Finally some truth

[Check Pilot]

Sorry about the long read..

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Here is his letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society.

Anthony Watts describes it thus:

This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science.

It’s so utterly damning that I’m going to run it in full without further comment. (H/T GWPF, Richard Brearley).

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.<

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety

Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)

[J.O.]

If half of what he says is true, then those he is railing against can no longer call themselves scientists. Sadly his words will almost certainly fall on deaf ears where it matters.

[Moon The Loon]

Shameful. If one Googles Harold Lewis, he has a bucket-load of qualifications to write on the subject.

[Mitch Cronin]

...well gall-dangit Jethro... don't it jes sound like these fellers wuz buyin' into a ... "con spirassy theory"?

Heck no Bobby Joe! Folks 'round here don't cotton t'that kinda garrbige! Why they'd have ya tyin' knots 'round yer twitters b'fore y'got the sense outa yer mouth... first thing ya mention anything what's got t'do with any kinda con speerassy... whoooo boy!

[cp fa]

Truth? What I read there was one guy's opinion. One very well educated guy to be sure, but the organization he just resigned from represents over 48,000 physicists, the majority of whom do not agree with him. Here is the statement from APS:

http://www.aps.org/about/pressreleases/haroldlewis.cfm

[roadbiker]

..and here is the rebuttal to the APS statement (blue italics)...

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/13/aps-responds-deconstructing-the-aps-response-to-dr-hal-lewis-resignation/

more reading with associated links, if you have some time to kill...

[cp fa]

I don't want to get into the debate over whether or not climate change is real, because that is getting to be like debating religion, but I would like to offer some food for thought about manipulation and hidden agendas.

1. You can pay scientists and doctors to say anything you want. The tobacco industry taught us that. You don't even have to disprove a theory, you merely need to plant seeds of doubt. The ensuing debate will allow you to continue doing business as usual for a long time.

2. Referring to the climate change movement as a "trillion dollar industry" implies that it is motivated purely by greed (unlike the trillion dollar oil industry). If indeed a trillion dollars has been spent, how much of it is being spent on the development of hybrid cars, solar energy, wind generators, etc, and is that a bad thing? I wonder how much money has been spent trying to discredit the climate change movement, and if you followed that money trail, where it would lead.

3. The first time I became aware that there were people who believed that the climate change movement was a scam, it was on this forum, and all of those posters were from Alberta. I'm not suggesting that the entire conspiracy theory originated in Alberta, but shouldn't it cause pause for thought about why media outlets in Alberta are giving an entirely different spin than in the rest of the country?

4. The debate over climate change is a distraction from the fact that the earth is being polluted. Is it not in our best interest, climate change or not, for this to stop?

[Moon The Loon]

"3. The first time I became aware that there were people who believed that the climate change movement was a scam, it was on this forum, and all of those posters were from Alberta."

Wait a second now! Just because I lived there for 6 months 30 years ago doesn't mean I'm from there!!!

The trillions of dollars to be made from this "scam" is in the cap and trade, and carbon capture/taxation programs, already started by some European countries.

And of course, pollution is bad. Tell that to China. Tell that to Nigeria. Tell that to India. The west knows this. The west also knows where the middle class money is. In the west. Tax those folks and exploit third world resources.

A perfect storm.

[Moon The Loon]

Although the headline doesn't reflect same, this is what many of "US" have been saying since this debate surfaced on The AEF: if damage has been done, then to mitigate future damage, all emissions must be reduced to ZERO to allow the atmosphere to recuperate.

IFF damage has been done.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/adapt-to-climate-change-or-face-infrastructure-crisis-experts-warn/article1762796/

Adapt to climate change or face infrastructure crisis, experts warn

Michael Posner

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Oct. 18, 2010 9:28PM EDT

Last updated Monday, Oct. 18, 2010 10:08PM EDT

In other words, don't try to change the climate; attempt to mitigate the results of rising sea levels on more than 50% of the world's population.

[Check Pilot]

Even notorious promoter of action on Climate Change, Scientific American, has now published an article on another scientist that has changed from "warmist" to skeptic.

As follows:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-heretic

[IFG]

Even notorious promoter of action on Climate Change, Scientific American, has now published an article on another scientist that has changed from "warmist" to skeptic.

Check Pilot - It's an excellent article, quite in keeping with SciAm's high standards (which you seem to denigrate), but your comment [above] raises the question of whether you even read it.

.... Climate skeptics have seized on Curry’s statements to cast doubt on the basic science of climate change. So it is important to emphasize that nothing she encountered led her to question the science; she still has no doubt that the planet is warming, that human-generated greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are in large part to blame, or that the plausible worst-case scenario could be catastrophic. She does not believe that the Climategate e-mails are evidence of fraud or that the IPCC is some kind of grand international conspiracy. What she does believe is that the mainstream climate science community has moved beyond the ivory tower into a type of fortress mentality, in which insiders can do no wrong and outsiders are forbidden entry ....

.... To Curry, the damage comes not from the skeptics’ critiques themselves, most of which are questionable, but from the scientific community’s responses to them—much as deaths from virulent flu come not from the virus but from the immune system’s violent overreaction ....

