Politics is a very powerful force! It can even change the climate and reduce global warming. When a University like George Mason lends its name to an organization that powerful we know that it is a potent force! Here's a letter in today's Goucester-Mathews Gazette Journal
The event recently sponsored by the Concerned Citizens of the Middle Peninsula featured Dr. Fred Singer, a distinguished research professor at George Mason University and author of more than a dozen books; Dr. Charles Battig, a medical doctor, scientist and former research professor with industry and academia, and Mr. Kenneth Happala, author and vice president of the Science and Environmental Project.
These three scientists and researchers are participants and members of Virginia Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment. Their presentation was not in keeping with either the current politically correct emphasis on climate change or the current emphasis on the regulatory environment. To put it simply, the aforementioned learned gentlemen of science spoke directly to the existing manipulation of science and fact that has created the global fear-mongering that has been fostered by the hypothesis of manmade global warming.
If you Google
Virginia Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment you can learn more about this wonderful organization that is setting the scientific record straight here in Virginia. Read on for more enlightenment.
Here's their web page statement:
An organization founded by Atmospheric Physicist Dr. Fred Singer of the "Science and Environmental Policy Project" (http://www.sepp.org/). Members of the organization are not paid or affiliated with any special interest groups. Members of SEEE-VA are professional scientists and engineers that give talks to local groups on energy and environmental issues, and write editorials, and white papers. We endorse decision makers that promote rational energy and environmental policy that is based on sound science without hype.
Am I the only scientist in Virginia who finds this offensive? You would think so when local newspapers see fit to publish again and again about how this group is going to save us from the lies and deceit of the UN conspiracy to take us over. Our November local elections were dominated by this stuff.
I am particularly concerned about their violation of a practice we have held to in the academic world in all the over fifty years I have been part of it. If I use my University title it is always followed by the caveat (for identification purposes only). Not so here. It is made to appear that George Mason University is a willing sponsor of this group through Singer. When the Virginia Attorney General when hog wild to violate the rights of Michael E. Mann (see also Michael E. Mann, Wikipedia), and yet does nothing about Singer's claim to be spokesman for George Mason, he has politicized our University system beyond belief. I do not know the outcome of the Mann witch hunt, but things are really bad here in Virginia.
I call upon anyone who has more information about these situations to let me know please. Meanwhile I find that being a University faculty member in Virginia has become tied in with the anti-earth policies of the Republican party in the worst possible way!
5:48 PM PT: Some background on Fred Singer:
Credentials
B.E.E.(Electrical Engineering), Ohio State University
A.M. and Ph.D.(Physics), Princeton University.
Source: C.V. at SEPP website. April, 2009.
Background
Siegfried Frederick Singer (S. Fred Singer) is a former space scientist and government scientific administrator.
Singer runs the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), which focuses on
global warming. According to their website, SEPP also covers topics such as nuclear radiation, DDT, science and regulation at EPA, energy policy, and space exploration.
Stance on Climate Change
Singer has claimed that there has been no atmospheric warming trend: "unlike the land surface, the atmosphere has shown no warming trend, either over land or over ocean — according to satellites and independent data from weather balloons."
He also contends that data collected from tree rings "don't show any global warming since 1940."
Source: "Fred Singer Denies Global Warming," Skeptical Science, Nov 2, 2011.
Key Quotes
"It is ironic that the attempt by two environmental activists to misrepresent my credentials [letters, Feb. 6] coincides with a sustained cold spell in the United States that set a 100-year record. As for full disclosure: My resume clearly states that I consulted for several oil companies on the subject of oil pricing, some 20 years ago, after publishing a monograph on the subject. My connection to oil during the past decade is as a Wesson Fellow at the Hoover Institution; the Wesson money derives from salad oil" (S. Fred Singer, "My Salad Days", Letter to the Editor, Washington Post, February 12, 2001, page A20. Republished by The Heat is Online).
