President Donald Trump has fired a huge salvo against the man-made climate change establishment with his pick of new top White House advisor Dr. William Happer of Princeton University. Happer, who has authored over 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications, has ripped man-made “global warming” claims. Happer will be serving in the Trump administration for the National Security Council as the senior director for emerging technologies.
Happer has denounced the claims of a “97% consensus” as a “pernicious myth” and has praised rising carbon dioxide levels for “benefitting the world through increased yields for agriculture and forestry, and from shrinking deserts.” Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, emeritus, at Princeton University.
“The hated ‘deniers’ are right,” Happer wrote in 2018 in the endorsement for the new best-selling climate skeptic book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change,” By Marc Morano. In the book, Happer drew parallels to today’s man-made climate change claims. “I don’t see a whole lot of difference between the consensus on climate change and the consensus on witches. At the witch trials in Salem, the judges were educated at Harvard. This was supposedly 100 percent science. The one or two people who said there were no witches were immediately hung. Not much has changed,” Happer quipped in the new book.
Here is how the media is treating the news of Happer’s new role advising President Trump.
Excerpt: William Happer, a physics professor and vocal critic of mainstream climate science, has joined the White House as a top adviser. Happer, 79, told E&E News in email that he began serving yesterday on the National Security Council as the senior director for emerging technologies. NSC officials confirmed Happer’s new role but declined to provide further detail about the appointment, which CNN first reported.
When asked about his new NSC role, Happer said he would do his best to ensure that federal policy decisions “are based on sound science and technology.”
An emeritus physics professor at Princeton University and a former Energy Department official under former President George H.W. Bush’s administration in the 1990s, Happer is well-known for his public criticism of mainstream climate modeling and his ties to the Trump administration.
Happer last year was considered a leading candidate to head the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and met with the president in Trump Tower before the inauguration…
Happer told The Scientist that the significance of climate change has been “tremendously exaggerated” and has “become sort of a cult movement in the last five or 10 years.” Happer also said President Trump, who has referred to climate change as a Chinese hoax, agreed with his assessment.
More recently, Happer has appeared in internal emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act advising the Trump administration’s efforts to challenge mainstream climate science, including assembling and vetting proposed participants for former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s “red-team, blue-team” debate (Climatewire, 10 May).
Happer, who is not a climate scientist by training, is known in physics for his development in the 1980s of the sodium guide star that was initially used for missile defense technology and has now gained broader application in astronomy. According to his Princeton bio, he’s credited as one of the pioneers in the field of optically polarized atoms.
[Climate Depot note: Contrary to media claims, Dr. Happer is a climate expert! Happer, who has authored 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, has testified to the U.S. Senate that the Earth is currently in a ‘CO2 ‘famine.” See: Dr. Lubos Motl debunk media’s claims about Happer: “When it comes to the main physical effect that is supposed to drive ‘climate change’, Happer’s not only an expert. He’s one of the world’s leading experts.”]
But his criticism of climate science stands out.
Happer has accused both NOAA and NASA of manipulating temperature records and claimed that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would accentuate plant life, citing satellite data showing a greening of the planet.
“The public, in general, doesn’t realize that from the point of view of geological history, we are in a CO2 famine,” he told E&E News during the interview in January.
“There is no problem from CO2. The world has lots and lots of problems, but increasing CO2 is not one of the problems.” – Will Happer
Many researchers say other impacts of climate change, such as rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns, have a negative impact on plant life and that higher CO2 levels may not be a boon to all plants, even in the short term.
Happer told E&E News in January that he supported Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord but said he wished the president had focused on how the agreement “did not make scientific sense.” Trump had cast the pact as detrimental to the U.S. economy.
“There is no problem from CO2,” Happer said. “The world has lots and lots of problems, but increasing CO2 is not one of the problems. So [the accord] dignifies it by getting all these yahoos who don’t know a damn thing about climate saying, ‘This is a problem, and we’re going to solve it.’ All this virtue signaling. You can read about it in the Bible: Pharisees and hypocrites and phonies.”
Reporter Robin Bravender contributed.
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End E&E News excerpt
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Former Harvard Physicist Dr. Lubos Motl Rips Media for poor reporting on Dr. Will Happer:
CNN claim: “His [Happer’s] public stance on climate change is in opposition to near universally accepted science.”
Former Harvard Physicist Dr. Lubos Motl responds to CNN: “Right. By their definition, this scam is nearly universally accepted as “science” by these scammers. If you’re an expert in the climate hysteria who is approved by other experts in the climate hysteria, you usually accept that the climate hysteria is rational. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be an expert over the climate hysteria. Instead, the real question is whether a rational society should nurture and pay “experts” in the climate hysteria – “experts” in a discipline where the big answer is decided from the beginning and it’s a scientifically ludicrous one.
