A SHOCKER! – Installment 9 Global Warming/Climate Change
A SHOCKER! – Installment 9 – May 29, 2008 Re-Post
In 1991, Al Gore wrote his book, Earth in the Balance, in which he cites his mentor and former professor, the late Dr. Roger Revelle, a renowned oceanographer and the first to recognize the effects of rising atmospheric CO2 on the earth’s temperature. Gore’s book called for awareness of carbon dioxide emissions into the air and its effects, and drastic changes in society to combat the perceived problem. The book was published in 1992. Gore spoke before Congress and the U.N. expressing his position that the end was only ten years away and measures must be implemented immediately. Gore put his reputation on the line with his global warming alarmist messages.
About the same time that Gore was writing his book, Prof. Revelle was writing a paper for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on greenhouse warming with co-authors Dr. Chauncy Star and Dr. S. Fred Singer, which was later presented to the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C. and published in their monthly journal. According to Dr. Singer, the conclusion was a simple message: “The scientific base for greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time.” These words were almost identical to those written by Dr. Revelle to members of Congress after their hearing on global warming in 1988, which was instigated and chaired by Senator Al Gore.
It is noted that then Sen. Timothy Wirth (D., CO) ignored Revelle’s scientific opinion and joined with Gore in escalating the alarm over Earth’s warming climate. On a PBS “Frontline” special, “Hot Politics”, he explained Gore’s ploy, with Wirth’s help, to set the stage for the hearing. They called the weather station and asked what the hottest day of the year was. When they were told that historically it was June the 6th (or the 9th – Wirth didn’t remember), they scheduled the hearing for that day in June, which turned out to be the hottest day on record for Washington, D.C. Wirth tells that the night before the hearing, they went into the chambers and opened all the windows so that the air conditioners wouldn’t work. It was a set up. During the hearing, people were wiping sweat off their brows. Gore, of course, pushed for immediate legislation to restrict activities that produced CO2 and caused a greenhouse effect. http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDk2YjVlYTYzZjZkNTRhZWU2NGNkNzcw…=
Revelle’s paper in the Cosmos didn’t get much attention right away. It was a year later, when journalist Gregg Easterbrook, contributing editor to Newsweek, referred to it in a piece entitled “Green Cassandras” in the July 6, 1992 issue of the New Republic, and gave it a political slant. He made the allegation that Gore credited Revelle with introducing him to the problem of climate change, but failed to mention that before his death a year earlier, Revelle had published a paper that concluded that “the scientific base for greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time. There is little risk in delaying policy responses.”
Other columnists and editors, including George Will, picked up on this and the contradiction got traction. Just as this embarrassment for Gore was breaking out, he was selected by Bill Clinton to be his running mate in the presidential election of 1992. Gore couldn’t afford the negative press and the controversy, which came up in a vice-presidential debate. Sen. Gore deflected it, charging that Dr. Revelle’s views had been “taken completely out of context.”
In July of 1992, Dr. S. Fred Singer received a phone call from Dr. Justin Lancaster at the Environmental Science and Policy Institute, Harvard University, claiming to be a former associate of Dr. Revelle’s. Lancaster demanded that Singer remove Revelle’s name from the article to be reprinted in the Geyer volume. Aghast at the demand, Singer refused, saying that he could not do that without the author’s permission and the author had died. Also that the copyright belonged to Cosmos.
Lancaster then waged a smear and pressure campaign on Singer to the extent that Singer filed a law suit against him and won! Lancaster took opportunities to say that Dr. Revelle had not really co-authored the piece, then Revelle’s mental capacities were failing at the time. There was evidence to disprove all of the smear tactics engaged in by Lancaster, a fact which he admitted in a legal statement after losing the court battle. During the trial, it was revealed that Al Gore had called Lancaster after Easterbrook’s article came out and asked about Revelle’s mental capabilities and views at the time this paper was written. Lancaster had replied in a letter that Revelle was sharp and these were his stated views.
A member of Gore’s staff, Dr. Anthony D. Socci, tried the same tactics, writing to the Geyer publishers requesting that the Cosmos article be dropped. The “request” was denied. Sadly, Gore was not satisfied with the outcome of Lancaster or Socci’s attempt to squash the inconvenient truth.
http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817939326_283.pdf (direct quote with some abbreviations)
On February 24, 1994, Ted Koppel revealed on his Nightline television program that Vice-President Al Gore had called him and suggested that Mr. Koppel investigate the political and economic forces behind the “anti-environmental” movement. In particular, VP Gore had urged Koppel to expose as fact that several U.S. scientists who had voiced skeptical views about greenhouse warming were receiving financial support from the coal industry and/or groups such as the Lyndon Larouche organizations or Reverend Moon’s Unification Church.
Mr. Koppel didn’t do the VP’s bidding and asked rhetorically, “Is this a case of industry supporting scientists who happen to hold sympathetic views, or scientists adapting their views to accommodate industry?” He closed the show by chastising Gore for trying to use the media to discredit skeptical scientists:
“There is some irony in the fact that Vice-President Gore – one of the most scientifically literate men to sit in the White House in this century – {is} resorting to political means to achieve what should ultimately be resolved on a purely scientific basis. The measure of good science is neither the politics of the scientist nor the people with whom the scientist associates. It is the immersion of hypotheses into the acid of truth. That’s the hard way to do it, but it’s the only way that works.” Ted Koppel
There is no more time to do nothing.
