US environmental forecaster became a prominent climate-change sceptic
Fred Singer, who has died aged 95, was a scientist who made key advances in rocketry and atmospheric research in the 1950s and 60s but became better known in later years for his persistent criticism of the scientific consensus surrounding climate change and global warming.
Singer was a Princeton-trained physicist who held a number of prestigious academic posts throughout his career, including being a longtime professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia.
He conducted some of the first experiments with high-altitude rockets and satellites, and measuring cosmic rays. He was a consultant at the start of the
United States space programme in the
1950s and later, while working for what is now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), participated in early efforts to use satellites in weather forecasting.
He was a professor at the University of Maryland in the 1950s, then in 1964 became the first dean of a school of environmental and planetary studies at the University of Miami. He held high-ranking positions at the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency before joining the faculty of the University of Virginia in 1971.
During those years, Singer wrote dozens if not hundreds of research papers and press articles, including a 1967 essay in The
Washington Post, written as a retrospective view from the year 2007. He foresaw an ‘‘increased reliance on the electronic computer and data processor’’ and ‘‘increased understanding of our environment’’ that included climate-modifying ‘‘planetary engineering’’. The melting of ice caps and the redirecting of rivers could help irrigate the arid Southwest and produce ‘‘a general improvement to the climate of the North American Arctic’’, he wrote.
Warning in 1971 of the dangers of overpopulation, he noted: ‘‘Environmental quality is not a luxury; it is an absolute necessity of life.’’ At that time, he advocated the ‘‘conservation of resources’’ and ‘‘above all . .. choosing lifestyles which permit ‘growth’ of a type that makes a minimum impact on the ecology of the earth’s biosphere’’.
As some of his predictions came into focus and others faded from view over the next halfcentury, Singer came to occupy a different place in the scientific world. His views of science became entwined with a libertarian, anti-communist political viewpoint that made him increasingly outspoken and contrarian.
He found a new purpose as a scourge who sought to denigrate other scientists who warned about secondhand smoke, greenhouse gases, acid rain and the dangers of a steadily warming climate. ‘‘It’s all bunk,’’ he often said. ‘‘Stop worrying,’’ he told a gathering at Colorado State University in 2011. ‘‘Nothing you do will have any effect on the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere. Even if it did have an effect, it won’t affect the planet.’’
In 1990, Singer founded the Virginia-based Science and Environmental Policy Project ‘‘to challenge government environmental policies based on poor science’’. The group’s mission statement notes that ‘‘omitting critical data violates the scientific method’’ – precisely what Singer’s critics accused him of doing.
From climate to tobacco to air pollution, Singer held firm to one consistent principle: government regulation was wrong.
Genial and glib, Singer spoke in a British accent and was eager to spread his views in speeches, articles and interviews. He dismissed many studies about the dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke and rising temperatures as ‘‘junk science’’. In 1995, he denounced the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for making a ‘‘political statement’’ by awarding the Nobel Prize in chemistry to three scientists who demonstrated that chlorofluorocarbon emissions were depleting the ozone layer.
Among mainstream scientists, he came to be regarded as a fringe figure and a crank. ‘‘He’s not doing first-hand research, and he does not have regular communication with the rest of the climate research community,’’ University of Texas climate science professor Rong Fu said in 2009. ‘‘I’m not sure he’s even on the fringe.’’
Dubbed the ‘‘grandfather of climate denial’’ in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Singer was singled out for his obstructionism in several documentaries and books, including Merchants of Doubt, by science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. He sometimes sent letters to detractors, noting, ‘‘I have some experience with libel suits.’’
Yet, as Singer found himself speaking to an ever-shrinking room, his shouts continued to be heard by lawmakers and some officials who called for the US to withdraw from international agreements on the climate and environment.
To his supporters, he was a hero. ‘‘Where others stayed silent out of fear of retaliation by activists in government and in universities,’’ Heartland Institute co-founder Joseph Bast wrote in an online appreciation, ‘‘Fred was utterly fearless, willing to take the slings and arrows of critics in order to defend real (not political) science.’’
Siegfried Frederick Singer was born in Vienna, the son of a jeweller and homemaker. After the Nazi invasion of Austria, he went to England as part of the ‘‘Kindertransport’’ programme that resettled Jewish children. He arrived in the US in the early 1940s and served in the navy during World War II.
His two marriages ended in divorce, and he had no immediate survivors.
In a 2008 interview with ABC News, Singer was asked whether he was concerned that his assertions about climate change had been largely discredited by scientists from the American Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Nasa and NOAA.
‘‘What can I say?’’ he replied. ‘‘They’re wrong.’’
‘‘You never wake up in the middle of the night and think, what if I’m wrong about all this?’’
‘‘Never,’’ he said. ‘‘Never.’’ – Washington Post
‘‘Nothing you do will have any effect on the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere. Even if it did have an effect, it won’t affect the planet.’’