UPDATE5: (Saturday 10/16/10) It has been a week, and I think this piece has been well distributed, so I’m putting it in regular queue now and it will gradually scroll off the page.
UPDATE4: (Friday 10/15/10) APS member Roger Cohen comments here on Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth op/ed.
UPDATE3: (Friday 10/15/10) Andrew Revkin, after a week (I sent him this story last Friday) of digging around to get just the right rebuttal, responds here at Dot Earth.
UPDATE2: (Wednesday 10/13/10) This just in…click for the story.
APS responds! – Deconstructing the APS response to Dr. Hal Lewis resignation
UPDATE: (Saturday 10/9/10) Since this came in late Friday, many of our weekday WUWT readers might not see this important story, so I’m sticking it to the top for a couple of days. New stories will appear just below this one, please scroll down to see them. – Anthony
(Originally posted on 10/8/10 ) We’ve previously covered the APS here, when I wrote:
While Copenhagen and its excesses rage, a quiet revolution is starting.
Indeed, not so quiet now. It looks like it is getting ugly inside with the public airing of the resignation of a very prominent member who writes:
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.
…
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.- Hal Lewis
Below is his resignation letter made public today, via the GWPF.
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.
What I would really like to see though, is this public resignation letter given the same editorial space as Michael Mann in today’s Washington Post.
Readers, we can do this. Here’s the place at WaPo to ask for it. For anyone writing to the WaPo, the national@washpost.com, is the national news editorial desk. The Post’s Ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, is the readers’ representative within the newspaper. E-mail him at ombudsman@washpost.com or call 202-334-7582.
Spread the word on other blogs. Let’s see if they have enough integrity to provide a counterpoint. – Anthony
======================================
Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis
From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara
To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society
6 October 2010
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)
More and more serious publications are getting it right, eventually the politicians will as well – that is, if they haven’t bankrupted us all in the process first.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/politics/leaders/6243478/science-fictions.thtml
Brian H says:
October 9, 2010 at 9:52 pm
dbleader61;
Good post. But I twitched every time I had to read “incontravertible”. Since the actual word is “incontrovertible”.
——————————————————–
Incontrovertibly so!
Aaargh.
Yer me and me brother Nemo have posted on our Blong site, right next to Miss Mermink October. It should be spotted.
For what it is worth, I am astonished that ordinary people, including well educated, continue to believe that the world is warming in the Northern Hemisphere. Even as they buy thermal sealants and listen to idiotic pronouncements about non-existent ice melts.
It is like the tech bubble.
Science has become … “science”!
huxley says:
October 10, 2010 at 6:13 am
Re: …when 97% of climate scientists support the research on climate change. Are 97% of climate scientists on an elaborate conspiracy?
“Specifically, 97% of “climatologists who are active publishers on climate change” …”
Please do not conflate “climate scientists” with “climatologists”. There are very few climatologists left (there were never very many of them). A “climate scientist” is not a scientist at all; he is a political propagandist paid to pretend to be a scientist.
“Also, these publishing climatologists [climate scientists] aren’t a conspiracy. They are part of a $2 billion/year climate research industry.”
That is a conspiracy. People cooperating in wrongfully robbing you, and lying about it.
Phil Clarke says:
October 10, 2010 at 2:17 pm
BTW 10,000 people out on the streets of Paris supporting 10:10 right now!
******************************************************************
Phil – 10,000 people is barely enough to stop the traffic, let alone to be classed as a decent demonstration. If that’s all that can be mustered, the AGW movement is surely doomed.
All the best.
Scientists may not see a connection, but in the nineteen eighties this same submission to Mammon saw the certain end of the banking industry looming. Many spoke out against it but none had the weight to stem the tide. We have paid the price, but, incredibly, nothing has been done to eradicate the abuse of principles that makes continued disasters inevitable.
As Erasmus might have said, “in the kingdom of the blind money-grubbers, the one eyed accountant is king”.
Were I Hal Lewis, I would ensure my car was well serviced for a while. Those Californian roads can be very dangerous places to drive.
