Watson has a long history of doom mongering and general enviro lunacy:
POLITICAL SCIENCE by Ronald Bailey,
Published in Reason magazine, December 1993
Last spring physicist William Happer found out what happens to federal scientists who ask the wrong questions.
He was fired.
Happer, director of energy research at the U.S. Department of Energy for two years, was asked to leave at the
end of May. Although he was a political appointee, he had expected to remain until his replacement was nominated,
since the Clinton administration had asked him to stay on in January. But he was pushed out two months
beforehand. "I was told that science was not going to intrude on policy," he says.
Happer's problems were all the worse because he had earlier tangled with America's ozone czar, Robert
Watson. Watson was the chief scientist for NASA's Mission to Planet Earth program and served as
the head of the Ozone Trends Panel.
He is also a favorite of Gore's. In his book, Gore praises Watson for his
"steadfast work" on stratospheric ozone. And Watson has now reaped his reward: He has been
nominated to become associate director of environment in the White House Office on Science and Technology Policy.
Happer recalls a run-in he had with Watson during a meeting last year of the Federal Coordinating Council on
Science, Engineering, and Technology, chaired by Allan Bromley, President Bush's science adviser.
Watson made a scary presentation to the council in which he warned that ozone depletion would lead to perilous
ecological problems and increases in skin cancer. Watson suggested that an "ozone hole" could open up
over Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush's vacation home.
At the meeting, Happer angrily protested Watson's "exaggerations." He pointed out that during the
Antarctic ozone hole the amount of UV-B light reaching the surface is far less than that reaching the surface at
the equator. Happer noted that the richest fishing area in the world, just off the coast of Ecuador, receives
"a thousand times more UV-B radiation that do the oceans around Antarctica during the height of the 'ozone
hole'. Yet many of the same species of phytoplankton thrive in both areas with little or no apparent damage."
Watson backed down from his most outrageous assertions. But this dispute earned Happer a powerful enemy.
Happer describes the officially accepted approach to climate policy this way: "When you ask this gang
overseeing ozone depletion and global warming how much two plus two is, they first ask, 'Why do you want to know?'
Then you say, 'Well, I'm interested in finding out what's happening to the ozone layer, and I thought the answer
would help.' Then they say, 'Well, how much do you want it to be?'"
In the worst cases, science has been turned on its head. Instead of policy being guided by factual information,
the facts are being forced to fit the policy requirements of certain politicians, bureaucrats, and activists.
"With regard to global climate issues, we are experiencing politically correct science," Happer says.
"Many atmospheric scientists are afraid for their funding, which is why they don't challenge Al Gore and his
colleagues. They have a pretty clear idea of what the answer they're supposed to get is. The attitude in the
administration is, 'If you get a wrong result, we don't want to hear about it."
And this was in 1993.
Watson at Kyoto
...the only news reports that appeared in the local press had to do with statements issued by Robert
Watson, newly elected President of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Waston was asked in a press briefing about the growing number of climate scientists who challenge the
conclusions of the UN that man-induced global warming is real and promises cataclysmic consequences.
Watson responded by denigrating all dissenting scientists as pawns of the fossil fuel industry.
"The science is settled" he said, and "we're not going to reopen it here." (Sound
familiar?)
With that, the issue of science was omitted from any discussion at the proceedings. The science, however, is
drawing ever more serious challenges by a widening range of climate scientists. More than 110 of the world's
leading climatologists and atmospheric scientists have now signed the "Leipzig Declaration" which says,
essentially, that the uncertainties that abound in climate science do not justify policy actions proposed by the
COP III.
Most of the major media, however, has conspired to ignore dissenting scientists. The Media Research Center
conducted an analysis of major media news coverage of the global warming issue between January 1993 and October
1997. They found that of the 48 stories during the period, 39 simply assumed that the science supporting global
warming claims was true. Only seven stories acknowledged that some scientists were skeptical, and in only two
stories, were the arguments of dissenting scientists actually discussed.
Both ABC and CBS were identified as advocates of the global warming science with statements such as Peter
Jennings' October 22, 1997 declaration that "...the overwhelming majority of scientist now agree [climate
change] is being caused by man."
The media refuse to report statements such as that of Benjamin D. Santer, lead author of the IPCC Chapter on
science. Science magazine quotes Santer as saying (May 16, 1997), "It's unfortunate that people read the
media hype before they read the report.
"We say quite clearly that few scientists would say the attribution [of global warming to human
causes] issue was a done deal."
At least six independent polls have now been conducted by reputable firms such as the Gallup organization, and
others, in America and in Europe. Depending on how the questions are framed, as few as three percent of American
climate scientists agree with the IPCC conclusions, according to a survey conducted by the Meteorologisches
Institut der Universitat Hamburg, as published in the UN's own Climate Change Bulletin (Issue 14, Second Quarter,
1997). The most generous estimate of agreement registered by any of the polls was 19%.
That means that at least 81% of the scientists involved with climate reject the IPCC conclusion that
"the balance of evidence suggests a human influence on global climate."
The media and the UN have conspired to orchestrate the most comprehensive propaganda campaign since Joseph
Goebbels tried to prepare the world for Hitler's brand of global governance. In Japan, as was the case in Bonn and
in Geneva throughout the year, CNN has become a 24-hour per day propaganda mill for the UN, using unconscionable
scare-tactics in support of the Climate Change Treaty. Throughout the day and night, promotional spots for their
"global warming" special fills the air waves, featuring hurricanes, floods, drought, storms, and all
manner of other calamities.
and that was in 1997...
This is the UK Chief Advisor on Environmental Policy, with direct input to government legislation.
(Background research by Dennis Ambler)