S. 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.

Affiliations  

• The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) — President.
• The Cato Institute — Editorial Advisory Board Member.
• American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) — Advisory Board Member.
• National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) — Adjunct Scholar.
• Independent Institute — Research Fellow.
• Institute for Humane Studies, George Mason University — Distinguished Research Professor
• Frontiers of Freedom — Former Adjunct Fellow.
• Hoover Institution — Former Fellow.
• Heritage Foundation — Former Fellow.
• The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) — Former Fellow.
• Global Climate Change (newsletter) — Editor.
• Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies — Featured Expert
• Weidenbaum Center, Washington University — Published some of Singer's papers.
• Center for the New Europe (CNE) — Featured Expert.

According to a January 2007 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists called "Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air," Singer is affiliated with 11 think tanks and associations that have received funding from ExxonMobil. Singer's own "Science and Environmental Policy Project" (SEPP) has received $20,000 from ExxonMobil.

According to SourceWatch, Singer has also done consulting work for other major oil companies including Texaco, Arco, Shell, Sun, Inocal, the Electric Power Institute, Florida Power and the American Gas Association.

 Sepp

Fred Singer founded the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) in 1990. While engaged in activities denying the existence of man-made global warming, SEPP has received funding from numerous oil companies including Shell, Uniroyal and ARCO as well as $20,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Big Tobbacco

DeSmogBlog reported that Singer worked with an organization challenging the claims by the US Environmental Protection Agency that second-hand tobacco smoke is bad for human health.

Singer also collaborated on an article for APCO Associates, the PR firm hired by The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), on behalf of Philip Morris for their "junk science" campaign.

Fred Sietz

Fred Sietz was the Chair of Fred Singer's SEPP project, and was the co-organizer of The "Oregon Petition" was organized by Art Robinson and Fred Seitz. Seitz was past Chair of Fred Singer's SEPP project. He has also been the former medical advisor to RJ Reynolds medical research program.

A 1989 Philip Morris memo stated that Seitz was: “quite elderly and not sufficiently rational to offer advice.” However, nine years later, it seems that he was “sufficiently rational” to lead the charge on Robinson’s Oregon Petition. It also seems that Seitz was still “sufficiently rational” to sit as the Chair of notorious climate change denier, Fred Singer’s, Science and Environmental Policy Project.

The Oregon Petition has been used by climate change deniers as proof that there is no scientific consensus, however they fail to note the controversy surrounding the petition itself. In April 1998, Robinson’s Oregon Institute, along with the Exxon-backed George C. Marshall Institute, co-published the infamous "Oregon Petition," claiming to have collected 17,000 signatories to a document arguing against the realities of global warming.

 Publications

According to a search of 22,000 academic journals, Singer has published 45+ research articles in peer-reviewed journals, mainly on the subject of climate change.

Singer co-authored a global warming denial book called Unstoppable Global Warming, with Dennis Avery, a "Senior Fellow" at an organization called the Hudson Institute, a US think-tank that has received funding from ExxonMobil.

 Sources

• "S. Fred Singer," SourceWatch. Accessed Nov 2, 2011.
• "ExxonSecrets Factsheet: S. Fred Singer," ExxonSecrets. Accessed Nov 2, 2011.
• "Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change," SourceWatch. Accessed Nov 2, 2011.
• "The Leipzig Declaration," SEPP.org (Archived January 27, 2010).

Related Materials

• "Testimony of Dr. S. Fred Singer, President, SEPP to the Committee on Small Business, US House of Representatives (James M. Talent, Chairman)," (PDF) Retrieved from Greenpeace USA, Nov 2, 2011.