Jason Bourne’s Crestfallen Itinerary
313 free-market nature beat poetry: Ed Crane and David Boaz, Ed., Market Liberalism: A Paradigm For the 21st Century, “Chapter 23: A Free-Market Environmental Vision,” Fred L. Smith and Kent Jeffreys, Cato Institute, 1993.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150124022524/http://www.cato.org/pubs/chapters/marlib23.html
Accessed 7-8-22.
313 Dr. Singer co-hosted: Science and Environmental Policy Project, International Institute (George Mason University), “Scientific Integrity in the Public Policy Process,” May 24-5, 1993. Bates Number: 2025802449.
Jim Tozzi included attending the conference in his monthly services-rendered invoice ($40,000, due on receipt) to Philip Morris for May 1993. Multinational Business Services Inc., To Steve Parrish, Vice President and General Counsel of Philip Morris, Invoice For May 1993. Bates Number: 2023593724.
313 “encouraging speakers”: Philip Morris Report, “PM/RJR Tobacco Task Force,” Steven C. Parrish, Philip Morris Inc., May 27, 1993. Bates Number: 2023375124. U.S Exhibit 26,787.
314 “No one has ever accused me”: ABC News, Nightline, February 24, 1994.
314 Negotiating Dr. Singer’s fee as: Cesar V. Conda, To: William P. Orzechowski, The Tobacco Institute, “Subject: ETS Study,” February 29, 1994. Bates Number: TI11750714.
Washington becomes a smaller town the longer you’re in and the better you do. (All towns stay big for people never quite admitted.) Conda, that Executive Director—Dr. Singer’s fee negotiator—later became Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney.
314 a mouthpiece for industry: Cesar V. Conda, To: William P. Orzechowski, The Tobacco Institute, “Subject: EPA Science Project Action Plan,” March 1, 1994. Bates Number: TI31741054. “If funding for this comes through, there is a possibility that we could get him started on this immediately.”
314 “Worth the $20K we discussed”: Walter Woodson, The Tobacco Institute, Facsimile Transmission, “S. Fred Singer Resume,” March 10, 1994. Bates Number: TI10841120-1124.
314 Second-hand smoke plus a host: Kent Jeffreys, S. Fred Singer, “Science, Economics, and Environmental Policy: A Critical Examination,” A research report conducted by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, August 11, 1994. Bates Number: TI10882892.
Their argument? Serving size. “As mentioned earlier, essentially every substance to which humans are exposed is potentially harmful. Many ordinary substances—common table salt, for instance—are fatal if ingested in sufficiently large amounts. In addition, hundreds of foods in the human diet contain enormous quantities of ‘natural carcinogens.’” Then the clincher. “Because the human species has evolved the ability to self-repair the damage caused by these naturally occurring substances, we are also able to repair the similar damage caused by small amounts of other carcinogens, including the ones found in Environmental Tobacco Smoke.”
314 was unveiled via conference: Representative Pete Geren, Representative John Mica, “Briefing On Sound Science and Environmental Policy,” August 2, 1994. Bates Number: 91826388.
Samuel Chilcote, Tobacco Institute President, To: The Members of the Executive Committee, August 11, 1994. Bates Number: TI40480231.
314 “widely used by the tobacco industry”: Derek Yach, “Junking Science To Promote Tobacco,” American Journal of Public Health, November 2001, Vol 91 No. 11.
314 “Dr. Singer, in his public role”: People were starting to take notice. For example, the Hartford Courant’s Gary Bent, January 14, 1996, offers a little portrait of S. Fred Singer. “There are a handful of scientists who are willing to be paid skeptics for these outlets. One is S. Fred Singer, who has been vehement . . .”
Bent, “Congress Turns Its Back On Ozone Depletion,” Hartford Courant, January 14, 1996.
314 “Scientific critics of the climate doomsday”: S. Fred Singer, “Hot Words on Global Warming,” Letter to the Editor, The Wall Street Journal, January 15, 1996.
314 “recommended the concept of creating”: J.S. Helewicz, To: Executive Committee, January 12, 1996. Brown and Williamson. Bates Number: 700588382.
314 “Top Five Environmental Policy Myths”: S. Fred Singer, “Anthology of 1995’s Environmental Myths,” The Washington Times, February 11, 1996.