We also learn: CNN claim: “Happer, who is not a climate expert, specialized in atomic physics and the study of optics at Princeton.”
Motl: “Is Happer a climate expert? How should we interpret the negative sentence above? You know, as some “climate experts” don’t know, the global warming is supposed to be caused by the greenhouse effect which is physically the absorption of the infrared radiation by the air. Is Happer an expert in that? Well, search
Unsurprisingly, he has written numerous articles that are “mainly” about the infrared absorption bands and Google Scholar finds over 1,000 articles that contain his name as well as “infrared”. So when it comes to the main physical effect that is supposed to drive “climate change”, he’s not only an expert. He’s one of the world’s leading experts. CNN and doomsaying crackpots in general surely find this fact inconvenient but this inconvenience doesn’t make it less true.” [Climate Depot Note: Motl later added:“The whole alleged threat – the greenhouse effect – is a straightforward homework exercise in the exact same subfield of optics (absorption of radiation) in which Happer is a top ten expert in the world.” – Motl called the attacks on Happer’s climate expertise “ludicrous terminological sophistry.” Motl explained: “E.g. here is a peer-reviewed paper on turbulence in the atmosphere which is really atmospheric physics and by content, the very same field.]
Trump meets with Princeton scientist who called ‘global warming’ fears ‘pure belief disguised as science’ – Trump meets with Dr. Will Happer who, in 2015, declared UN climate “policies to slow CO2 emissions are really based on nonsense. We are being led down a false path. To call carbon dioxide a pollutant is really Orwellian. You are calling something a pollutant that we all produce. Where does that lead us eventually?”
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Happer’s endorsement of the new 2018 book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change,” By Marc Morano – Regnery
“Marc Morano’s remarkable book The Politically Incorrect Guide® to Climate Change documents, in their own words, how many honest scientists still insist that hypotheses not confirmed by observation should be rejected. It exposes the pernicious myth that 97 percent of scientists agree that increasing levels of carbon dioxide are an existential threat, one that mandates the surrender of human freedom and wellbeing to an ‘enlightened’ climate elite. The book documents that many very distinguished scientists do not agree. In fact, more carbon dioxide is already benefitting the world though
increased yields for agriculture and forestry, and from shrinking deserts. The hated ‘deniers’ are right. There is no emergency. When later generations of historians analyze the climate hysteria of our time, this book will be one of their most valuable references.” —WILL HAPPER, Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, emeritus,
Princeton University
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Happer in 2016: ‘If global warming were any other branch of science it would have been abandoned a long time ago’
Happer, who has authored 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, has testified to the U.S. Senate that the Earth is currently in a ‘CO2 ‘famine.’ Happer explained to Congress in 2009: ”Warming and increased CO2 will be good for mankind…’CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving ‘pollutant’ and ‘poison’ of their original meaning,” Happer added.
In 2014, Happer ridiculed “global warming” fears. “The incredible list of supposed horrors that increasing CO2 will bring the world is pure belief disguised as science,” he noted. He also ripped the EPA’s climate policies in 2016, declaring: “The EPA is just completely bonkers, CO2 will benefit the Earth.”
Princeton University also has another prominent climate skeptic. Renowned Princeton Physicist Freeman Dyson: ‘I’m 100% Democrat and I like Obama. But he took the wrong side on climate issue, and the Republicans took the right side’
Happer’s meeting with Trump gave rise to speculation about a role in the administration.
The Washington Post reported: “Happer did not answer questions on his way into the elevator to meet with Trump, according to pool reports. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Post. E&E News, which was apparently first to report on the meeting, noted that it was ‘unclear’ whether Happer might be under consideration for energy or science positions in the administration. There certainly remain many of those to fill.”
“Many people don’t realize that over geological time, we’re really in a CO2 famine now. Almost never has CO2 levels been as low as it has been in the Holocene (geologic epoch) – 280 (parts per million – ppm) – that’s unheard of. Most of the time [CO2 levels] have been at least 1000 (ppm) and it’s been quite higher than that,” Happer told the Senate Committee. “Earth was just fine in those times,” Happer added. “The oceans were fine, plants grew, animals grew fine. So it’s baffling to me that we’re so frightened of getting nowhere close to where we started,” Happer explained.
Happer was also featured in the 2016 theatrically released skeptical film Climate Hustle.
Buy now – The Reviews Are in! ‘Climate Hustle’ is ‘the most dangerous documentary of year’ – ‘Wickedly effective use of slapstick humor’ – ‘Lays waste to Gore’ – ‘Brutal & Extremely Funny’
Washington Post: Trump meets with Princeton physicist who says global warming is good for us
Yes, Donald Trump met with Al Gore. But on Friday, according to the Trump transition team, the president-elect also met with William Happer, a Princeton professor of physics who has been a prominent voice in questioning whether we should be concerned about human-caused climate change. In 2015 Senate testimony, Happer argued that the “benefits that more [carbon dioxide] brings from increased agricultural yields and modest warming far outweigh any harm.”
