William Happer
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William Happer (born July 27, 1939) is an American
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
who has specialized in the study of
atomic physics Atomic physics is the field of physics that studies atoms as an isolated system of electrons and an atomic nucleus. Atomic physics typically refers to the study of atomic structure and the interaction between atoms. It is primarily concerned wit ...
,
optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...
and
spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...
. He is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
, and a long-term member of the JASON advisory group, where he pioneered the development of adaptive optics. From 1991 to 1993, Happer served as director of the Department of Energy's Office of Science as part of the
George H.W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; p ...
administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...
. He was dismissed from the Department of Energy in 1993 by the Clinton Administration after disagreements on the ozone hole. Happer, who is not a climate scientist, rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. In 2018,
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
appointed him to the
National Security Council A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a na ...
to counter evidence linking
carbon dioxide emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and lar ...
to
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
.Niina Farah and Robin Bravender
Emails reveal behind-the-scenes plans for climate debate
''ClimateWire'', May 10, 2018.
He resigned from the council in 2019.


Early life and education

Happer was born in
Vellore Vellore (English: ), also spelt as Velur (), is a city and the administrative headquarters of Vellore district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Palar River in the northeastern part of Tamil Nadu and is separa ...
,
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
, the son of William Happer, a Scottish medical officer in the
Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...
, and Gladys Morgan Happer, a medical missionary for the Lutheran Church of North Carolina. Happer spent the years of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
with his mother in
Oak Ridge, Tennessee Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of downtown Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 31,402 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. Oak ...
. After the war and a return to India, his family emigrated to
North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
. He studied physics at the
University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...
, graduating in 1960. He earned his doctorate at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in 1964.


Career

Happer's academic career began at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, where he eventually became a full
professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
and director of the Columbia Radiation Laboratory. Happer joined the JASON advisory group in 1976, and was still active there in 2005. In 1980, he left Columbia to go to Princeton. He is credited with a key insight in 1982 that made adaptive optics possible: there is a layer of
sodium Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable iso ...
in the
mesosphere The mesosphere (; ) is the third layer of the atmosphere, directly above the stratosphere and directly below the thermosphere. In the mesosphere, temperature decreases as altitude increases. This characteristic is used to define its limits: it ...
, at around 90 to 100 km of elevation, which could be lit by a laser beam to make an artificial guide star. His idea was tested successfully by
DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...
but classified for possible military applications. The military-designed technology was partially unclassified in 1991, after the same idea was independently proposed by two French astronomers. In 1994, Happer and co-authors published a declassified version of the JASON reports on adaptive optics. Happer was chairman of the steering committee for JASON, from 1987 to 1990, and was the Class of 1909 Professor of Physics at Princeton University from 1988 to 1991. In 1991, he joined the
United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...
as director of energy research. He served in that position until being dismissed in 1993 for his views on the
ozone layer The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation. It contains a high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in rela ...
, after which he returned to his position at Princeton. He co-founded Magnetic Imaging Technologies Inc. in 1994. He held the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professorship of Physics from 2003 until his retirement in 2014. Happer describes his laboratory's research interests in
atomic physics Atomic physics is the field of physics that studies atoms as an isolated system of electrons and an atomic nucleus. Atomic physics typically refers to the study of atomic structure and the interaction between atoms. It is primarily concerned wit ...
: "we're interested in the mechanisms that limit the performance of
optical pumping Optical pumping is a process in which light is used to raise (or "pump") electrons from a lower energy level in an atom or molecule to a higher one. It is commonly used in laser construction to pump the active laser medium so as to achieve populat ...
systems, such as
atomic clocks An atomic clock is a clock that measures time by monitoring the resonant frequency of atoms. It is based on atoms having different energy levels. Electron states in an atom are associated with different energy levels, and in transitions betwee ...
,
magnetometers A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, ...
, and laser guide-star adaptive optics systems." Happer has served as a trustee of the MITRE Corporation, the
Richard Lounsbery Foundation The Richard Lounsbery Foundation is a philanthropic organization in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1959, to enhance national strengths in science and technology (in the United States) and to foster strong Franco-American cooperation. To this ...
, and the
Marshall Institute The George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) was a nonprofit conservative think tank in the United States. It was established in 1984 with a focus on science and public policy issues and had an initial focus in defense policy. Starting in the late 1980 ...
, of which he was chairman from 2006 until it was disbanded in 2015. Happer is a co-founder and board member of an advocacy group called the CO2 Coalition, established in 2015. He has described the group as aiming to "educate the public that increased atmospheric levels of CO2 will benefit the world". The group has been funded by donations of over $100,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the
Mercer Family Foundation The Mercer Family Foundation is a private grant-making foundation in the United States. As of 2013, it had $37 million in assets. The foundation is run by Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of computer scientist and hedge fund manager Robert Mercer. ...
of
Robert Mercer Robert Leroy Mercer (born July 11, 1946) is an American hedge fund manager, computer scientist, and political donor. Mercer was an early artificial intelligence researcher and developer and is the former co-CEO of the hedge fund company Renaissan ...
and
Rebekah Mercer Rebekah Mercer is an American heiress and Republican political donor who is the director of the Mercer Family Foundation. She began overseeing day-to-day operations of political projects for the Mercer family when the Mercers became involved i ...
, as well as $50,000 each from the
Searle Freedom Trust The Searle Freedom Trust is a 501(c)(3) grant-making foundation located in the United States. It was established by business executive Daniel C. Searle in 1998. As of 2017, the trust had an endowment of $141 million. Origins Searle considered h ...
, the Thomas W. Smith Foundation, the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Achelis and Bodman Foundation.


