U-Turn

July 21, 2008
5:23 AM CST

Oops. Also via Insty comes this charmer:

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming.  The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science.  The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming “incontrovertible.”

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.”
...

“I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC’s 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central ‘climate sensitivity’ question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change] was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method.”

According to Monckton, there is substantial support for his results, “in the peer-reviewed literature, most articles on climate sensitivity conclude, as I have done, that climate sensitivity must be harmlessly low.”

Ah yes, the mark of the charlatan: when you’re trying to lie with statistics, always conceal your method. Everyone’s been guilty of that at some time or another: but not everyone was responsible for a paper which is directing international environmental policy.

The fabric’s unraveling [it’s about time], and what lies underneath the fabric is decidedly unpleasant.

By the way, the APS claimed that Monckton’s paper was not peer reviewed, but they’re lying. It was, severely so. As The Englishman says, ”it shows how frightened the scientific community is of anyone who steps out of the consensus view.”

Comments

Bottom of Comments | Original Post

This is the new position of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one forum within the APS, not of the APS itself.  The official APS position is, stupidly, unchanged.

Author ID: 9014 | 7/21/2008 06:17 AM CST | #126728


Yeah, they took pains to point out that it’s not their “official” position—although one would think that, as “scientists”, data yielding diametrically-opposed conclusions would be anathema, and resolution thereof would be sought after.

Which just goes to show.

0 Author ID: 1 | 7/21/2008 06:34 AM CST | #126733


Heheheheheheheh.....

So the physicists go, so goes the nation… eventually. 

Author ID: 11075 | 7/21/2008 07:03 AM CST | #126741


I belong to the American Astronomical Society, which joined the American Geological Union a few years ago in making a statement on human influences on global climate change. AAS members were sent a draft of the statement before it was released, to which I responded and created a minor sensation with my dissent. I’ve had people in my department come up to me and quietly tell me that they are not compelled by the climate change argument, either. 

For anyone who doesn’t have a stake in the climate change results, I don’t think the fear is because the science might be wrong per se, but because these scientists are in a quandary. Over any other topic, their instinct would be to debate like crazy, because that’s what scientists are trained to do—and the discovery of conflicting data on something big almost always precipitates a press release and all kinds of excitement. But now suddenly these people are dealing with a religion, and have no idea what to do. Few want to be seen as apostates when it comes to climate change.

It’ll be fascinating to see whether, in the long run, the scientific community does what it’s supposed to do.

Author ID: 8184 | 7/21/2008 07:11 AM CST | #126742


“But now suddenly these people are dealing with a religion, and have no idea what to do. Few want to be seen as apostates when it comes to climate change.”

And then there are all those great big huge sums of money being given out to “further” the study of Glowball Wormening…

Not that my naty suspicious mind thinks that this would cloud people’s judgment, of course.

0 Author ID: 1 | 7/21/2008 07:14 AM CST | #126743


Yeah, there’s not much money to be made by “well, the planet’s doing just fine, no need for alarm, we can’t really affect the climate with fossil fuels”.

Just like in other arenas, follow the money to understand behaviour that otherwise doesn’t make sense.

Author ID: 8312 | 7/21/2008 08:45 AM CST | #126774


And then there are all those great big huge sums of money being given out to “further” the study of Glowball Wormening…

Oh, absolutely. Every discipline has the problem of people defending untenable positions because of financial and emotional investments, but few things come close to the climate change racket.

What’s particularly interesting is that so many scientists with absolutely no stake whatsoever in the outcome are afraid to be publicly skeptical of a conclusion, e.g. the APS’s quick move to reaffirm their official stance.

Author ID: 8184 | 7/21/2008 09:14 AM CST | #126786


follow the money to understand behaviour that otherwise doesn’t make sense.-- walkercolt

Money - and power.  Back in the days of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC you could get solid research and make a profit.  Now when universities around the world are merely extensions - like state airlines - of the ruling bureaucracy, their routes are set by Policy.  Global Warming will most certainly not be the last attempt at algorizing the tangible world to fit an improved pattern.  Academician Lysenko, welcome home.
.

Author ID: 6570 | 7/21/2008 09:38 AM CST | #126802


Among the worst things about the so-called climate debate is that the IPCC has repeatedly had to correct their claims, modifying their worst-case scenarios down to almost nothing, yet even though the actual scientists involved have more or less conceded the entire “threat” away by now (because the end of the Dark Ages, coming after a large increase in temperatures, was such a terrible thing for the world), the summary that the media read continues to be written by political hacks without the slightest scientific qualification for making any claims, with the claims they make contradicted by the reports themselves. Yet this continues, report after report.

By the way, with oil (or something near to it) having been found on a moon of Saturn in the 1990’s, calling it a fossil fuel is no longer plausible. Likewise, it’s been something near to 30 years since it was shown that a tree at the bottom of a lake in the state of Washington, I think it was, could turn into coal much more rapidly than had been imagined. Thus, fossils have nothing to do with any fuel we’re using. The only fossils are the people trying to simultaneously convince us that what we’re using today is ancient and backward while also convincing people that using “biofuels” and other idiotic energy-loss techniques is “the future.”

Author ID: 8165 | 7/21/2008 10:14 AM CST | #126809


I get SO sick of this..... Who cares? Like SO MANY other scientific topics that are somewhat in dispute, the politics WILL overwhelm the facts every time!!! I can tell you, papers that happen to contradict GW, WILL NEVER GET PEER REVIEWED!!! That is but one of the tools of the Intelligensia to supress factual dissent. They try quite hard to ensure “certain members who have certain political views, (i.e. Conservative) never get into a position to actaully challenge the “orthodoxy”.

What’s worse than “actual scientists” who actually have evidence of what they believe, is the little sniveling activists, that constantly try to co-opt science to prove their agenda as fact. To them, peer review and scientific studies are only good, if they happen to agree with the findings. I can’t count all the times I have debated these little weasels, only to have them declare, that I hate science and I am not qualified to even challenge a particular study, or scientist. It’s like being called a “racist every time you disagree with a Democrat.  Besides that, they will then declare, that I am not even entitled to an opinion on public policy.

Author ID: 7801 | 7/21/2008 06:35 PM CST | #126855