The “publicity campaign,” per Shandwick, was known as “The Top Five Environmental Myths of 1995.”
315 “aggressive media interview schedule”: J.S. Helewicz, To: Executive Committee, January 12, 1996. Brown and Williamson. Bates Number: 700588382.
315 The top slot on the myths list: As in previous sections, it is worth reviewing Stanford professor Robert Proctor’s thoughts on the issue—worth the reexamination each time a scientist stoops to pick up a leaf check.
“To repeat: collaboration with the tobacco industry is one of the most deadly abuses of scholarly integrity in modern history. Abuses of the Nazis and Soviets are better known and more immediately murderous, but the mortal force of cigarettes is so vast, and so easily avoidable, that the comparison is not inappropriate. A hundred million people died from smoking in the twentieth century, and we are now on a pace to have many times that in the present century. Academics would have blood on their hands but for the fact that most tobacco deaths are bloodless and distant from the acts that first set mortality into motion.” Robert Proctor, Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition, University of California Press, 2012, 458.
Brown and Williamson Tobacco, “Public Affairs Strategies,” 1996. Bates Number: 531300013. SEPP is, of course, Fred Singer. “With B & W’s assistance, SEPP launched a media relations campaign in January calling attention to the ‘Top Five Environmental Myths of 1995.’ While such issues as ‘global warming’ and radon were on the list, the focus was on ETS.”
315 a piece he must have liked: S. Fred Singer, “Political Battle over Sensible Science,” The Washington Times, December 31, 1996.
S. Fred Singer, “Failed Predictions: The Betrayal of Science and Reason,” The World & I, June 1997. S. Fred Singer, “White House Warms to Greenhouse Gas Theory,” Insight on the News, January 27, 1997. S. Fred Singer, “The Betrayal of Science and Reason,” The International Journal on World Peace, December 1996.
315 “disseminated by public relations firms”: Paul Erlich, Anne Erlich, The Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future, Island Press 1996. 157.
315 “successfully sowing seeds of doubt”: Paul Erlich, Anne Erlich, The Betrayal of Science and Reason, 1.
315 Dr. Singer by name: Many times. And has a nice description of how upwater bad science became generalized bad public opinion farther down stream: it shows, essentially, what service manufacturers pay for and bent scientists provide.
The word the Ehrlichs use for environmental backlash is the kind of unpalatable and non-catchy “brownlash.”
In an effort to appear credible, brownlash writers frequently cite one another, often leaning on statements by the PhD contrarians, which imbues their work with an aura of validity. Much of the nonsense promulgated by Rush Limbaugh in his bid to convince the public to ignore the threat of stratospheric ozone depletion can be traced . . . We’ll deal later with the science that shows Limbaugh’s position to be nonsensical; here we primarily trace the brownlash linkages. [Not entirely fortunate phrasing.] Limbaugh credits his views to marine biologist Dixy Lee Ray’s Trashing the Planet. Ray in turn cited S. Fred Singer.
Twenty-two times. Paul Erlich, Anne Erlich, Betrayal of Science and Reason, 41.
315 “They cannot prove a conspiracy exists”: S. Fred Singer, “Political Battle Over Sensible Science,” The Washington Times, December 31, 1996.
315 Top slot again went to global warming: S. Fred Singer, “Milestones . . . and Myths,” The Washington Times, April 22, 1997.
315 “Of course, there is a spirited debate”: NBC Nightly News, “Profile: Dr. Fred Singer Says Man Is Not to Blame for Global Warming,” July 8, 1996.
316 “hottest year on record”: William K. Stevens, “ ’95 Is Hottest Year on Record As the Global Trend Resumes,” The New York Times, January 4, 1996.
This is the trend interrupted—as Jim Hansen predicted—by Mount Pinatubo.
This is so even though a sun-reflecting haze cast aloft by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled the earth substantially for about two years. Despite the post-Pinatubo cooling, the Goddard data show the early 1990’s to have been nearly as warm as the late 1980’s, which Goddard says was the warmest half-decade on record.
Dr. James E. Hansen, the director of the Goddard center, predicted last year that a new global record would be reached before 2000, and yesterday he said he now expected that “we will still get at least a couple more” by then.
