Gordon James Fraser MacDonald (July 30, 1929 – May 14, 2002) was an American geophysicist and environmental scientist, best known for his principled skepticism regarding continental drift (now called plate tectonics), involvement in the development of the McNamara Line electronic defense barrier during the Vietnam War, and early research and advocacy on human-made global climate change.
MacDonald chaired the JASON committee that designed the Vietnam War's "McNamara Line" system of electronic border surveillance.
[1] MacDonald was a prominent early scientific advocate of action to address the threat of global warming from fossil-fuel combustion.
In 1969 he began a JASON project to model climate change that soon convinced him that fossil-fuel burning would lead to dangerous global warming that would outstrip any industrial cooling effects.
[5][6] In 1980 testimony to Congress, he warned that the climate changes due to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would "probably have a profound effect on agriculture, on all aspects of energy use and generation, and on water and land use."
An article in the Journal of the American Statistical Association (June, 1967) concluded, "That such nonsense should appear under the aegis of the National Academy of Sciences is deplorable.
"[1] MacDonald also published work on other aspects of climatology, hypothesizing the role of Milankovitch cycles and methane clathrates as drivers of natural climate changes.
[2] MacDonald's opinion about an inhibiting impact of funding, policy and politics on scientific innovation is reflected in this 2003 quote, ”In all science there is a strong 'herd instinct', and interactions occur largely within these herds.