FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Candace Crandall
Tel: (703) 503-5064
e-mail: crandall@sepp.org

WASHINGTON, D.C., OCTOBER 30, 1997---Atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer today challenged the Clinton Administration to bring its climate experts to the table for an open debate on the scientific case for global warming. Speaking on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, at a press briefing organized by a coalition of consumer, economic, and science policy groups, Singer charged the Administration with "hiding the serious uncertainties and lack of observed evidence behind the babble of government functionaries and professional activists." The result has been much public confusion, he said. "The increase in temperature over the last 50 years has been negligible; over the last 20 years, global weather satellite data have shown the temperature trend slightly down. It is time to debate this issue publicly," said Singer, "and to put the evidence before the American people."

SEPP President S. Fred Singer, flanked by representatives from 11 consumer and economic policy groups, challenges the Administration to an open debate on the evidence of global warming.

Singer, who chaired the U.S. government panel investigating possible climate effects from a fleet of supersonic transports (SSTs), said that Administration officials have been only too happy to have their army of activist allies make unfounded claims of impending calamity. "The Administration will trot out EPA Administrator Carol Browner or White House Council of Environmental Quality Chairman Katie McGinty to debate some industry straw man," said Singer, "but suggest that anyone from government--or doing research paid for by the government--appear in open debate with climate experts and suddenly no one is available."

"The proposals put forth at Kyoto in December will have a profoundly negative impact on the poorest among us--those whose lives are already on the margin," he said. "The cost to American families--in job losses and higher prices for food, electricity, and transportation, and in funding a burgeoning international bureaucracy--will be enormous. But the biggest loser in all of this political maneuvering will be science." Said Singer, "I am here to defend science."

Singer called on the Clinton Administration to provide a panel of climate scientists to publicly debate the global warming issue with an equal number of climate scientists holding opposing views. "Let them bring their data. We'll bring ours," he said. "If the case for global warming is so settled, so compelling, they should have no qualms about defending their position." He asked members of Congress to set a time and a place.

S. Fred Singer, who earned his Ph.D. in physics at Princeton University, was the first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, founding Dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences, University of Miami; Chief Scientist, U.S. Department of Transportation; Deputy Assistant Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior; and Professor Emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, among other positions.

Singer is President and founder of The Science & Environmental Policy Project, a non-profit, educational organization based in Fairfax, Virginia. A Fellow of the AAAS, American Geophysical Union, and the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, Singer has received numerous honors, including a White House Commendation for the early design of space satellites and a Commerce Department Gold Medal for the development and management of weather satellites. He was recognized by NASA in 1997 for his research on particle clouds. Singer's 16th book, just out, is Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate (Oakland, California: Independent Institute, 1997). His full biography and curriculum vitae can be seen on the SEPP web site.

A bit of history:

On January 27, 1992, then-Senator Albert Gore was scheduled to appear on "Larry King Live" to discuss the global warming issue. When he learned that Dr. Fred Singer had been booked to appear on the same program, Gore backed out, saying that he "could not appear under those circumstances." The segment was canceled. A week later, Larry King agreed to let Gore back on the show, alone and unchallenged.

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