Global Warming: 'Mr. President, You're Wrong'
By Kathleen Brown | July 17, 2015 | 2:46 PM EDT
President Obama’s statements on global warming are “dead wrong,” said Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever, who rejected the president's claims that man-made global warming is causing climate change.
“I think Obama is a clever person, but he gets bad advice. Global warming is all wet,” Giaever said in a speech entitled Global Warming Revisited he gave on July 1 to scientists from 90 countries attending the 65th annual Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany.
Giaever, who was born in Norway and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1964, was one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973.
Although he endorsed Obama in 2008 along with more than 70 other Nobel-winning scientists, Giaever is now criticizing the president’s statements on climate change -- particularly his 2015 State of the Union remark that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.”
"The biggest problem Obama faces is climate change? How can he say that?" Giaever asked. "I say this to Obama: 'Excuse me, Mr. President, but you're wrong.' He is dead wrong...
"So global warming really starts with these two people: Al Gore and [former United Nations climate head Rajendra] Pachauri," Giaever continued. "And what they did - they made this curve popular...And what did this curve measure? Well, this curve measures what is the average temperature for the world for a whole year...For one year. So there's an average temperature for the whole Earth for one year and that measures in a fraction of a degree.
"So what does that mean? I think probably nothing. Let me talk about that again: From 1880 to 2015, the temperature has increased from 288 K [degrees Kelvin] to 288.8 K - 0.3 percent. I think the temperature has been amazingly stable.
"If I take where I live in Albany, New York, there is roughly an 80 K difference between summer and winter at some time, so would you think that a 0.8 degree average on the Earth makes any difference to the climate in Albany? Is that sensible to you?...
"I would say that global warming basically is a non-problem. Just leave it alone, it will take care of itself,” he added.
On July 3, 36 Nobel laureates attending the meeting signed the Mainau Declaration 2015 on Climate Change, which compared “human-induced climate change” to nuclear war, calling it “another threat of comparable magnitude.”
But Giaever reminded the assembled scientists that climate change “has happened all the time, has happened everywhere, and has nothing to do with global warming.”
“So far we have left the world in a better shape than when we arrived, and this will continue, with one exception: we have to stop wasting a huge, I mean huge, amount of money on global warming. We have to do that,” he said.
Giaever rejected the notion that man-made global warming is an “incontrovertible” truth, telling his Lindau audience that “global warming really has become a new religion. Because you can’t discuss it -- it’s not proper.”
But he said he was concerned about the United Nation’s climate change conference, which will be held in Paris later this year.
“I really worry about that, because when the conference was in Copenhagen, that almost became a disaster but nothing got decided. But now I think the people who are ‘alarmists’ are in a very strong position.” he warned, accusing them of resorting to scare tactics without having temperature data to back up their claims.
“If climate change doesn’t work to scare people, they can scare people by talking about the extreme weather. That must work,” he joked, observing that the U.S. is currently seeing a “low period” in both hurricane and tornado activity.
Giaever resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) in 2011 over its official statement on global warming: “The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.”
In an email to APS’ executive director, he wrote: "In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time, and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"
Although APS warned of the dangers of global warming, Giaever pointed out in his speech that there has been only a 0.3% increase in the global average temperature (GAT) between 1880 and 2015 (from 288 to 288.8 Kelvin), which he called “amazingly stable.”
“Everything is going to hell. But the facts are that in the last 100 years we have measured the temperature, it has gone up 0.8 degrees and everything in the world has gotten better...We live better, we have better work, better health, better everything -- but if we go [up] another 0.8 degrees, we’re gonna die, I guess,” he said sarcastically.
Giaever also does not perceive a threat in rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, noting that “if you have more CO2 the plant grows faster...It’s a wonderful thing, but they don’t talk about that in Nature magazine, which he accused of wanting to “cash in on the [global warming] fad.”
“I think the average temperature of the Earth is equal to the emperor’s new clothes. There was a boy who cried, ‘The emperor has no clothes on.’ And I would cry out and say you can’t measure the temperature for the whole Earth with such accuracy.”
He added that the "optimal temperature" for the globe has never been establsihed.
“What is the optimal temperature for the Earth? Is it the temperature we have right now? That would be a miracle.” he said. “Maybe it’s two degrees warmer. Maybe it’s two degrees colder. No one has told me what the optimal temperature is for the whole Earth.”
