me. I suspect they'll chicken out. They surely know that the
> facts support my position - so they resort to anonymous slurs."
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> Perhaps the most comical part of Harris' hit piece is the Greenpeace
> contribution. In the eco-activist tradition of willful ignorance and
> ad hominem attack, Greenpeace's Kert Davies said of Singer, "He's kind
> of a career skeptic. He believes that environmental problems are all
> overblown and he's made a career on being that voice."
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>
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> Right, Kert. Singer is just now making his career. And just who is
> Kert Davies, described by Harris as a "global warming specialist," and
> what exactly qualifies him to pass any sort of judgment on Singer? I
> e-mailed Kert a request for his resume in order to learn precisely
> what a "global warming specialist" is. I received no response as of
> the writing of this column.
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> Singer's eminent qualifications and lifetime of accomplishment are
> readily available on the Internet for all to see. What about Davies'
> qualifications and accomplishments? I couldn't find them on the
> Greenpeace Web site; I couldn't find them through a Nexis search.
>
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> Is it possible that their Internet absence is indicative of their
> general nature? All that I could find out about Davies is that the
> media often has used quotes from him in the role of a spokesman for
> various eco-activist groups since the mid-1990s.
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> Worse than Davies is ABC News' Harris. Although he didn't need any
> particular qualifications or expertise to fairly report the interview
> with Singer other than perhaps some basic journalistic objectivity, he
> couldn't even manage that as he allowed the distinguished Singer to be
> smeared by a rather undistinguished blowhard.
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> This column recently reported on another recent mainstream media
> effort to marginalize those who question global warming alarmism. It's
> a fascinating phenomenon given that available scientific evidence on
> the all-important relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide and
> global climate indisputably supports Singer's point of view rather
> than the alarmists.
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> Apparently the activists have decided that since they can't destroy
> the facts, they'll instead try to destroy anyone who dares mention them.
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> Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a
> junk science expert, advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct
> scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
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>