Trump's potential science adviser William Happer: hanging around with conspiracy theorists | Graham Readfearn

William Happer is a physicist at Princeton University – one of those US academic institutions with brand recognition for academic excellence that travels the globe.

Happer is well known for his contrarian views (that’s the polite term) on human-caused climate change.

So when it emerged last week that the professor might seriously be in the running to be President Donald Trump’s science adviser, that Princeton tag no doubt added an air of authority to his opinions.

In short, Happer thinks more CO2 will only be good for the planet – putting him at odds with science academies around the world.

“There’s a whole area of climate so-called science that is really more like a cult,” Happer told the Guardian. “It’s like Hare Krishna or something like that. They’re glassy-eyed and they chant. It will potentially harm the image of all science.”

Happer has also compared the “demonisation” of carbon dioxide to the “demonisation of poor Jews under Hitler” – because a Nazi reference will always get you noticed.

But here’s the thing — the first of many to note about Happer. First, he is not, by any stretch, an expert on climate change science.

Happer’s record of getting scientific papers published in leading journals on climate change science is at, or very close to, zero. Simply, he knows a lot about some stuff, but he is not a climate scientist.

While he has a distinguished career as an atomic physicist, previously serving the administration of George HW Bush as a science director, the 77-year-old’s views on climate science are outnumbered by all the credible evidence, all the credible science agencies and are also being laughed at by the Earth’s thermometers and its melting ice sheets and glaciers.

Prof Michael Oppenheimer has scores of articles on climate science in leading journals going back to the mid-1990s. He’s a climate scientist … at Princeton.

So what does Oppenheimer think of his colleague?

“With respect to climate science and scientists,” Oppenheimer told me by email, “[Happer] is not only unknowledgeable but appears to have become unmoored.”

Ouch. But then, maybe Oppenheimer has glassy eyes?

Happer has laid out his thoughts on climate change in some detail in an ongoing Focused Civil Dialogue (my irony meter just exploded) with the Australian climate scientist Prof David Karoly.

While Happer’s contribution seems technical, it’s the same parade of zombie talking points that actual climate scientists have been dealing with for years.

Happer says CO2 levels and temperatures have been much higher in the past and that life “flourished” under these conditions many millions of years ago.

He doesn’t mention that during those times sea levels were probably several metres – sometimes well over 10 metres – higher than they are today. If that’s the world you want to advocate, then it’s time to call the removal guys for most of the world’s major coastal cities.

The climate scientist Dr Nerilie Abram, of Australian National University, specialises in the climate of the ancient past. She told me:

Happer also rolls out that mouldy old chestnut that CO2 is just food for plants, but ignores the research on the impacts that higher concentrations of CO2 will have on our global food supply.

Research into some staple crops such as rice, wheat and sorghum, for example, finds that they end up with less protein when CO2 is at higher concentrations. That’s before you worry about how food crops will cope with droughts and heatwaves.

At a conference in December Happer said his “main concern” was that climate change was “likely to damage public perceptions of science”.

If Happer is concerned about the reputation of science, then he’s picking some very odd places to hang around – that conference being one of them.

The Arizona gathering was organised by Freedom Force International – a group led by the famed conspiracy theorist G Edward Griffin. He fits right in with the booming culture of conspiracy that’s growing big audiences online.

Among many other things, Griffin has said there is “no such thing” as HIV and that human-caused climate change is a hoax.

Griffin also promotes conspiracies around “chemtrails”. Just punch that word into your favourite search engine for hours of family fun (don’t actually do that).

To summarise, there’s a plan to spray the atmosphere with chemicals added to planes to poison everyone and “they” are using weather modification as a weapon.

Griffin has said “somebody is spending a lot of money and effort to spray the planet” and that this is probably some international effort.

Also appearing at the conference was the British hereditary peer and climate science denier Lord Christopher Monckton, who likes to say he was appointed as a reviewer of the last big UN intergovernmental panel on climate change report without mentioning that, literally, you need no qualifications and can “appoint” yourself.

Happer’s speech to the conference isn’t yet online but an interview he gave at the venue after is.

He goes over the same ground. CO2 is really awesome and life would be much better if there was a lot more of it.

“I don’t think there are any cons to CO2 … we are really in a CO2 famine,” he says. “My main concern is that it’s likely to damage public perceptions of science. I am hoping that I and other scientists can persuade the public that we are not all for sale.”

I’m struggling to understand how someone concerned with the reputation of science would want to lend his name, and the name of Princeton University, to a conference organised by conspiracy theorists.

This is also the bit when we mention that Happer was caught in a sting by Greenpeace activists in 2015, when he offered to write a report on the benefits of carbon dioxide for a fake fossil fuel client while avoiding any need to disclose the funding’s source.

Happer asked that rather than pay him, the fake lobbyists should instead pay the CO2 Coalition – a climate science denial group based in the US. Tax documents list Happer as a director and president.

He has also given evidence in a court case on behalf of the coal company Peabody Energy where he similarly asked that his fee go to the CO2 Coalition. He laid these facts out in emails released by Greenpeace, stating that the coalition did not pay him any fees or salary.

Remembering Happer’s dislike of science being “for sale”, it’s noteworthy that his CO2 Coalition colleague Patrick Moore was paid last year by a major European coal lobby organisation to give a presentation in Strasbourg telling the audience we should “celebrate CO2”.

No doubt Happer would argue that money does not influence the views of people like Moore, though he does say that it influences actual climate scientists who get research grants from universities and governments. Go figure.

Whether or not Happer gets the gig as Trump’s science adviser remains to be seen. But given the climate science deniers and fossil fuel advocates who Trump has already employed, it seems Happer will fit right in.