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A SCIENTIST FOR A SCIENTIFIC POST? THE HORROR! [UPDATED]
I am a week late with this one, but that probably is OK because more likely than not, you missed it too. A week ago, it was reported that President Trump was naming Princeton atomic physicist William Happer to the National Security Council as senior director for emerging technologies. CNN, at the link, performed the expected hit job:
William Happer, a Princeton atomic physicist and prominent skeptic questioning whether humans are causing rapid climate change, is joining the National Security Council as senior director for emerging technologies, according to NSC officials.
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His public stance on climate change is in opposition to near universally accepted science.
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His public stance on climate change is in opposition to near universally accepted science.
That is a false statement. The battle between hysterics and realists continues to rage, and the realists, of which there are many, are winning.
He told CNN in April 2017 that carbon dioxide is not the toxic “pollutant” it’s made out to be and “the temperature is not rising nearly as fast as the alarmist computer models predicted.”
That is indisputably true, and is admitted by alarmist scientists.
Happer, who is not a climate expert, specialized in atomic physics and the study of optics at Princeton.
This is where CNN goes out of its way to mislead its audience. In fact, Happer is a world-renowned expert in the precise scientific field that is most relevant to claims of catastrophic warming. Kan Haapala of the Science and Environmental Policy Project explains:
[P]hysicist Luboš Motl writes:
Unsurprisingly, he [Happer] 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.
A very interesting part of Happer’s background is his understanding of spectroscopy – which includes the study of any interaction with radiative energy as a function of its wavelength or frequency. This goes to the core of any warming from increased greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases slow the loss of infrared energy from the earth into space, resulting in a warming. Happer has written that his calculations indicate a warming from doubling CO2 to about 1ºC, about one-third of the Charney estimates, repeated by the IPCC. It is far lower than what is projected by the climate modelers.
Perhaps the public is fortunate that Happer’s new position does not require Senate “advice and consent.” It would be sad to see politicians preening for the cameras attempting to make political points by pretending to understand electromagnetic radiation, not to mention infrared absorption bands of atmospheric gases.
If we want to be charitable, we can assume that CNN’s reporters are not smart enough to understand any of this and are merely parroting the company line.
UPDATE: Paul Budline sent me a link to this brief video he created in 2014 based on an interview with Dr. Happer:
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