Climate change is good for you, says new report from global warming skeptics

The Heartland Institute has put out a new report on one of its favorite topics, climate change. As we've noted before here on the Fueling Station blog, the Heartland Institute has long been on the side of the skeptics, questioning whether global warming was real.

But this hefty (850+ pages) new report takes a somewhat different tack. It argues that global warming hasn't been so bad, and actually benefits humans and plant life -- contrary to what the EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and every other government agency says.

The authors of this tome are Siegfried "Fred" Singer and Craig Idso. Singer is described on the report's website as "one of the most distinguished scientists in the U.S.," although serving chief scientist for the U.S. Department of Transportation (1989) is not generally seen as a path to Nobel honors. He was also founding dean of the University of Miami's School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences in 1964.

The 84-year-old Singer has been dubbed the grandfather of global warming skeptics. Singer has in the past challenged government studies on the harm caused by second-hand smoke  in a study that turned out to be paid for by the Tobacco Institute.

In a 1993 deposition, Singer admitted under oath to taking money from oil companies, such as Exxon, Texaco, Arco, Shell and the American Gas Association. (It's page 228 in the depo, which you can read here: Download S-F-Singer_Deposition). ExxonMobil, which has long funneled money to organizations that question climate change science, has handed over tens of thousands of dollars to Singer and his affiliated organizations.

Idso's think tank is the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. He and his brother have taken money from the Western Fuels Association which supplies 17 million tons of coal a year to utilities to burn in their power plants. Idso previously worked for Peabody Energy, the world's largest private-sector coal company.

By contrast, the heads of the National Academies of Science of all of the G-8 nations (plus five more) -- including the head of the one in the United States -- recently signed a letter urging their countries' leaders to get cracking on cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions because they all agreed that climate change is a major global crisis.

[Photo of Siegfried "Fred" Singer: Heartland Institute]

--Craig Pittman

Comments

[paminator]

Mr. Pittman- So let me sum up what your article says-

"I have not read the report. I have no interest in describing the case presented in the report. Instead, I am shooting the messengers using standard smear campaign techniques. There is nothing to see here. Move along."

If you had bothered to just skim the report (which is available in digital form for free, by the way), you would have found that Singer and Idso were the lead authors, but there were a number of additional distinguished authors, and citations to hundreds of peer-reviewed publications. The report presents the Paul Harvey-esque 'rest of the story' left out of the IPCC reports.

Your lame bio on Singer is missing a few bits-

http://www.sepp.org/about%20sepp/bios/singer/biosfs.html

"Singer did his undergraduate work in electrical engineering at Ohio State University and holds a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University.

Singer has received numerous awards for his research, including a Special Commendation from the White House for achievements in artificial earth satellites, a U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award for the development and management of the U.S. weather satellite program, and the first Science Medal from the British Interplanetary Society. He has served on state and federal advisory panels, including five years as vice chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmospheres. He frequently testifies before Congress."

I'd say Prof. Singer is imminently qualified to comment on climate change.

Here are the contributing authors to the various chapters in the report-

Warren Anderson (USA), J. Scott Armstrong (USA), Dennis Avery (USA),
Franco Battaglia (Italy), Robert Carter (Australia), Piers Corbyn (UK),
Richard Courtney (UK), Joseph d’Aleo (USA), Don Easterbrook (USA),
Fred Goldberg (Sweden), Vincent Gray (New Zealand), William Gray (USA),
Kesten Green (Australia), Kenneth Haapala (USA), David Hagen (USA),
Klaus Heiss (Austria), Zbigniew Jaworowski (Poland), Olavi Karner (Estonia), Richard Alan Keen (USA), Madhav Khandekar (Canada), William Kininmonth (Australia), Hans Labohm (Netherlands), Anthony Lupo (USA), Howard Maccabee (USA), H. Michael Mogil (USA), Christopher Monckton (UK), Lubos Motl (Czech Republic), Stephen Murgatroyd (Canada), Nicola Scafetta (USA), Harrison Schmitt (USA), Tom Segalstad (Norway), George Taylor (USA), Dick Thoenes (Netherlands),
Anton Uriarte (Spain), Gerd Weber (Germany)

MIT professor Richard Lindzen made an interesting point in a radio interview last week on WRKO's Howie Carr program.

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1812/MIT-Climate-Scientist-Ordinary-people-see-through-manmade-climate-fears--but-educated-people-are-very-vulnerable

'When asked about climate fears, Lindzen dismissed the notion that "ordinary" Americans are buying into former Vice President Al Gore's climate views.

"We are too smart for that. You look at the polls, ordinary people see through this, but educated people are very vulnerable," Lindzen quipped.'

[jim]

Bravo, paminator!

[TurkeyWatchman]

Not going to go for a tit-for-tat with someone who !!!OBVIOUSLY!!! knows this report so well, but I will say it is not to his credit that he has an obvious history for skeptic results toward his primary funders interests, and this article makes that point clearly. Perhaps if Climate change proponents hired him they we would have the clean as a whistle results the cigarette companies, Big oil and Coal have seem to gotten.

Perhaps then again the Heads of the National Academy of Sciences have their own level of qualifications.

BTW, is second hand smoke harmful to your health?

[Dan Miller]

Mr. Pittman fails to concoct his smears correctly. re: Heartland Institute's history of >>questioning whether global warming was real.http://www.nipccreport.org.

It's searchable and free.

Dan Miller
Publisher
The Heartland Institute

[Miles]

Typical liberal media! Always pre-judging reports on global warming just because they're bought & paid for by polluters ;)

[Melissa M]

Thank you Craig Pittman!
Finally some reasonable thinking.

Could it be that there is a vested interest in preserving the status quo? Is it that difficult to believe that there are industries who have made billions polluting this planet and are not about to quit without putting up a fight?

Thank you Craig!! Nice work.

I believe that the cap & trade bill will create one of the biggest fights this country has ever seen. I sincerely hope that sound science prevails.

We need more reasonable voices in this debate.

[Derek Wall]

Well Singer argued that tobacco smoke was less of a danger than the doom mongers suggested and now he is arguing that climate change is nothing to worry about...do we detect a pattern here?