Key Deeds
January, 2010
In the January 2010 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, Singer was profiled in the top 17 “polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming.” In an excerpt of the article about “The Climate Killers,” Singer is described as “A former mouthpiece for the tobacco industry” who “is still wheeled out as an authority by big polluters determined to kill climate legislation.”
March 8, 2007
Appeared in documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle" which portrays global warming as a hoax.
The film includes other prominent climate change skeptics like Tim Ball, Nir Shaviv, Nigel Lawson, Richard Lindzen, Patrick Moore, Roy Spencer, and many others.
May, 2005
In his May 10, 2005 Guardian column, George Monbiot uncovered a story implicating Fred Singer in the spread of misinformation on the state of the world's glaciers. An expanded version of this story made its way into Monbiot's best selling book, Heat.
To summarize what Monbiot discovered:
Monbiot was researching climate change a couple of years ago and when he became nervous about what he thought was the manipulative nature of the “scientific debate.” Then he found a letter by the UK climate change denier David Bellamy in New Scientist magazine. Bellamy reported that “555 of all the 625 glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich have been growing since 1980.”
This was an interesting–and significant–piece of information. But when Monbiot phoned the World Glacier Monitoring Service, he also found that it was, in their indelicate words, "complete bullshit." Glaciers are retreating around the world.
Monbiot chased all over in search of a source for this information. The claim appeared dozens of times in many different locations, but all trails seemed to lead back to the website of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, S. Fred Singer’s group.
When people challenged Singer, he first lashed out, saying Monbiot "has been smoking something or other." But Singer finally conceded, in March 2005, that the information had originated on his site – posted there by "former SEPP associate Candace Crandall." Singer acknowledged that the information "appears to be incorrect and has been updated." "Updated," however, is different than "corrected." You could still find the claim on his website 18 months later.
Singer also failed to mention that the former associate, Candace Crandall, is his wife.
July 28 , 2003
Co-author of Independent Institute report "New Perspectives in Climate Change: What the EPA Isn't Telling Us" criticizing the EPA's 2001 Climate Action Report.
July 18, 2000
Testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Climate Change.
Singer concludes in his testimony that "Contrary to the conventional wisdom and the predictions of computer models, the Earth's climate has not warmed appreciably in the past two decades, and probably not since about 1940."
July, 1998
Testified (PDF) before the House Small Business Committee, stating that "Climate science does not support the Kyoto Protocol and its emission controls on carbon dioxide."
November, 1995
The 1995 "Leipzig Declaration," was a project of Fred Singer's Science and Environmental Policy Project and a group called the European Academy of Environmental Affairs. The declaration stated: "there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide."
According to SourceWatch, when a Danish journalist attempted to contact the 33 European scientists listed on the petition, 12 denied signing the petition and some had not even heard of the Leipzig Declaration. Of those that did admit to signing the letter, one was a doctor and another was an expert on flying insects. The declaration was then revised and many names were removed.
6:10 PM PT: In a contrasting look at university integrity, AlterNet also profiles Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia's attorney general who has used the "climategate" nonscandal as grounds to continue harassing Michael Mann, the influential University of Virginia climatologist whose university research was a primary target of the hacked East Anglia emails. While Mann was defended by his university and cleared of wrongdoing after investigations, the same can't be said for George Mason University's Edward Wegman. AlterNet points out that Wegman is currently under formal investigation his George Mason for pushing bogus climate material for none other than Texas Rep. Joe Barton.
It is worth noting that George Mason University (GMU) is a known breeding ground for climate deniers and heavily supported by the Koch brothers; both the Mercatus Center and the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) operate out of the University have received millions of dollars from the Kochs. There's also Koch Industries executive Richard Fink, who taught and filled various other positions at GMU, co-founded and directs GMU's Mercatus Center, directs the Institute for Humane Studies, is the president of two Koch family foundations that fund these groups, founded the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation (which became the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, of which Fink is a director)...Rich Fink pretty much lives up to his name.