The reliably unreliable Dr. S. Fred Singer has gone from manipulating statistics for the purposes of disinformation to merely making stuff up – claiming, on the basis of no evidence whatever, that 40% of Scientists Doubt Manmade Global Warming.
Absent anything beyond Singer’s self-serving guess, this must be dismissed as hogwash. A University of Illinois survey conducted a year ago put the number of scientists convinced of humankind’s effect on global warming at between 82 and 90 per cent. A National Academy of Sciences survey reported last summer that it was closer to 97 per cent.
Singer’s egregious misrepresentation is made yet worse by being promoted by a libertarian front group called the National Association of Scholars. This name, by strange coincidence, results in the same acronym (NAS) as the National Academy of Sciences, raising the possibility that unsuspecting readers might mistake Singer’s latest craziness for an actual, credible scientific survey.
Singer fans (and I use the term sardonically, sarcastically – contemptuously) will recall his participation in the Oregon Petition, in which the pathetic old Dr. Fred Seitz – once a President of the National Academy – was induced to sign a cover letter for a ridiculous solicitation for signatures from people who might pass themselves off as scientists and would agree that climate science is just too darn confusing to explain what has been happening in the last several decades.
Anyone who would yet imagine that Dr. S. Fred has a spec of credibility should read George Monbiot’s still-hilarious account of Singer (and/or his ex-wife) making up statistics about melting glaciers. Or, for the full expose on how complicit Singer has been in denying the health risks of second-hand smoke, coal-fired generators, chlorofluorocarbons, DDT, asbestos or CO2, you should go snap up a copy of Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s Merchants of Doubt: it reveals the man at his worst.
(H/T to RealClimate’s Michael Mann for disinterring this latest, stinky Singerism)