316 “After all, any one can”: Joseph F.C. Dimento, Pamela Doughman, Ed., Climate Change: What It Means For Us, Our Children, And Our Grandchildren, MIT Press, 2014. Chapter Four, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong,” Naomi Oreskes, pp. 65-99.
It’s first-rate reading.
I’ve included two links, depending on whether or not you like using the Wayback Machine.
Accessed 7-10-22.
https://www.lpl.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/resources/globalwarming/oreskes-chapter-4.pdf
Accessed 7-10-22.
316 “If you came up with an alternative”: BBC, Storyville, “Meet the Climate Sceptics,” January 31, 2011.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y5j3v
Accessed 7-10-21.
317 “That impression is incorrect”: Naomi Oreskes, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Science December 3, 2004: Vol. 306 No. 5702.
317 acceptance of man-made change: William R. L. Anderegg, “Expert credibility in climate change,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July 6, 2010 107 (27) 12107-12109.
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317 “Global warming may be”: Federal News Service, “Hearing Of The Oversight And Investigations Subcommittee Of The House Energy And Commerce Committee Subject: Questions Surrounding The Hockey Stick Temperature Studies: Implications For Climate Change Assessments,” July 27, 2006.
317 The same ninety-seven to three figure: Pew Research Center for the People and Press, “Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public, Media — A Survey Conducted in Collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science,” June 9, 2009.
Just the evolution parts: Glenn Branch, “Views on Evolution Among the Public and Scientists,” National Center for Science Education, July 9, 2009.
https://ncse.ngo/views-evolution-among-public-and-scientists-0
Accessed 7-10-22.
317 “The scientific basis for”: S. Fred Singer, “The Long Hot Debate,” The Times, Higher Education Supplement, October 2, 1995.
317 “If we have a real cold winter”: Robert A. Rankin, “Skeptics Question Gloomy Predictions On Greenhouse Effect,” The Miami Herald, October 18, 1988.
One of those new Ice Age prophets? Five words away.
317 “There is a sure threat”: S. Fred Singer, “Will Global Warming Save Us From Ice Age?”, Scripps-Knight Ridder News Service, October 13, 1996. Not science; what an equally enterprising Washington figure might once have called a Science Concept.
In a BBC debate years later with the Chief Scientific Advisor to England’s Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, Singer said he wasn’t worried about a coming ice age. “I’m a temperate man,” he explained.
“ClimateGate Debate on BBC,” November 26, 2009.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDIWj9_SiAE
Accessed 7-2-22.
But ice was the fear Fred Singer kept trying to get started. For example: S. Fred Singer, “Chilling Out,” Washington Post, October 1, 1991. “I’d be more worried about a future cooling,” Dr. Singer wrote, “than about greenhouse warming. Adaptation to cooling would not be as simple as adaptation to warming.”
318 “The best thinking might be”: Ayla Ochert, “The Long, Hot Debate,” The Times, Higher Education Supplement, September 29, 1995.
He’d say all kinds of stuff. Here’s a cause-of-warming theory from 1997, shared by Dr. Singer throughout Europe. “New evidence . . . which shows a startling correlation to patterns of commercial airline traffic. Singer theorizes that thin contrails of ice particles — not CO — are creating a regional warming at the surface.”
PR Newswire, “Dr. S. Fred Singer Wraps Up Successful Five-City European Speaking Tour On Global Warming Controversy: Talks Focus On New Findings, Old Uncertainties,” June 19, 1997.
318 “The polar regions have not”: S. Fred Singer, “Sure the North Pole Is Melting. So What?”, The Wall Street Journal, August 28, 2000.
318 “We spent five hundred years”: Joel Achenbach, “The Tempest,” The Washington Post, May 28, 2006.
318 “I loved it”: Dan Davidson, “Nixon’s ‘Nerd’ Turns Regulations Watchdog,” Federal Times, November 11, 2002.
318 “just got off the stage”: Marc Fisher, “Bill Cosby, Scowling At the Moons; Unsmiling Comic Performs at Church-Related Forum,” The Washington Post, August 1, 1996.
319 a conference in Heidelberg, Germany: The associate was named Michel Salomon. Ron Kaufman, “Rio Document Spurs Debate: Is Science An Ecological Foe?”, The Scientist, July 20, 1992.