Skepticism is good. Unfortunately, as Judith Curry takes pains to state, on the climate change file, much of what masquerades as skepticism is just charlatanism (the sad part is, it works!) ... BUT, the courageous part of Ms. Curry's efforts is the challenge to her colleagues not to ignore the occasional good science that raises questions about the broadly held assumptions about the climate. If only those 'climate skeptics [who] have seized on Curry’s statements to cast doubt on the basic science', many of whom wield a broad brush like Harold Lewis (referred to in your initial posting) could reflect and expand on that, rather than twisting and spinning her arguments beyond recognition.

Cheers, IFG

[Moon The Loon]

Check Pilot - It's an excellent article, quite in keeping with SciAm's high standards (which you seem to denigrate), but your comment [above] raises the question of whether you even read it.

Skepticism is good. Unfortunately, as Judith Curry takes pains to state, on the climate change file, much of what masquerades as skepticism is just charlatanism (the sad part is, it works!) ... BUT, the courageous part of Ms. Curry's efforts is the challenge to her colleagues not to ignore the occasional good science that raises questions about the broadly held assumptions about the climate. If only those 'climate skeptics [who] have seized on Curry’s statements to cast doubt on the basic science', many of whom wield a broad brush like Harold Lewis (referred to in your initial posting) could reflect and expand on that, rather than twisting and spinning her arguments beyond recognition.

Cheers, IFG

Hey IFG: How many people involved in this debate understand weather? How many know the meaning of a "standard atmosphere"? How many know the make-up of our basic atmosphere? How many know the variance of atmospheric pressure with altitude? How many know what a lapse rate is? How many know what the circulation of a low pressure area is in the northern hemisphere, and why it is different in the southern hemisphere? How many know the principles of atmospheric warming? How many know what the Mayan calendar is based upon?

All I'm asking, is for those who have an opinion about AGW and its oponents, what do they KNOW about the basic scientific premises?

If you have definitive answers to any of the above, then your criticism of the skeptic community will hold some merit.

[IFG]

.... If you have definitive answers to any of the above, then your criticism of the skeptic community will hold some merit.

I'm not sure what I said to precipitate the remedial ATPL weather test (well ... not the Mayan part, I guess), or why I would have to pass it to your satisfaction to hold an opinion. And that also goes for the majority here for whom climate-change-skepticism resonates.

It's not provable, but I think my grasp of elementary scientific principles is as good as that of all but a very few folks who populate this board (and it does go well beyond the gossamer depth required to pass pilot exams). It does not, however, qualify me to pronounce on the individual studies that get uncomprehendingly cited in these pitiable debates.

Notwithstanding that, the questions we all must deal with are political - informed by science, yes, but still political. I'm entitled to participate in that dialogue as much as any other citizen.

All the same, in the last, sickeningly long series of diatribes about the climate, I abandoned the thread early after the principal fertilizer of the thread miscomprehended a simple plea to let the scientists sort it out as an argument for the MMGW faction. I was already wearied by the moving target that the skeptics present - If it's anti-IPCC or nanti-Suzuki/Gore, or pro status-quo practices, apparently anything goes.

I do not believe that I need scientific credentials (to your satisfaction) to take the generally held assumptions about climate change as cautionary. Beyond that, skepticism, intellectually honest and consistent, unfettered by obvious politico-economic biases, is good, and I consider it carefully, under the occasional guidance of people far, far more qualified scientifically than you or I.

Fair?

[Moon The Loon]

I'm not sure what I said to precipitate the remedial ATPL weather test (well ... not the Mayan part, I guess), or why I would have to pass it to your satisfaction to hold an opinion. And that also goes for the majority here for whom climate-change-skepticism resonates.

It's not provable, but I think my grasp of elementary scientific principles is as good as that of all but a very few folks who populate this board (and it does go well beyond the gossamer depth required to pass pilot exams). It does not, however, qualify me to pronounce on the individual studies that get uncomprehendingly cited in these pitiable debates.

Notwithstanding that, the questions we all must deal with are political - informed by science, yes, but still political. I'm entitled to participate in that dialogue as much as any other citizen.

All the same, in the last, sickeningly long series of diatribes about the climate, I abandoned the thread early after the principal fertilizer of the thread miscomprehended a simple plea to let the scientists sort it out as an argument for the MMGW faction. I was already wearied by the moving target that the skeptics present - If it's anti-IPCC or nanti-Suzuki/Gore, or pro status-quo practices, apparently anything goes.

I do not believe that I need scientific credentials (to your satisfaction) to take the generally held assumptions about climate change as cautionary. Beyond that, skepticism, intellectually honest and consistent, unfettered by obvious politico-economic biases, is good, and I consider it carefully, under the occasional guidance of people far, far more qualified scientifically than you or I.

Fair?

My apologies - I did not mean for you to take it personally. Re-reading my post, it did come out that way.

The bigger point I tried to make is most outside our ATPL community have had no training whatsoever to answer those questions I asked, yet have profound opinions and political pull to one side or the other.

Science is about asking questions, then questionning the answers. The more the anti-AGW community is ignored, the higher go the hackles. The history of science is full of examples of nay-sayers or proponents of obscure ideas that have been, for lack of a better word (used inappropriately in the past ), shunned by the greater community, only to have their marginal hypotheses recognized as valid theories, decades or even centuries later.

This entire debate is about just that - a group of scientists has pronounced what turns out to be skeptical data, as factual evidence and, at the same time advanced a conclusion that they say is irrefutable.

That is not science. That is politics. Throw in a lot of uneducated opinion mixed with a huge dose of hyperbole, and the Flat Earth Society wins the day. Therein lies the rub and why this just won't go away.

In my opinion...