WUWT may recall the late Dr. Hal Lewis led the way on this last year as I covered at WUWT and in an op-ed at the Christian Science Monitor.
From Climate Depot, who got the exclusive:
Nobel prize winner for physics in 1973 Dr. Ivar Giaever resigned as a Fellow from the American Physical Society (APS) on September 13, 2011 in disgust over the group’s promotion of man-made global warming fears. Climate Depot has obtained the exclusive email Giaever sent to APS Executive Officer Kate Kirby to announce his formal resignation.
Dr. Giaever wrote to Kirby of APS: “Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I cannot live with the (APS) statement below (on global warming): APS: ‘The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.’
Giaever announced his resignation from APS was due to the group’s belief in man-made global warming fears. Giaever explained in his email to APS: “In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.”
Read the full story here at Climate Depot
Here’s the resignation letter:
From: Ivar Giaever [ mailto:giaever@XXXX.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 3:42 PMTo: kirby@xxx.xxx
Cc: Robert H. Austin; ‘William Happer’; ‘Larry Gould’; ‘S. Fred Singer’; Roger Cohen
Subject: I resign from APS
Dear Ms. Kirby Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I can not live with the statement below: Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.
If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.
In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.
Best regards, Ivar Giaever Nobel Laureate 1973 PS. I included a copy to a few people in case they feel like using the information.Ivar Giaever
XXX XXX
XXX
USA
Phone XXX XXX XXX
Fax XXX XXX XXX
================================
h/t to WUWT reader David L. Hagen
BobW in NC says:
September 14, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Yes, as Smokey says, the Oregon Petition is clear witness of scientists against AGW. But warmists like to shout that it’s been debunked. In reality, its own website shows clearly that it has dealt with the trivial “debunking” issues in question.
You have to go that extra mile sometimes.
~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years
Always nice to see it expressed that way.
Rob Munning says:
September 14, 2011 at 3:05 pm
More doctored video??
Spliced and edited, yes, but no evidence of doctoring. I never see the bird and the divers together…do you? In this case only the narrative is invented, unlike the video Ken Franklin puts out, with a special effects artist as his cinematographer. –AGF
Darkinbad the Brightdayler says:
September 14, 2011 at 1:17 pm
One by one they stand up and are counted.
————
In the cc I count 6. Out of the entire membership.
So the agw conspiracy just keeps on getting bigger and bigger.
[REPLY: He explained his choices in his letter. They went to the individuals he was absolutely SURE would use it to advantage. We are looking at one ticked-off Nobel laureate. Now, don’t be so dense. REP, mod}
We need more good people like Dr. Ivar Giaever!
I have reported on the better-known at http://www.oarval.org/ClimateChange.htm
I was very moved by this and feel obliged to repost the comment I made on BishopHill tonight.
“How difficult must it have been for this elderly gentleman scientist to leave an organisation that he built his working life around and that he once loved deeply?
I admire his principles and courage but I can not even begin to imagine the despair that he must have felt when writing this letter.”
Congratulations Dr Giaever on an honorable and principled stand. May you inspire others.
Oh, and BobW in NC (September 14, 2011 at 1:38 pm), Anthony also has some local help, called “Test” in the top bar – here. If your browser does tabs, it’s most helpful to open it in a second tab to use as a reference (how else d’you think I did that neat link?).
it is understandable that the revulsion felt by long term members of aps over these political shenanigans of the wanna be politicians inside the organization. However, what needs to happen is the voting out of office of these idiologs who have gained control of the organization. This cannot happen by quiting. The aps is too important an organization to allow its decline to meaninglessness.
It’s not just the problem with CAGW. While these fools in the leadership are busy promoting algor, they are not doing their job of promoting physics. For example, public universities in TX are losing the ability to offer undergraduate physics degrees because of the mistaken beliefs that programs at smaller schools that have fewer than 5 graduates per year over the longer term are useless. Meanwhile, CSI tv shows are filling the ranks of crime investigation programs and biology programs continue to fill the fast food burger dumps with their graduates. There’s a shortage of highschool physics teachers to introduce physics to the students and no McGiver tv program or real outreach programs to educate college bound students about physics degrees – things the APS should be promoting big time. So now we are in a scientific and technological society and are not training the physicists we need to maintain such a society.
Considering that over 40% of physics degrees in the state are issued from small universities and that students attending these are not going to attend the handful of major universities that will be left. Rather they will choose another occupation. Since physics tends to be a major source of students for nuclear reactor engineering and for health physics, it should be apparent that the future is not going to be so bright if this continues any longer.
RoyFOMR says:
September 14, 2011 at 4:27 pm
I was very moved by this and feel obliged to repost the comment I made on BishopHill tonight.
“How difficult must it have been for this elderly gentleman scientist to leave an organisation that he built his working life around and that he once loved deeply?
I admire his principles and courage but I can not even begin to imagine the despair that he must have felt when writing this letter.”