Michel Salomon, “From Heidelberg To Rio: Itinerary of An Approach,” Projections, 1992.
319 called it a “statement”: S. Fred Singer, “What Are Scientists Telling Us? — Conflicting Bombardment Of Ideas,” The Washington Times, January 26, 1993.
The Appeal was simply “a document reaffirming faith in science,” Singer wrote then.
319 called it “strongly worded”: S. Fred Singer, “Dirty Climate,” The Washington Times, July 1, 1997.
319 “expressed skepticism on the urgency”: S. Fred Singer, Climate Policy — From Rio to Kyoto, Hoover Institution Press 2000. 27.
319 “urged statesmen to go slow”: Singer, “Dirty Climate,” The Washington Times.
319 “just not at all anti-climate science”: Interviewed by science-interest publication The Scientist, signatories did have complaints. About “animal rights people” who were “clearly irrational” and “worked up [over] caribou.” (One fuddled Nobelist was under the impression he’d signed something roundly anti-corporate. “Philip Anderson, a professor of physics at Princeton University, asserts that ‘industrialists, not scientists’ are to blame for much of the planet’s ecological degradation.”) The Scientist doesn’t mention warming either.
Ron Kaufman, “Rio Document Spurs Debate: Is Science An Ecological Foe?”, The Scientist, July 20, 1992
“The only problem is that the Heidelberg Appeal makes no mention whatsoever of global warming, or for that matter of pesticides or antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It is simply a brief statement supporting rationality and science. Based on the text alone, it is the sort of document that any scientist in the world might feel comfortable signing. Parts of the Heidelberg Appeal in fact appear to endorse environmental concerns, such as a sentence that states, ‘We fully subscribe to the objectives of scientific ecology for a universe whose resources must be taken stock of, monitored and preserved.’”
Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Trust Us, We’re Experts, Putnam 2001. Chapter 10, “Global Warming Is Good for You,” 277.
319 “The Heidelberg Appeal, which says”: Congressional Record, Senator James Inhofe Floor Speech, Volume 149, Number 113, Monday, July 28, 2003, Government Printing Office 2003.
319 “without delay”: Ross Gelbspan, The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, The Cover-Up, The Prescription, Perseus Books 1995. 46-7.
Four years later, testifying before Congress, Dr. Singer took pride in inhabiting the high financial ground. “We work without salaries and are not beholden to anyone or any organization,” he explained. “SEPP does not solicit support from either government or industry but relies on contributions from individuals and foundations.”
Federal Document Clearing House, “Testimony: S. Fred Singer, President, The Science and Environmental Policy Project: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Report on Global Warming,” July 18, 2000.
SEPP—the Science and Environmental Policy Project—is the organization Dr. Singer started at Reverend Moon’s Washington Institute.
320 “dissolves under scrutiny”: Holdren’s co-writer, George M. Woodwell, was director of the Woods Hole Research Center.
George M. Woodwell, John P. Holdren, “Climate-Change Skeptics Are Wrong,” International Herald Tribune, November 14, 1998.
320 Sleuths from Danish Broadcasting: The three vexed scientists were physician Ulrich Zwiener, microbiologist Leslaw Badura, and Erich Korber, a retired professor of dentistry.
Greenpeace Investigations, “The Leipzig Declaration: How Can Over 100 Climate ‘Scientists’ Be Wrong?”, November 12, 1998.
http://research.greenpeaceusa.org/?a=download&d=3241
Accessed 7-11-22.
320 had also been signed by: Woodwell and Holdren, “Climate-Change Skeptics Are Wrong,” International Herald Tribune.
Rampton and Stauber, Trust Us, We’re Experts, 278.
James Hogan with Richard Littlemore, Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade To Deny Global Warming, Greystone Books 2009. Chapter Eight, “Denial By the Pound,” 92-3.
320 “It is widely cited”: Rampton and Stauber, Trust Us, We’re Experts, 277.
320 “It takes a certain amount of courage”: S. Fred Singer, “The Global Warming Debate: . . . Not Scientific Consensus,” The Wall Street Journal, July 25, 1997.
320 lacked “a Ph.D. in any scientific field”: David Olinger, “Cool to the Warnings of Global Warming’s Dangers,” St. Petersburg Times, July 29, 1996.