And here in Australia the minority Labor government has set up a stacked committee to determine how to screw business and the public with a Carbon Tax or something akin on the basis of the “incontrovertible” evidence that man made CO2 is catastrophically warming the planet.
Australia produces about 1.5% of the world’s GHG emmissions so even if one accepts AGW the tax will do absolutely nothing to change the situation. This is blantant government thievery of the worst kind in order to reduce government deficits and debt and finance massive projects like the National Broadband Network which runs into tens of billions of dollars. The scammers will have a lot to answer for.
Strangely, this story has been ignored almost completely by every organ of the state and every news organisation and publishers, alike. The only mention anywhere outside of this blog is James Delingpole’s comment section in the Telegraph.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100058265/us-physics-professor-global-warming-is-the-greatest-and-most-successful-pseudoscientific-fraud-i-have-seen-in-my-long-life/
Considering the prominence given to every other climate-related scare story inflicted on us by governments and the mass media, this is a major case of collectively sticking their fingers in their ears and going “La, la, la, la, la, la, I’m not listening, la, la, la, la, la, we must be changing the climate because that is what I want to believe, la la la la la, not listening! I don’t know why you are talking because I am not listening, la, la, la, la, la, la, I can’t hear anything you’re saying, la, la, la, la”.
If anyone’s interested, the mass media (or should that be the mass hysteria industry) has moved on from the global warming story, of which they have become thoroughly bored, and are now promoting the next scare about how we are running out of fresh water. Yes, the world is “drying out,” apparently, though I must admit there are few contributions to this story from Pakistan, large parts of which seem to have spent the last three months underwater.
I’m interested in this idea of unsolicited emails undermining the validity of information. Does this mean that unless an email is solicited, no scientist should ever take heed of the information? Or is it only information that is against the standard dogma which is unsolicited? It’s an interested techno age version of heads in the sand.
“Hal Lewis misused the APS address list when he sent unsolicited e-mail to thousands of APS members, including me”
How can a Fellow of the APS, (not a mere member such as yourself) and a man who has been a member of the APS for some 67 years sending an email to fellow Fellows and members of the APS over a matter of APS policy to an APS list, which I assume that members have subscribed too, possibly be counted as misuse or sending unsolicited mail? If the list is a subscription list, then the act of your subscription to that list makes ALL emails from and to that list, which contain relevant APS business, become entirely solicited.
Therefore I cannot possibly understand how you can accuse Dr Lewis of “spamming”.
“This is blantant government thievery of the worst kind in order to reduce government deficits and debt and finance massive projects like the National Broadband Network which runs into tens of billions of dollars. ”
———————————–
Don’t forget the urgent need to appease the Green “junior” partner. Gillard, who demonstrably has no principles whatsoever, would do anything at all to retain power. This is a classic example of the tail wagging the dog but its hard to be amused when the whole of Australia will suffer as a result.
This story has broken in to the MSM here in Norway. A new poll show that that more than 50% now doubt the AGW theory. Only 20% doubted this only two years ago.
I have sent the following letter to the Washington Post:
There are many people who know about the resignation from the APS of Prof. Hal Lewis. They didn’t learn about it in a “leading” newspaper like the Washington Post – where they found instead a piece by Michael Mann. They know the connection between Prof. Lewis’ resignation and Prof. Mann.
Are the editors at the Post (and in fact at most newspapers) really naive enough to think that they can keep the public dis-informed indefinitely, in the age of the Internet and instantaneous information?
Prof. W. v. Witsch, University of Bonn, Germany.
M-F
You will find this an interesting look at the history of polar glaciation
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice-tony-b/
WHY does Watts Up NOT PUT A LINK to this book on the website.!!!
“The Hockey Stick Illusion” – A W Montford (aka Bishop Hill blog)
After all, Montford is the author mentioned and it is THIS book, that Hal Lewis is refering to in his resignation letter…!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But no link to: ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion’ at Watts Up
Put a link to the book, underneath: Climategate – The Crutape Letter’s
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/10/11/hsi-hits-big-time.html
http://www.amazon.com/Hockey-Stick-Illusion-Climategate-Independent/dp/1906768358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286797490&sr=8-1
There are many times I am glad to be a card carrying member of the over 50 club. This moment ranks at the top. Not to mention the fact that Mr. Lewis is an obvious advocate of nuclear energy. I have always held the position that if subs and ships can run on nuclear energy, so can cities and industrial complexes. We don’t need large facilities. We need strategically placed and utilized scaled down facilities.