Marbie's Blog 
The Cosmos Myth, as echoed above, depends on the biased and distorted account of Crandall and Singer in the Hoover volume, which was not written or presented under oath. More informative are the court documents from MA Civil Action No. 93-2219, Singer’s deposition under oath, Lancaster’s sworn affidavit and the original writings themselves that constitute the history of the article.
See http://home.att.net/~espi/Cosmos_myth.html
Also see broader context of this story described by James Hoggan in the new book Climate Cover-Up, http://bit.ly/3eNaFd
What I said and wrote in the early 90s was true and supported by evidence. I conceded then in the maw of the SLAPP suit brought against me by energy-industry-backed interests, but in 2006 I fully and unequivocally recanted the earlier retraction and published the evidence that supports the truth of my original statements that brought this matter to light.
Respectfully,
J. Justin Lancaster, J.D.,Ph.D.
Environmental Science and Policy Institute
http://espi.home.att.net/
ESPI@att.net
Justin Lancaster
March 2, 2010
Dr. Lancaster, Thank you for your comment.
marbiesblog
April 12, 2010
Utterly fascinating how Dr Lancaster refers to James Hoggan of Desmogblog, a place that was formed around the writings of anti-skeptic book author Ross Gelbspan, the central figure within my article from last year: “Fakegate Opens a Door: More than meets the eye in the Heartland controversy” http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/fakegate_opens_a_door.html
Russell Cook (@questionAGW)
February 25, 2013
“Utterly fascinating”??!! Why? I showed S. Fred Singer’s sworn testimony to Mr. Gelbspan in the 1990s, in which Singer admits that he wrote the Cosmos article with his cronies and that Revelle’s only contribution to the writing of the article occurred upon review of the galley proofs. Those proofs have notations in Revelle’s handwriting that evidence he thought warming in 21st century would be in range of 2-3 degrees Celsius, completely inconsistent with the language in the published article. Revelle’s participation was manipulated and then further abused after his death. I’ve not a shred of doubt that this was engineered and executed for the specific purpose of undermining Al Gore’s influence on the AGW issue. The article was read into the Congressional Record and then spoonfed to Admiral Stockdale for the VP debate.
Justin Lancaster
March 1, 2013
Thanks for the reply, wasn’t sure if you got comment alerts here after all this time. My bad, I didn’t know you had contacted Mr. Gelbspan.
Though it doesn’t appear as if your efforts there amounted to anything. Assuming you showed him the proofs after his ’97 book came out, there’s no mention of this situation in his 2004 book, and I sure don’t find him saying anything about the matter anywhere else. Did he not think any of this was important?
Russell Cook (@questionAGW)
August 8, 2013
The affidavits presented to the court are here: http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/revelle-gore-singer-lindzen — I presented all this information to Mr. Gelbspan close to the time of settling the lawsuit, well in advance of his 1997 book. I think he missed a huge opportunity as a journalist to look more closely at Dr. Singer’s actions in this instance. Indeed, he may not have thought it important enough.
Justin Lancaster
August 11, 2013
Surfed across the Sept Rabett Run blog today where you added a comment which Eli reproduced in a different post, reminding me that I’d long spaced out looking at the above affidavits. Dr Singer’s 77 pages will take a while to thumb through. Begs one good question, though, I don’t see what good it would have done to show these to Mr Gelbspan during a time when he’d been retired at least a year or more, out of the reporter loop. You approached current reporters at the time, first I assume. But they didn’t see the value of the affidavits and maybe Gelbspan had connections to pave a way for you? I’m lost on this, since I only see how he would have known who Dr Singer was a bit before his famous 1995 Harper’s magazine article.
Russell Cook
December 16, 2014
Key inaccuracies above:
— Revelle did not coauthor AAAS paper with Starr and Singer.
— Cosmos Club article was written and published independently and prior by Singer solo, apparently without Revelle’s knowledge.
— Revelle took no active part in writing and his offered correction to the science in a single review of galley proofs was ignored by Singer in published version.
— I was an editor on Geyer volume and the piece did not meet our stated chapter criteria. This was ramrodded by Singer and Geyer.
— There was no trial. Singer’s libel suit was settled in balance of his coercion and his likely loss at trial given his deposition and the underlying truth. Case predates MA SLAPP legislation, else would not have had to give the coerced retraction. I never wrote a word that was not true.
— I did not seek out Gelbspan. It was other way round, as he was prepping for his book. He failed miserably in my estimation to follow multiple leads to help public understand connection between energy industry and Singer’s actions.
Justin Lancaster
December 17, 2014
Thanks for the summary! A family obligation took me away yesterday and may do so again, but I’ll refer to your notes when I get back into the 77 pages (hard to follow at first glance). Oops on assuming you contacted Mr Gelbspan first. When you said “close to the time of settling”, did you mean right before case ended? Merchants of Doubt took the time to tell about your case, but I wonder if Mr Gelbspan was steered into looking at ‘big coal / oil’ funding because of your case, he just didn’t give credit for it or thought it was too hard to explain? Did he say what brought him to you? I imagine Ms Oreskes and Mr Conway must have said why because of the obvious direction of their book (I loaned my copy out and need it back to do more than just a skim-though).
Russell Cook
December 18, 2014