By Kathleen Brown | July 17, 2015 | 2:46 PM EDT
President Obama’s statements on global warming are “dead wrong,” said Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever, who rejected the president's claims that man-made global warming is causing climate change.
“I think Obama is a clever person, but he gets bad advice. Global warming is all wet,” Giaever said in a speech entitled Global Warming Revisited he gave on July 1 to scientists from 90 countries attending the 65th annual Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany.
Giaever, who was born in Norway and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1964, was one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973.
Although he endorsed Obama in 2008 along with more than 70 other Nobel-winning scientists, Giaever is now criticizing the president’s statements on climate change -- particularly his 2015 State of the Union remark that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.”
"The biggest problem Obama faces is climate change? How can he say that?" Giaever asked. "I say this to Obama: 'Excuse me, Mr. President, but you're wrong.' He is dead wrong...
"So global warming really starts with these two people: Al Gore and [former United Nations climate head Rajendra] Pachauri," Giaever continued. "And what they did - they made this curve popular...And what did this curve measure? Well, this curve measures what is the average temperature for the world for a whole year...For one year. So there's an average temperature for the whole Earth for one year and that measures in a fraction of a degree.
"So what does that mean? I think probably nothing. Let me talk about that again: From 1880 to 2015, the temperature has increased from 288 K [degrees Kelvin] to 288.8 K - 0.3 percent. I think the temperature has been amazingly stable.
"If I take where I live in Albany, New York, there is roughly an 80 K difference between summer and winter at some time, so would you think that a 0.8 degree average on the Earth makes any difference to the climate in Albany? Is that sensible to you?...
"I would say that global warming basically is a non-problem. Just leave it alone, it will take care of itself,” he added.
On July 3, 36 Nobel laureates attending the meeting signed the Mainau Declaration 2015 on Climate Change, which compared “human-induced climate change” to nuclear war, calling it “another threat of comparable magnitude.”
But Giaever reminded the assembled scientists that climate change “has happened all the time, has happened everywhere, and has nothing to do with global warming.”
“So far we have left the world in a better shape than when we arrived, and this will continue, with one exception: we have to stop wasting a huge, I mean huge, amount of money on global warming. We have to do that,” he said.
Giaever rejected the notion that man-made global warming is an “incontrovertible” truth, telling his Lindau audience that “global warming really has become a new religion. Because you can’t discuss it -- it’s not proper.”
But he said he was concerned about the United Nation’s climate change conference, which will be held in Paris later this year.
“I really worry about that, because when the conference was in Copenhagen, that almost became a disaster but nothing got decided. But now I think the people who are ‘alarmists’ are in a very strong position.” he warned, accusing them of resorting to scare tactics without having temperature data to back up their claims.
“If climate change doesn’t work to scare people, they can scare people by talking about the extreme weather. That must work,” he joked, observing that the U.S. is currently seeing a “low period” in both hurricane and tornado activity.
Giaever resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) in 2011 over its official statement on global warming: “The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.”
In an email to APS’ executive director, he wrote: "In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time, and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"
Although APS warned of the dangers of global warming, Giaever pointed out in his speech that there has been only a 0.3% increase in the global average temperature (GAT) between 1880 and 2015 (from 288 to 288.8 Kelvin), which he called “amazingly stable.”
“Everything is going to hell. But the facts are that in the last 100 years we have measured the temperature, it has gone up 0.8 degrees and everything in the world has gotten better...We live better, we have better work, better health, better everything -- but if we go [up] another 0.8 degrees, we’re gonna die, I guess,” he said sarcastically.
Giaever also does not perceive a threat in rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, noting that “if you have more CO2 the plant grows faster...It’s a wonderful thing, but they don’t talk about that in Nature magazine, which he accused of wanting to “cash in on the [global warming] fad.”
“I think the average temperature of the Earth is equal to the emperor’s new clothes. There was a boy who cried, ‘The emperor has no clothes on.’ And I would cry out and say you can’t measure the temperature for the whole Earth with such accuracy.”
He added that the "optimal temperature" for the globe has never been establsihed.
“What is the optimal temperature for the Earth? Is it the temperature we have right now? That would be a miracle.” he said. “Maybe it’s two degrees warmer. Maybe it’s two degrees colder. No one has told me what the optimal temperature is for the whole Earth.”
