John H. Sununu

Credentials

Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Instute of Technology in 1966. He completed buth undegraduate and graduate levels at MIT. [1]

Background

John H. Sununu served as the 75th Governor of New Hampshire from 1983 to 1989 and later as White House Chief of Staff under President George H.W. Bush from January 21 1989 until 1993 where he served as a Counselor to the President.

From 1963 until his election as Governor, he was the President of JHS Engineering Company (JHS Associates, LTD) and Thermal Research Inc. Dr. Sununu helped establish and served as a Chief Engineer for Astro Dynamics Inc. from 1960 to 1965. He serves as the Chairman and Member of the Advisory Board of Fusion Telecommunications International Inc. Dr. Sununu has been a Director of North American Galvanizing & Coatings Inc. formerly Kinark Corp. since 1996 and serves as the Chairman of Executive Committee. He serves as Director of Anglo Asian Mining PL. He is also a former partner in Trinity International Partners, a private financial firm. [1]

In 2004 he co-chaired the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Nuclear Energy Task Force. He has taught at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and at Tufts University where he served as associate dean of the College of Engineering. He also served on the Advisory Board of the Technology and Policy Program at MIT.

Sununu has co-hosted CNN's nightly "Crossfire" program from March 1992 until February 1998, and helped establish and served as chief engineer for Astro Dynamics Inc. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Stance on Climate Change

"The global warming crisis is just the latest surrogate for an over-arching agenda of anti-growth and anti-development. This agenda grew and gathered support in the years following World War II."[2]

Key Quotes

"Nature will eventually do what nature has always done. It will respond in a self-stabilizing manner over the long term with moderate variability over multi-decade periods and with occasional significant variability over the short term.

But waiting for 'eventually' to prove the alarmists wrong is not the wisest course of action. Unfullfillable ambitions to stifle growth will devastate a world trying to deal with the complexities of economics, stability, and the environment. Quality of life depends on access to energy. Noble intentions about 'C02-free' sources of energy are not sufficient, if their agenda of eliminating coal as a source, and turning their back on nuclear, are allowed to be part of our near-term policies."[2]

Key Deeds

March, 2009

John H. Sununu was a speaker at the Heartland Institute's 2009 International Conference on Climate Change, or ICCC2. At numerous points during his speech Sununu refers to an "anti-growth lobby,""anti-development crowd" and alludes to "alarmists" with an "agenda" as being behind the issue of global warming. When referring to the funding that goes to climate change research, Sununu claims that "the alarmists have effectively captured the funding allocation process." [2]

When describing "some elements of the science" of climate change, Sununu points to research by prominent climate change skeptic Richard Lindzen to support his view that CO2 increases lag an increase in temperature: "it is temperature driving an increase in C02 and not C02 driving temperature."According to SkepticalScience, this argument has been previously shown to be invalid.

Sununu's suggestion to climate skeptics is the following (emphasis added):

"We need to recognize that for at least most of the next decade the real battle will be to win over public opinion and influence the policy makers. Unfortunately, standing between us and the public most of the time is the media. And the press seems to have bought the alarmist line, hook and sinker. They thrive on reinforcing the alarms.

I am often asked about the press. The question is usually something like 'is the press biased or ignorant?' My answer is: Yes they are.

We have to try to deal with a long-term education process and a long-term lobbying process. [...] And, most important, we must work hard to communicate on these issues in terms that can be understood by non-technical individuals. We must remember we are trying to educate the public and policy makers."

1989 – 1993

At some point during his service as Counselor to the President, Sununu put together a group who would take care of "the action side of policy" which "could require formal and legally binding obligations associated with carbon dioxide emissions, which would have significant economic effects on the nation and on the capacity of this nation's industrial growth."[3]

The group consisted of Allan Bromley (as Science Advisor), Michael Boskin (the President's Advisor of Economics), Dick Darman (Head of the Office of Management and Budget), and Roger Porter (in charge of domestic policy at the White  House). John H. Sununu joined this group as their fifth member. According to Sununu, "there was no disagreement that there was a trend of concern in the long run in terms of global temperature rise being a reality, but the questions that had to be answered were: What is the magnitude of it? How fast will that change take place? And also questions which rarely get asked — Is that change good or bad, and how does that change compare with other natural cycles that may be taking place at the same time? And finally, what kind of impact can any policy really have in dealing with those issues?"

Sununu claimed that "some of the satellite data on temperatures were suggesting a temperature decrease pattern rather than a temperature increase pattern [...that] certainly had to be put on the table as one of the fact points that the President had to be aware of." He then goes on to describe how climate models of the time were inaccurate and "not well coupled to the ocean" and that "you do not make national policy based on such data."

Sununu and his committee put these answers forward to the President with the recommendation that "the President of the United States should not commit to policies that would result in trillion dollar changes in the U.S. economy until there were then more adequate technical bases for such a position"

Affiliations

• Anglo Asian Mining PLC — Director.

• McKinley Reserve — Senior Advisor.

• Trinity International Partners — Former Partner.

• JHS Engineering Company— Past President (1963 - 1983).

• Thermal Research Inc.— Past President (1963 - 1983).

• Astro Dynamics Inc. — Chief Engineer (1960 - 1965), helped establish company.

• Fusion Telecommunications International Inc.— Chairman and Member of the Advisory Board.

• North American Galvanizing & Coatings Inc. — Director since 1996 and Chairman of Executive Committee.

Source:[1]

Publications

According to a search of Google Scholar, John H. Sununu has published the following articles, larely in the area of engineering and policy:

• John H. Sununu. "Will Technologies Make Learning and Teaching Easier?", The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Nov., 1986), pp. 220-222.
• Sununu, J.H. "Acid rain: sharing the cost,"Issues Sci. Technol., Journal Volume 1:2 (uploaded 2009), pp. 47 - 59.
• Sununu, J.H. "Engineers and Policy," ITE (Institute of Transportation Engineers) Journal, Vol. 60, No 10 (1990), pp. 41-42. 

Resources

1. "Executive Profile: John H. Sununu Ph.D.,"Bloomberg Businessweek. Accessed January 31, 2013.

2. John H. Sununu. "The Politics of Global Warming,"Remarks delivered at the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change. Archived at www.heartland.org, March 13, 2009.

3. Governor John H. Sununnu. "Science Policy: For Show or for Effect?" D. Allan Bromley, Nuclear Scientist and Policy Innovator: Proceedings of the Memorial Symposium in Honor of D. Allan Bromley, Yale University, USA 8-9 December 2005. World Scientific, September 28, 2006.

4. "John H. Sununu," Sourcewatch.

5. "John H. Sununu," Wikipedia.