Views


Climate change position

Happer disagrees with the
scientific consensus on climate change There is a strong scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that this warming is mainly caused by human activities. This consensus is supported by various studies of scientists' opinions and by position statements of scientific org ...
, stating that "Some small fraction of the 1 °C warming during the past two centuries must have been due to increasing CO2, which is indeed a greenhouse gas", but argues that "most of the warming has probably been due to natural causes."
Michael Oppenheimer Michael Oppenheimer (born February 28, 1946) is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, the Department of Geosciences, and the Princeton Environmental Ins ...
said that Happer’s claims are "simply not true" and that the preponderance of evidence and majority of expert opinion points to a strong anthropogenic influence on rising global temperatures. Climate Science Watch published a point-by-point rebuttal to one of Happer’s articles. A petition that he coauthored to change the official position of the American Physical Society to a version that raised doubts about global warming was overwhelmingly rejected by the APS Council. Happer has no formal training as a climate scientist, and says that his beliefs about climate change come from his experience at the Department of Energy, at which he supervised all non-weapons energy research, including climate change research. In May 2013, Happer and Harrison Schmitt published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, "In Defense of Carbon Dioxide," in which they termed elevated atmospheric CO2 "a boon to plant life." It was described by Ryan Chittum, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, in the Columbia Journalism Review as "shameful, even for the dismal standards" of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Chittum's role at the WSJ was reporting on
real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
. In 2014, Happer said that the "demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler." In December 2015, Happer was targeted in a sting operation by the environmental activist group
Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...
. Posing as consultants for a Middle Eastern oil and gas company, they asked Happer to write a report touting the benefits of rising carbon emissions. Happer declined a fee for his work, calling it a "labor of love", but said that they could donate to the "objective evidence" climate-change organization CO2 Coalition, which suggested that he contact the
Donors Trust Donors Trust is an American nonprofit donor-advised fund. It was founded in 1999 with the goal of "safeguarding the intent of libertarian and conservative donors". As a donor advised fund, Donors Trust is not legally required to disclose the id ...
to keep the source of the funds secret as requested by the Greenpeace sting operation. Hiding the sources of funding in this way is lawful under U.S. law. Happer further acknowledged that his report would probably not pass peer-review with a scientific journal.Suzanne Goldenberg,
Greenpeace exposes sceptics hired to cast doubt on climate science
, ''The Guardian'', December 8, 2015.
In an interview, Happer responded to the sting operation: "I was only interested in helping the 'client' to publicize my long-held views, not to peddle whatever message the 'client' had in mind ... I have never taken a dime for any of my activities to educate the public that more CO2 will benefit the world."


Political

In 2017 following the election of
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
into office, Happer met with Trump to discuss his potential role of being his science adviser and said that he would take the job if it was offered.Hannah Devlin
Trump's likely science adviser calls climate scientists 'glassy-eyed cult'
''The Guardian'', February 15, 2017.
Happer described Trump as "very attentive" and that the president's concerns "were that of a technically literate person." Hannah Devlin of ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' wrote that Happer "supports a controversial crackdown on the freedom of federal agency scientists to speak out about their findings, arguing that mixed messages... have led to people disregarding all public health information." In early September 2018 it was announced that Happer would be appointed senior director of the
National Security Council A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a na ...
office for emerging technologies. He resigned from the Council in September 2019, reportedly because his plan to review climate science did not receive sufficient support from the White House. It was shelved as some members of the administration, including
Kelvin Droegemeier Kelvin Kay Droegemeier (born September 23, 1958) is an American research meteorologist, most recently having served as Director of The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Droegemeier is known for his research in predicting the de ...
, believed it could harm Trump in his 2020 re-election campaign.


Honors

Happer is a fellow of the
American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
. Happer was elected as a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 1995 and a member of the
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
in 1996. He received a Sloan Research Fellowship in 1967, the Herbert P. Broida Prize in 1997, the Davisson-Germer Prize and the
Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award The Research & Development Council of New Jersey is a nonprofit organization which advocates for progress in various research and development sectors in the state of New Jersey. Its membership includes representatives from academia, industry, and ...
in 2000. In 2003, he was named the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
. Currently, he is a Professor Emeritus.


Selected publications

* * * *


See also

*
Ozone depletion Ozone depletion consists of two related events observed since the late 1970s: a steady lowering of about four percent in the total amount of ozone in Earth's atmosphere, and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone (the ozone l ...


References


External links


William Happer Professor Emeritus biography
at Princeton University
William Happer faculty page
at Physics Dept., Princeton University {{DEFAULTSORT:Happer, William 1939 births Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Princeton University faculty Columbia University faculty University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni Living people 21st-century American physicists Fellows of the American Physical Society