Where Fred Singer went wrong

It would appear that talk of Fred’s death has been grossly exaggerated* so, apparently, he is still able to defend himself. If so, bring it on! Better still, why don’t you (i.e. Fred) sue Oreskes and Conway for defamation of character (as they did it first)? I was taught not to talk ill of the dead but, with the [not] late Dr S. Fred Singer PhD, I am afraid I may have to make an exception: Sir Paul Nurse recently interviewed him for the same programme, Science Under Attack, that has done so much to discredit James Delingpole. Unfortunately, being [not] dead, people may be more wary of criticising Singer. To his credit, unlike Delingpole, Singer did not actually say anything obviously stupid; but he did say that climate change is natural (i.e. what is happening now is not unprecedented); and that the IPCC is not an independent body free of political influence. It is hard to understate Singer’s importance in the denialist movement, as is best demonstrated by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in Merchants of Doubt. Indeed, it is truly alarming how often his ideas are repeated by people who should know better (but do not because they are not scientists!); like Christopher Booker, James Delingpole, and Andrew Montford. With regard to the latter, his Hockey Stick Illusion thesis is founded upon Singer’s claim that the entire UN/WMO/IPCC edifice is involved in a politically motivated scam (a claim that I believe Singer knew to be false and, yes, I therefore believe he was involved in a deceitful campaign to prevent action being taken to mitigate AGW). So there, I have attempted to trash the reputation of someone who can no longer defend himself.[?] However, he has left us a very detailed record by which we can – and I believe history will – judge him to have been one of the main causes of humanity’s failure to take action to mitigate AGW in good time. I also believe that, in time, it will also become clear that the cause he championed in the latter two decades of his life (following the end of the Cold War and in the absence of a “Red Menace“) will be found to have been entirely counter-productive: This is because the campaign to protect laissez-faire global Capitalism from being undermined by concern for environmental protection and/or sustainability will, in the end, make the necessary global carbon-correction make recent financial crises seem like mere market-wobbles. Whereas, as the Stern Review (and many others before) made clear, the sooner we act – the less-painful the medicine would have been to take. However, w.r.t. Stern, it should be noted that he was only recommending shaving 1 or 2 % off total economic growth over 50 years (meaning peoples salaries take an extra year to double within that timeframe); and that AGW mitigation is not comparable to building a new bridge; and therefore marginal cost-benefit analysis rules do not apply (Stern 2009, p.13). —- * I think I confused him with (fellow Merchant of Doubt) the late Frederick Seitz (who really is dead)!

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