Thirty-four and thirty years ago, on this day, November 29th, 1990/1994, two climate denialists who really ought to have known better (and did, before idiocy overtook them) were spouting their nonsens.
29 November 1990 Fred Singer The Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming: Fact or Fiction? Tasman Institute Seminar
and
29 November 1994 – Canberra Times piece IPA whining about greenhouse, wheeling out Brian Tucker, who had been head of the CSIRO’s Atmospheric Sciences Division.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm/359ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context is this: We have two examples of high status dickheads, one American, one Australian, denying the reality of climate change. What were both sort of relatively crucial moments in history. So in 1990, Ros Kelly had just come back from the Second World Climate Conference. The negotiations for a climate treaty were about to begin in earnest within a couple of months. In the second case, there was a battle going on about whether to have a carbon tax. And in both cases, the denialists will have said, “Oh, it’s all a scare. It’s all hysteria. Nothing should be done, needs to be done. And any action that is taken is merely rent seeking and appealing to silly ill informed portions of the electorate.”
Gee, that went well didn’t it? And I want to say this again. Fuck you, and burn in hell you pricks.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Thirty three years ago, on this day, July 15th, 1991, the famed US scientist Roger Revelle died. Just before he died there was an article published (he’d been arm-twisted etc by that turd Fred Singer, whom he’d known for decades) which said climate change was nothing to worry about. This article was used as a denialist talking point for decades, as part of the confusion campaigns funded by Big Oil etc.
Revelle helped to establish that carbon levels in the atmosphere were steadily rising and also taught science to a young Al Gore in the 1960s. As Revelle wrote in 1992: “There is a good but by no means certain chance that the world’s average climate will become significantly warmer during the next century.”
Singer approached him off the back of this statement, asking if the two men could collaborate on an article for The Washington Post.
Conned at death
That night Revelle suffered a heart attack and was rushed from the airport to a local hospital for a triple-bypass, and was not discharged until May that year.
Singer nevertheless continued to press the scientist to work on a journal article. “Whenever Singer sent him a draft, Revelle buried it under piles of paper on his desk. When Singer called, [Revelle’s secretary] would dig up the draft and put it on the top, and Revelle would bury it again,” records American historian of Science at the University of Harvard professor, Naomi Oreskes, in her account of the episode.
“Some people don’t think Fred Singer is a very good scientist,” Revelle told his secretary.
Later that year Singer published his article, with Revelle named as second author, in the journal Cosmos. It stated boldly: “The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time.”
The words were copied and pasted from an earlier article published by Singer – and directly contradicted Revelle’s own publicly stated views.
Revelle died of a heart attack the following July. Family members, friends and students all claimed that Singer had pressured or tricked the dying scientist into signing off a journal article which presented an argument opposed to his own.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Revelle was old, had been sick for some years. He was a giant of all sorts of science. The one is probably most remembered for the climate stuff, but there was a lot of formidable oceanography work going on for decades.
Why this matters is that Fred Singer latched on to Revelle and got him to “co author” a piece that said CO2 wasn’t really a problem. He then used it as part of the denial war.
George Will wrote stupid column (I know, hold the front page). Revelle’s daughter pushed back. Then when Al Gore tried to set the record straight, some anchordroid – I want to say Tom Brokaw – tried to say that it was all part of the culture war.
What we learn is that slinging mud works.
What happened next? The grad student who had to bend recanted that. Singer is dead at last, thank goodness, but my goodness, the damage he did.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Fifty five years ago, on this day, December 26, 1968, Fred Singer, who had been present for the foundation meeting of the International Geophysical Year, and would go on to be a weapons-grade asshole denialist, organised a symposium (it was part of his day job). That symposium was about the global effects of environmental pollution for the American Association for the Advancement of Science
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the US Federal Government was making some of the right noises about climate change. It had just found out that there would indeed be a United Nations meeting in 1972. But this meeting will have been organised months and months in advance of that final decision.
What’s amusing about it is that Fred Singer became one of the leading the nihilists denialists.
What I think we can learn from this
We knew way back when. We knew.
What happened next
Caroll Wilson organised the 1970 Workshop in Williamstown about Man’s Impact on the environment. The following year there was Man’s Impact on Climate, organised by William Kellogg, in Stockholm.
This 5 years was the period where are the new institutions and collaborations got hashed out – GARP, then SCOPE and so on…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