Phil Clarke says:
October 10, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Anthony – click the first link – I answered the question on your very blog. Yes it was me.
BTW 10,000 people out on the streets of Paris supporting 10:10 right now!
REPLY: Thanks, it is truly sad to see that you support such idiots that make child snuff films – Anthony
——————
Well Phil…
Three LESS schools now in the UK supporting 10:10, my areas Infants, Junior and secondary thanks to this email.
Have a read of this email I sent to my childrens Infants and Junior Schools…
They promptly withdrew from 10:10 campaign and ALL future involvement and are considering the issue I raised about CAGW/Green organsations going into schools with ‘SAFE’ literature, with all the official ‘good stuff’ beyond all control online, youtube, forums, etc..
AGW right or wrong. Most teachers want – positive messages – not hate/bullying/ostracising/horror.
Anybody want to check if their childrens school is signed up, the link is below:
http://www.1010global.org/uk/education
From: Barry Woods
To: xxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 9:41 AM
Subject: Other campaigning videos, green peace, wwf, etc. “No Pressure video” – DO NOT WATCH IT WITH ANY CHILDREN AROUND
For the attention of Miss xxxxx
Thank you for cancelling the schools involvement with the 10:10 Campaign, following their ‘No Pressure’ video. (in the link)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/se…
As I discussed with you, what the campaigning organisations bring into school, is very different from what they put out ‘officially’ online..
There is a danger that parents and children consider these SAFE or appropriate websites, or youtube material, or internet blogs, BECAUSE these people have come into school..
The groups, heavily promote there material on all the new media, facebook, twitter,official youtube groups, etc, where advertsising standards DO NOT APPLY.
They are deliberately targeting the young…
In the Watts Up website article (towards the end) in the link below are some of the worst video ads.. From Greenpeace, 10:10, wwf (earth hour), government and other mainstream eco groups.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/07/if-you-ever-…
It ends with a particulary awful picture of a child in a noose, standing on a block of melting (artic) ice.
That was prominent at Cannes 2009 film festival, a partner of that groups includes the WWF
http://www.act-responsible.org/ACT/ACTINCANNES/THE…
However, there are numerous other videos, whilst not as graphic, which are just as corrosive, in a slightly more subtle way. ie GreenPeace’s 4×4 add with an office worker… (spitting, ostracising, name calling, bullying, in an corporate office)
Finally the video from the Cop15 Copenhagen Opening Conference video, all over the media, BBC, Sky, ITV (especial the last bit of the clip)
The Cop15 Opening Copenhagen Conference video…
At the end, a small child running from a tidal wave (IPCC say 59cm in 90 YEARS) the child leaps into a tree, left dangling as the sea rushes underneath her, then she starts screaming.
This LIE gave my 5 year old daughter nightmares, she still asks about the child. She doesn’t understand why someone would make a video like that if it is not true..
So, I can see the doubt in her eyes when I say, it isn’t true.
They are deliberately targeting the young, a compilation of offical, (UN, UK government, 10:10, greenpeace) clips in this video
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/…
Do you ever meet with other Headteachers in the area, may I ask you to discuss this with them and to show them these videos, to demonstrate my concerns and the risks to children (probably more the older junior – secondary).
These are ALL offical mainstream ‘responsible’ groups or government sponsored/funded (imagine what the more extreme groups linked to the above are like!)
Whether or not anybody agrees or not with what they are promoting, this is NOT the issue, the concern is how they are doing it. It is all very negative with the threat of violence or acts of violence to animals and children. With an underlying message of bullying to conform with there views.
Nothing positive
I am very proud that my daughter was voted 1 of 2 members of her year to the schools eco-team, for all the real environmental reasons.
