  |
|
 |
|
|
|
Junk Science: Global Smearing Steven Milloy 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. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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). 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.
|
||||
