Ahh, the old "founder of field retracts on his deathbed" line - so popular with religious folk everywhere. Darwin regularly got this treatment from creationists, now it's Roger Revelle getting his name tarnished by denialists.
The real story:
In 1991, Revelle's name appeared as co-author on an article written by physicist
S. Fred Singer and electrical engineer
Chauncey Starr for the publication
Cosmos: A Journal of Emerging Issues, titled "What to do about greenhouse warming: Look before you leap," which was published in the summer of 1992. The Cosmos article included the statement that "Drastic, precipitous—and, especially, unilateral—steps to delay the putative greenhouse impacts can cost jobs and prosperity and increase the human costs of global poverty, without being effective. Stringent economic controls now would be economically devastating particularly for developing countries...".
[7][8] The article concluded: "The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time. There is little risk in delaying policy responses."
[7]
These particular statements and the bulk of the article, including the title, had been written and published a year earlier by S. Fred Singer, as sole author.
[9] Singer's article stated that "there is every expectation that scientific understanding will be substantially improved within the next decade," and advocated against
drastic and "hastily-conceived" action at the time without further scientific evidence. It does not, however, deny climate change or global warming.
Justin Lancaster, Revelle's graduate student and teaching assistant at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1981 until Revelle's death, says that Revelle was "hoodwinked" by Singer into adding his name to the article and that Revelle was "intensely embarrassed that his name was associated" with it.
[10][11] In 1992, Lancaster charged that Singer's actions were "unethical" and specifically designed to undercut then–Senator
Al Gore's global warming policy stance; however, to end a lawsuit brought by Singer against Lancaster with support of the Center for Public Interest in Washington, D.C., Lancaster gave Singer a statement of apology, but refused to admit that anything he said was false. In 2006, prompted by Robert Balling and others continuing to state that Revelle actually wrote the article, Lancaster formally withdrew his retraction and reiterated his charges.
[12][10]
When Gore was running for the vice-presidential nomination in
1992,
The New Republic picked up on the contrast between the references to Revelle in Gore's book,
Earth in the Balance, and the views in the
Cosmos article that could now be attributed to Revelle. This was followed up by
Newsweek and elsewhere in the media.
Patrick Michaels boasted that the
Cosmos article had been read into the Congressional Record. The issue was even raised by Admiral
James Stockdale in the televised vice-presidential debate. Gore's response was to protest that Revelle's views in the article had been taken out of context.
Roger's daughter, Carolyn Revelle, wrote:
Contrary to George Will's "Al Gore's Green Guilt" Roger Revelle—our father and the "father" of the greenhouse effect—remained deeply concerned about global warming until his death in July 1991. That same year he wrote: "The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time."
Will and other critics of Sen. Al Gore have seized these words to suggest that Revelle, who was also Gore's professor and mentor, renounced his belief in global warming. Nothing could be further from the truth. When Revelle inveighed against "drastic" action, he was using that adjective in its literal sense—measures that would cost trillions of dollars. Up until his death, he thought that extreme measures were premature. But he continued to recommend immediate prudent steps to mitigate and delay climatic warming. Some of those steps go well beyond anything Gore or other national politicians have yet to advocate. [...] Revelle proposed a range of approaches to address global warming. Inaction was not one of them. He agreed with the adage "look before you leap," but he never said "sit on your hands."
[13]