Best Regards
Barry Woods
Hal Lewis’ Resignation letter quote:
“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”
WHY doesnt WATTS UP – put a link to MONTFORD’s book at the TOP of this website then?
“The Hockey Stick Illusion” A W Montford
Put a link to the book, underneath: Climategate – The Crutape Letter’s
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/10/11/hsi-hits-big-time.html
http://www.amazon.com/Hockey-Stick-Illusion-Climategate-Independent/dp/1906768358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286797490&sr=8-1
SORRY for the duplicate, ALL THE LINKS went wrong in the post above…
Please delete the first one….
—————————-
Phil Clarke says:
October 10, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Anthony – click the first link – I answered the question on your very blog. Yes it was me.
BTW 10,000 people out on the streets of Paris supporting 10:10 right now!
REPLY: Thanks, it is truly sad to see that you support such idiots that make child snuff films – Anthony
——————
Well Phil…
Three LESS schools now in the UK supporting 10:10, my areas Infants, Junior and secondary thanks to this email.
In the real world…
If anybody has children at school in the UK….
Have a read of this email I sent to my childrens Infanst School and Junior Schools…
They promptly withdrew from 10:10 campaign and ALL future involvementand are considering the issue I raised about Green organsations going into schools with ‘SAFE’ literature, with all the official ‘good stuff’ beyond all control online, youtube, forums, etc..
Send you own emailAGW right or wrong.. Most teachers want – positive message – not hate/horror.
[b]check if your school is signed up here.[/b]
http://www.1010global.org/uk/education
————————————————
From: Barry Woods
To: xxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 9:41 AM
Subject: Other campaigning videos, green peace, wwf, etc. “No Pressure video” – DO NOT WATCH IT WITH ANY CHILDREN AROUND
For the attention of Miss xxxxx
Thank you for cancelling the schools involvement with the 10:10 Campaign, following their ‘No Pressure’ video. (in the link)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/sep/30/10-10-no-pressure-film?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments
As I discussed with you, what the campaigning organisations bring into school, is very different from what they put out ‘officially’ online..
There is a danger that parents and children consider these SAFE or appropriate websites, or youtube material, or internet blogs, BECAUSE these people have come into school..
The groups, heavily promote there material on all the new media, facebook, twitter,official youtube groups, etc, where advertsising standards DO NOT APPLY.
They are deliberately targeting the young…
In the Watts Up website article (towards the end) in the link below are some of the worst video ads..
From Greenpeace, 10:10, wwf (earth hour), government and other mainstream eco groups.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/07/if-you-ever-needed-an-example-of-liberal-media-bias-in-the-usa-here-it-is/
It ends with a particulary awful picture of a child in a noose, standing on a block of melting (artic) ice.
That was prominent at Cannes 2009 film festival, a partner of that groups includes the WWF
http://www.act-responsible.org/ACT/ACTINCANNES/THEEXPO2009.htm
However, there are numerous other videos, whilst not as graphic, which are just as corrosive, in a slightly more subtle way..
ie GreenPeace’s 4×4 add with an office worker… (spiting, ostracising, name calling, bullying, in an corporate office)
Finally the video from the Cop15 Copenhagen Opening Conference video, all over the media, BBC, Sky, ITV (especial the last bit of the clip)
The Cop15 Opening Copenhagen Conference video…
At the end, a small child running from a tidal wave (IPCC say 59cm in 90 YEARS) the child leaps into a tree, left dangling as the sea rushes underneath her, then she starts screaming..
This LIE gave my 5 year old daughter nightmares, she still asks about the child..
She doesn’t understand why someone would make a video like that if it is not true..
So, I can see the doubt in her eyes when I say, it isn’t true.
They are deliberately targeting the young, a compilation of offical, (UN, UK government, 10:10, greenpeace) clips in this video
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100056892/pachauris-strategy-terrorize-the-children/
Do you ever meet with other Headteachers in the area, may I ask you to discuss this with them and to show them these videos, to demonstrate my concerns and the risks to children (probably more the older junior – secondary).
