Nobel Prize-winner Ivar Giaever was a strong supporter of President Obama's views on climate change during his candidacy, but last week, the scientist reversed course and now claims Obama is "dead wrong" on global warming.
"I would say that basically global warming is a non-problem. Just leave it alone and it will take care of itself," Giaever, who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quantum tunneling, declared during his speech at the 65th Nobel Laureate Conference in Lindau, Germany last week, according to Climate Depot.
Giaever and over 70 other Nobel Science Laureates joined together in endorsing Obama in an October 29, 2008 letter which read in part, "The country urgently needs a visionary leader ... We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him," according to Upstart Business Journal.
But now, seven years later, Giaever is ridiculing Obama for warning that "no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change."
"That is what he said," Giaever told the crowd in a video of his 30-minute speech. "That is a ridiculous statement. I say this to Obama: Excuse me, Mr. President, but you're wrong. Dead wrong."
He continued: "How can he say that? I think Obama is a clever person, but he gets bad advice. Global warming is all wet."
Giaever was a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's School of Engineering and School of Science, and also member of the American Physical Society, which he resigned from by 2011 because its official position on climate change was that "the evidence is incontrovertible ... [g]lobal warming is occurring."
"First: nothing in science is incontrovertible," Giaever writes. "Second: the "measured" average temperature increase in 100 years or so, is 0.8 Kelvin. Third: since the Physical Society claim it has become warmer, why is everything better than before? Forth: the maximum average temperature ever measured was in 1998, 17 years ago. When will we stop wasting money on alternative energy?"
He said he was "horrified" at what he found after researching the issue. "Global warming really has become a new religion. Because you cannot discuss it. It's not proper. It is like the Catholic Church," he said, according to Climate Depot.
Giaever went on to accuse NASA and federal scientists of "fiddling" with temperatures. "They can fiddle with the data. That is what NASA does." He even accused Nature Magazine of "wanting to cash in on the [climate] fad."
"My friends said I should not make fun of Nature because then they won't publish my papers. No one mentions how important CO2 is for plant growth. It's a wonderful thing. Plants are really starving. They don't talk about how good it is for agriculture that CO2 is increasing," he said.
Refugees around the world are not fleeing climate change, Giaever said. Rather, they are fleeing poverty, and science should focus its efforts on ending suffering and and improving cheap energy, according to Giaever.
"They say refugees are trying to cross the Mediterranean. These people are not fleeing global warming, they are fleeing poverty," he noted. "If you want to help Africa, help them out of poverty, do not try to build solar cells and windmills."
He continued: "Are you wasting money on solar cells and windmills rather than helping people? These people have been misled. It costs money in the end to that. Windmills cost money. Cheap energy is what made us so rich and now suddenly people don't want it anymore."
"People say oil companies are the big bad people. I don't understand why they are worse than the windmill companies. General Electric makes windmills. They don't tell you that they are not economical because they make money on it. But nobody protests GE, but they protest Exxon who makes oil."
