The Buzz On Buzz Aldrin

On July 26th, 1969, at the age of 39, Buzz Aldrin became only the 2nd man to walk on the surface of the moon. This year, at the age of 69, he became one of the world's most famous climate change deniers:

While trying to spread the word about the possibilities of space, Dr Aldrin said he was sceptical of climate change theories.

“I think the climate has been changing for billions of years,” he said.

[...]

“I’m not necessarily of the school that we are causing it all, I think the world is causing it.”

...an event much discussed in on blogs, on Fox, and elsewhere. Less often mentioned was the fact that, around the same time, Buzz also came out as a proponent of the theory that there is an alien artifact--a "monolith", if you will-- on the Martian moon Phobos:

Ah well, we all get old. In any case, many years ago climate change denier Fred Singer also thought something was fishy about Phobos.

Downturn Hard On Climate Change Deniers

Fred S. Singer is a 1st generation Denialists. In his hey-day, he advised Eisenhower on space developments and held that the moon Phobos was an artificial satellite launched by an ancient Martian race.

Later, Singer founded the Science & Environmental Policy Project(SEPP), from which the screen-cap above is taken. This group disputes the prevailing scientific views of climate change, ozone depletion, and secondhand smoke[1]

So why the unseemly cry for funds?

SEPP appears to have been Bushed in the meltdown and needs help. It will be amusing to see their 990 for 2008.

Eli Rabbit has, apparently, been following SEPP's financials for years now. If you're interested in how one of the most prominent denialists gets paid, click on the link above. It is an interesting read.

Martians, AGW Deniers, and The Wiki Wars

An inadvertently interesting piece by the Financial Post's denier in chief Lawrence Solomon, in which he highlights how battles over wiki edits can reflect upon and highlight larger cultural, political, and scientific struggles. At issue are conflicting edits to the biography of one Siegfried Frederick Singer, a once prominent atmospheric physicist who has descended in later years to climate change denial and hacking out contrarion opinion pieces for a number of Conservative journals.

Of particular concern is an edit concerning Singer's views of the Martian Moon Phobos. Presently (but for who knows how long) it reads:

In 1960 Singer supported the suggestion of Russian astrophysicist Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky that the Martian moon Phobos was of artificial origin[10].

In an recent interview, Solomon asked Singer:

“Do you really believe in Martians?”[...] The answer was “No.”"

So is the matter settled? Is wikipedia wrong? Not at all! Because you see Solomon asked the wrong question. The right question is: did you at one time believe that the moon Phobos was an orbiting Martian space base? And to this question, Singer did, back in the early 1960s, answer:

"I would be very disappointed if it turns out to be solid," said the white House advisor[Dr. Singer]. If the figures were correct, he stated, then Phobos undoubtedly is a hollow, artificial satellite. If it is, he said, its purpose would probably be to sweep up radiation in the Mars' atmosphere, so that Martians could safely operate around their planet. Dr. Singer also pointed out that Phobos would make an ideal space base, both for Martians and earthlings.

Wikipedian Fred Bauder makes an interesting argument in the comments in the article, not as to the truth of the above statement, but to its relevance in the greater scheme of Singer's career. To which I would reply that the most important aspect of Singer's career for today's wiki reader is his intellectual decline, and the wiki article accurately reflects the fact that the seeds of this decline may have been planted very early on.

Incidentally, the "nasty" William M. Connolley mentioned in the comments is this fellow, one of my favorite climate bloggers (and ex-climate modeller). William actually occupies the Conservative end of the AGW consensus, so you can often read him on his blog giving James Hansen hell for allegedly going beyond the evidence.

PS Singer eventually changed his mind over Phobos.
PPS. An earlier post about an interesting study of the sociological conditions that produced the first wave of climate change deniers, Singer included.
PPPS. For more interesting observations by Bauder on Singer, see here.

On Why They Deny

A fascinating study by Myanna Lahsen, "Experiences of modernity in the greenhouse: A cultural analysis of a physicist ‘‘trio’’ supporting the backlash against global warming", on how several first generation climate change deniers (specifically the trio of Frederick Seitz, Robert Jastrow, and William Nierenberg, with nods towards Fred S. "alien base" Singer and a few others) gravitated from the center of the American scientific establishment to the Marshall Institute, Cato Institute, and the fringe.

The short answer? After WWII, physicists, and in particular nuclear physicists associated the Manhattan project, assumed an elite position in both scientific and Washington policy making circles. However, as the decades passed this position was challenged by other scientists from other fields (among them environmental scientists). The participation of "the trio" in the "climate change backlash" can be seen as an effort to protect their elite status as well as to refocus U.S. Science policy on "basic science" (ie physics)--to take science policy "back to the 1950s", in other words.

My favorite passage (saying the same thing at greater length):

In the early 1970s, American environmental sociologists predicted that national efforts to solve widely perceived environmental problems would ‘‘run head-on into many traditional values and time-honored practices’’ (Dunlap et al., 1973). This paper confirms their prediction, revealing the role of associated struggles over meaning and values in US climate science and politics. In some respects Nierenberg, Seitz and Jastrow are representative of broader categories of which they are partly part. They share common characteristics with other physicists and with a particular subgroup of physicists and governmental advisors in particular, an older generation of elite physicists shaped by nuclear physicists. The Marshall Institute trio has lived through dramatic changes in popular attitudes towards science and the environment. Their engagement in US climate politics can be understood in part as a struggle to preserve their particular culturally and historically charged understandings of scientific and environmental reality, and an associated, particular normative order. The trio has found support for important dimensions of their worldviews and policy preferences within the backlash and among Congressional Republicans, but they must continuously contend with challenges to the privilege to which they had grown accustomed in science and government.

All sorts of interesting tid-bits along the way to this conclusion. For example, Lahsen confirms the "old fart" nature of the Denialist movement, and suggests that there will not be a second wave once this one has passed:

...the dissenting side has encountered difficulties in terms of attracting new Ph.D.s to their ranks. I base this statement on ten years of research involving monitoring of media articles and events on the climate issue as well as more than a hundred interviews among US scientists involved with the climate issue or knowledgeable about US climate science and politics. This research suggests that only few new actors have joined the ranks of the staunch scientific skeptics on the climate issue since it gained widespread attention in the late 1980s.

Lakatos Law: No New PHDs = A deteriorating research program.

Also, how I signed Seitz's Oregon Petition.

h/t Pielke Jr.

Climate Change Denier: All Hail Our Martian Overlords!

Funny what things you discover using Wikipedia. S. Fred Singer, de facto leader of the Climate Change Skeptics that met at this weeks DeniaPalooza festival in New York City, once served as special adviser to Dwight Eisenhower. And he once advised the President that:

March 1960: The Martian moon Phobos, generally accepted as a celestial body, actually may be an artificial satellite launched long ago by an advanced Martian race, according to Dr. S. Fred Singer...No mention was made of the other Mars moon, Deimos.

Now he thinks Global Warming is caused by "solar cycles".

To be fair, his more recent views on the Martian moons are a little less out there.