A highly-controversial
Princeton professor visited
Bucks during Earth Week to
claim that global warming
doesn’t exist and that CO2
(carbon dioxide) emissions in
the atmosphere shouldn’t be
regulated but rather be tripled.
Physicist William Happer
came to Bucks at the invitation
of Richard Petrucco, an
adjunct instructor in the
Department of Math, Science
and Technology. Petrucco
wanted Happer to speak
because “I do not believe that
there is enough certainty in
regard to what is occurring in
our climate.”
Happer’s message, however,
was that of his other persona,
not disclosed to Bucks, the
board chairman of the George
C. Marshall Institute, an antiglobal
warming think-tank that
has been accused of being
funded by Exxon-Mobil to prevent
government action to
reduce CO2 emissions by
undermining public confidence
in climate science.
The ExxonMobil Foundation
was a major source of funding
for the Marshall Institute and
until 2008, according to a
Union of Concerned Scientists
(UCS) report and the
Foundation’s IRS filings.
Happer told Bucks that
everything we have been told
about global warming and climate
change is a lie. “Global
warming” refers to the heating
of the Earth’s surface, while
“climate change” refers
regional climate effects caused
by global warming. He said
that people should do nothing
to restrict human emissions of
greenhouse gases, particularly
CO2.
A Centurion investigation of
work by leading climate
change scientists from government,
private, and educational
institutions contradicts what
Happer told Bucks.
The overwhelming international
scientific consensus is
that climate change is a real
problem and not propaganda.
Who is the real William
Happer?
Happer portrayed himself as
an accomplished physicist with
over 200 published articles, an
unpaid “volunteer” in the quest
for truth about global warming.
According to Happer’s web
site his research and
publications focus
on atomic physics,
not climate science.
Nowhere in
Happer’s biography,
found online, is he
described as an
expert on climate
change.
Happer is “a specialist
in modern
optics, optical and
radio frequency
spectroscopy of
atoms and molecules,
and spinpolarized
atoms and
nuclei,” reads the site.
In 2009, Happer told the US
Senate during a hearing on climate
change, “I am not a climatologist.”
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An investigative report by
the UCS reveals that in 1998,
the Marshall Institute,
ExxonMobil and the American
Petroleum Institute (API)
planned an extensive global
warming and CO2 disinformation
plan that was similar to the
Tobacco industry’s successful
cancer disinformation plan.
ExxonMobil underwrote, “a
wide variety of front organizations
. to attack research
findings that were well established
in the scientific community,”
states the report.
Happer has said “I do not
believe that there is a consensus
about an impending climate
crisis.”
The Centurion found otherwise.
“Warming of the climate
system is unequivocal, as is
now evident from observations
of increases in global average
air and ocean temperatures,
pages 20,21,22-tredit:1_Front_News-1[1].qxd 5/5/2010 3:31 PM Page 2
22 NEWS The week of May 4, 2010
Controversy on global warming
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widespread melting of snow
and ice and rising global average
sea level,” according to the
2007 Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), which
was approved by 150 countries,
including the US.
Happer dismissed the 2007
Report as the work of “UN
bureaucrats” and pointed to
several minor errors to claim
that the report was incorrect.
The UCS web site describes
the IPCC report as “the most
comprehensive synthesis of
climate change science to
date.”
Michael Oppenheimer,
director of Princeton’s
Woodrow Wilson School
Program in Science,
Technology and
Environmental Policy, who
shares a Nobel Peace Prize for
his work as lead author of the
2007 Report, was quoted in
2009 as saying that Happer’s
claims are “simply not true”
and as advising Happer to publish
a scientific report detailing
his claims. Happer admitted to
the Centurion that he has yet to
publish a single scientific article
on any of his claims.
Happer is a member of the
American Physical Society
(APS), an association of
40,000 physicists.
The APS’ 2007 Climate
Change statement states:
“Global warming is occurring.
If no mitigating actions are
taken, significant disruptions
in the Earth’s physical and ecological
systems, social systems,
security and human
health are likely to occur.”
Happer claimed that global
warming is not causing the
seas to rise or glaciers to melt.
He is contradicted by the
NationalAcademies of Science
of the U.S., Canada, UK,
Germany, France and other
countries, which collectively
stated that, “climate change is
happening even faster than
previously estimated.”
Happer told Bucks that
human carbon dioxide emissions
were not a cause of global
warming. He said the exact
opposite in 2009 testimony to
the Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee:
“Atmospheric concentrations
of carbon dioxide (CO2) have
increased from about 280 to
380 parts per million over the
last 100 years.
The combustion of fossil
fuels, coal, oil and natural gas,
has contributed to the increase
of CO2 in the atmosphere.
And, finally increasing concentrations
of CO2 will cause
the earth’s surface to warm.”
The “Hockey Stick”
Controversy
Happer told Bucks that errors
in a graph contained in the
prior 2001 IPCC report proved
that the data supporting the scientific
consensus that global
temperatures are accelerating
is incorrect.
The graph showed that annual
global temperatures were relatively
flat until the mid-1900s,
when global temperatures were
showed to begin sharply rising.
The graph resembled a hockey
stick on its side with the blade
sharply angling up to the
right.Happer failed to mention
that in 2006, Congress commissioned
the National
Academy of Science’s
National Research Council
(NRC) to investigate these
charges. The NRC concluded
“with a high level of confidence
that the last few decades
of the 20th century were
warmer than any comparable
period in the last 400 years.”
Dr. Tim Barnett, Research
Marine Physicist Emeritus at
the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography, UCSD, told the
Centurion that “scores of labs”
have since duplicated the
research with the same results.
A current graph from the
Goddard Institute of Space
Studies showing the decadeby-
decade increase in global
warming is shown below
Carbon Dioxide –
A Benefit to Humans?
Happer told Bucks that it
would be beneficial to the
planet if atmospheric CO2 levels
rose from the present
380ppm to 1,000 parts per million
(ppm).
Happer claimed in his Bucks
presentation and Senate testimony,
that “CO2 is not a poison
and is not a pollutant.”
The building that he was
speaking in was evacuated
because of a CO2 leak the previous
day.
Dr. Gavin Schmidt, a research
climatologist at NASA’s
Goddard Institute of Space
Studies and co-author of the
2009 book, Climate Change:
Picturing the Science, told the
Centurion in an email that
atmospheric CO2 levels in the
past decade are “the highest in
hundreds of thousands of
years.”
Schmidt reviewed the claims
Happer made in his written testimony
to the Senate and
emailed the Centurion extensive
comments. Schmidt wrote
that “Happer offers no evidence
whatsoever” for his
claim that global warming
fears are “‘wildly exaggerated.”
He said that Happer’s testimony
was “banal and bereft
of originality.” In a point-bypoint
review, Schmidt characterized
several of Happer’s
claims as “factually wrong,” a
“Red Herring” and “complete
nonsense.”
When Bucks biology professor
Eric Lifson read an
essay about Happer’s speech
he said, “I nearly soiled
myself. I wasn’t sure if the
dean of our department was
aware of the extreme minority
position of the only speaker
(I’m aware of anyway) to be on
campus the week of Earth
Day! The only speaker to be on
campus for the week of Earth
Day.”