Ex-Bush adviser, CO2 enthusiast meets with Trump – He was director of DOE’s Office of Energy Research — now the Office of Science — from 1991 until 1993, and “wore a dual hat” as the president’s science and technology adviser, according to DOE. He’s listed on Princeton’s website as the Cyrus Fogg Brackett professor of physics. In testimony before a Senate subcommittee last year, Happer said, “For many decades, the citizens of the USA and of much of the world have been flooded with the message that CO2 is ‘carbon pollution.’ We are supposed to trust our government and selfless [nongovernmental organizations] for instructions on how to save the planet. Much of the message is false, but its purveyors control key positions in the media, in the government, in scientific societies, in charitable foundations, etc. This makes it difficult to get out the truth that climate science is far from ‘settled.’ He’s on the board of directors of the CO2 Coalition, a nonprofit whose mission is to educate “thought leaders, policymakers and the public about the important contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives and the economy.”
Watch full interview with Princeton Physicist Dr. William Happer, who is attending scientific summit in Arizona.
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Related Links:
Flashback 2008: Prominent Scientist Fired By Gore Says Warming Alarm ‘Mistaken’
Flashback 2009: Prominent Scientist Tells Congress: Earth in ‘CO2 Famine’
Watch Happer testify to U.S. Senate and debate Sen. Boxer:
Princeton Physicist Dr. Will Happer in 2017 ‘outraged by distortions of CO2 & climate intoned by hapless, scientifically-illiterate newscasters’ Dr. Happer: ‘I can’t see any reason to reduce CO2 emissions. Doubling or quadrupling current CO2 levels will be good for the world. The economic burdens you talk about are all pain with no gain for most of the world.’
‘I don’t question that the earth has warmed since the end of the Little Ice Age, but I am persuaded that most of the warming was due to natural causes, about which the governments can do nothing.’
‘Isn’t the freedom to think what we like and say what we think at the very heart of the scientific endeavor? If so, then how did we get ourselves into this fix? The situation seems to many of us to be truly scandalous — one that historians of science are going to be making hay out of for decades and centuries to come.’
Princeton Physicist Dr. Will Happer: ‘The EPA is just completely bonkers’ – ‘CO2 will benefit the Earth’ Dr. Happer: “The EPA is just completely bonkers,” the professor exclaimed, pointing to the agency’s bizarre and harmful war on the gas of life. “We should tell the truth: CO2 will benefit the Earth.”
Princeton Physicist Dr. Will Happer: ‘The incredible list of supposed horrors that increasing CO2 will bring the world is pure belief disguised as science’ Climate expert William Happer, from Princeton University: “No chemical compound in the atmosphere has a worse reputation than CO2, thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control and energy production. The incredible list of supposed horrors that increasing carbon dioxide will bring the world is pure belief disguised as science.’
Happer: “To the extent it is settled, it indicates no cause for alarm or for extreme measures. Indeed, a dispassionate analysis of the science indicates that more CO2 will bring benefits, not harm, to the world.”
On October 15, 2014 Dr. William Happer, Chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute, discussed “The Myth of Carbon Pollution.”
Key excerpts: Happer: ‘Carbon pollution’ is a propaganda slogan for the campaign against carbon dioxide (CO2). It is not science. Atmospheric CO2 is not a pollutant but is essential for plant growth. nCurrent CO2 levels are far below optimum for most plants, and far below norms of geological history, when CO2 concentrations averaged several times higher than present values. Contrary to unambiguous computer predictions, there has been no statistically significant surface warming in at least 15 years. There is not the slightest evidence that more CO2has caused more extreme weather or accelerated sea level rise. Nor is there the slightest support for the notion that government control of CO2 will ‘stop climate change.’
Watch Now: Princeton U. Physicist Dr. Will Happer on CNBC on benefits of rising CO2: ‘1,000 ppm of CO2 would be beneficial for the productivity of agriculture’ – Happer’s key points: 400 ppm of CO2 is nothing special, 1,000 ppm of CO2 would be beneficial for the productivity of agriculture – which has already gone up a little bit, thanks to the slightly increased CO2 levels. The Earth has seen concentrations as high as 4,000 ppm or higher. It wasn’t during the era of humans – but the era of humans is a tiny fraction of the Earth’s history and when CO2 was around 4,000 ppm, our primate ancestors – whose physiology and climatic preferences don’t really differ from ours – were already alive.