These are ALL offical mainstream ‘responsible’ groups or government sponsored/funded
(imagine what the more extreme groups linked to the above are like!)
Whether or not anybody agrees or not with what they are promoting, is NOT the issue,
the concern is how they are doing it. It is all very negative with the threat of violence or acts of violence to animals and children.. With an underlying message of bullying to conform with there views.
Nothing positive
I am very proud that my daughter was voted 1 of 2 members of her year to the schools eco-team, for all the real environmental reasons.
Best Regards
Barry Woods
I was attending the ASPO Peak Oil Conference last week in Washington, DC, and one of the presentations was by David Rutledge, a Caltech professor whose resume includes posts as Chair of the Caltech Division of Engineering and Applied Science and Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.
David presented on hydrocarbon fuel sources of CO2 and implications for global warming. Basically, his calculations (which are largely consistent with my own) suggest that CO2 will peak at around 455 ppm in 2064 (if I recall correctly), and that, using the IPCC’s own temperature sensitivity estimates, about half of total expected global warming has already occurred. It was an excellent presentation.
I chatted with him after the presentation, and I dare say, he expressed many of the same concerns about the whole climate peer review process that Hal Lewis does above. Anthony, you might look him up and ask if he would like to write a post or two for WUWT.
The revolution will not be televised.
I read Dr Lewis’ letter and I see that he bases his claims of wide spread fraud in climate science on his reading of the climate gate emails and Montford’s summary of the same.
Unfortunatly his letter lacks specificity and it can not be determined upon which emails he is constructing his claims of fraud and its corollary, exotic island holidaying.
We are continually exhorted to resist arguments based on an uncritical appeal to authority. By this I understand that following the advice of your heart surgeon is probably a good thing when dealing with the heart but when dealing with your teeth you might measure his advice against that of a dentist, basically being an authority in one field doesn’t make your pronouncements authorititive in another.
So back to the unhappy Prof. He asserts that his reading of the emails convinces him a fraud has been perpetrated. He insinuates that Penn State and East Anglia have exonerated Mann et al because the weight of money has distorted process. And yet he offers nothing but fulmination with which to back his claims. That makes me very uncomfortable. I’m used to a higher threshold of evidence than Lewis seems capable of mustering.
The majority of responses so far to these unbacked assetions is that Prof Lewis should be applauded for his bravery when I think he should be given a refresher course in scientific methods…you know weighing the evidence, even that part of the evidence that discomforts your theory…being specific etc
The emails are undoubtedly controversial. One side insists that they are the nail in the coffin for AGW (without explaing how an allegedly flawed paleo reconstruction contradicts radiative physics or the anthropogenic contribution of co2 or the fact that co2 is a green house gas or the fact that co2 is increasing or the fact of decreasing arctic ice etcetera etcetera). The other side insists that the majority of the emails are nothing more than shorthand between researchers and that it would be foolish to read the emails in isolation from the scientific articles published in which that shorthand is given rigourous academic expression (the FOI emails are just wrong and I’m with Monbiot on this one, you don’t threaten to delete and you don’t delete just because you think somebody is a pain in the (tree) ring).
We can debate the emails until the cows retire for the evening and change into evening dress but the fact remains that a credible case can be made for a benign reading. This does not make the reading ‘true’ but its credibility is a hurdle for those who want to trumpet that the emails are incontrovertible evidence of wide spread scientific fraud. Particularly when the most ungenerous reading of the emails has been the motive behind Cuccinelli’s attempts to pursue Mann for fraud and that attempt has been rebuffed by the Court for lack of evidence. What are we to say to that…that the American courts are in on the conspiracy as well?
So maybe this story hasn’t got traction outside the blogoverse not because there is (for god’s sake lets grow up) a conspiracy but because a long retired academic simply hasn’t brought anything to the table other than the usual hyperbole that states climate science is wrong because all the scientists have been compromised by the promise of rewards from an as yet unrealised multi trillion dollar carbon market.
I’m sorry Anthony but to this sceptic any comparison of this letter to Luther’s unconventional use of the door knocker is just going a bit over the top.