——————
Well said. Unfortunately, I feel it has happened to many once landmark organizations.
——–
My thoughts published earlier at Bishop Hill:
Dr. Ivar Giaever sir, you have my utmost respect. Part of your legacy will be your honor.
“the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years”
And this is the basis for the AGW panic?
We’re doomed!
Work in progress – I’m 40% thro’ the video “The Changing Climate of Global Warming”
Early impressions. Love the warmistadors suits and clothing. They are so cool.
The sceptics on the other hand seem, for the most part, much lesthe financial under-classs richly-dressed but it must be a malformation of my pituitary sub-pc honesty detector that I’m strangely drawn to the message of the clearly less-afluent sector. In short, my BS detector redlines when I’m listening to climate-consensualists and green-sector warms to the messages sent out by the much poorer-dressed but logically-possesed questioners.
Isn’t it a wee bit odd that the greener one professes to be is more a statement of how many dollars add to that particular colour singularity than any actual semblance of that state?
I’m treading on soft sand now but isn’t it becoming the case that that greenies have become the new capitalists and ‘red-necks’ are now the true environmentalists.
Just asking.
Fred Bloggs says:
No…not even close to the only one:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/10/971002070106.htm
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/nobel-prize-winning-0360.html
Thank you Dr. Giaever – you are a principled scientist.
Of course, I’m still waiting on the climate
hypocritesscientists to stop using all products made from petroleum or any machine which derives energy from petroleum. Hmmm…I wonder what kind of car Kevin Trenberth drives…Yeah. That’ll be the Shame of Science for a thousand years.
Frank K.: It is not hypocritical to use a product that you think should have a price on it that more accurately reflects all the true costs of using that product, so that it will be used more efficiently and so that the proper market incentives exist for the development of alternatives. For example, even some smokers might agree that cigarettes should be taxed significantly.
For those who are praising the “insightful” observation that the temperature has changed from 288 to 288.8 K should at least be aware of the fact that only a few degrees K in global temperature is the difference between our current climate and the worst of the ice ages. “Small” is a subjective term (Most temperature changes seem pretty small compared with absolute 0), and changes in global climate need to be seen in the full context. I’m sorry but its a meaningless observation.
I also fail to understand Giaever’s question “how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?”. Its been done by many different methods, ranging from grids of thermometer readings to satellite data. These have very different and complementary systematics and yet give impressively consistent results. The error on these temperature measurements is small enough to measure a net warming over the last 50 years to a few sigma confidence. I would suspect that Spencer and Christy, two favorites and regulars on WUWT, would no doubt be glad to explain to this poor fellow how you can measure the whole temperature of the whole earth. They’ve spent a large part of their careers doing it.
Finally, it appears the Giaever has not read the complete, up-to-date statement of the APS. In 2010, they appended their original statement with commentary, conceding that the term “incontrovertible” was strong (“because by its very nature science questions prevailing ideas.”), and instead specifying the actual measured value of the temperature change (with its uncertainty) and a source.
Matt, may I translate? Thank you:
“We were caught lying, and so we were forced to retract.” ~ APS.
And regarding the bunkum of a global temperature, here is Prof McKitrick’s peer reviwed [and never falsified] paper: click
What is the “right” global temperature? Give us a number. Invent one if you like.
Or, you might want to read the first sentence of Dr McKitrick’s Conclusion.
@ur momisugly Smokey, I think a more accurate translation would be
“We used too strong of an adjective, so here is the actual number and its respective uncertainty”
I agree with the claim that the term “incontrovertible” is strong, but even the vast majority of skeptical climate scientists (for example, Lindzen, Christy, Spencer) all concede a measurable warming. The later of those three are responsible for making the measurements that you claim “do not exist”.
As for the McKitrick paper, I should qualify that temperature reconstructions are measurements of the temperature *anomaly*, not some sort of absolute temperature measurement.
To quote NASA-GISS
“Our analysis concerns only temperature anomalies, not absolute temperatures. The temperature anomaly tells us how much warmer or colder than normal it is at a particular place and point in time, the ‘normal temperature’ being the mean over many (30) years (same place, same time of year). It seems obvious that to find the anomaly, you first have to know the current and normal absolute temperatures. This is correct for the temperature at one fixed spot (the location of one thermometer), but not true at all for regional mean temperatures.”
While there may be some interesting ideas in this paper you linked (I will have to read through it), I find it a rather bold claim to suggest that a warming effect from a change in the earth’s energy balance cannot be detected.
Joel Shore says:
September 14, 2011 at 7:26 pm
So you drive a car too, Joel? Thought so…
Frank K,
Joel Shore says:
“It is not hypocritical to use a product that you think should have a price on it that more accurately reflects all the true costs of using that product, so that it will be used more efficiently and so that the proper market incentives exist for the development of alternatives.”
Like windmill sellers, eh?
And Matt says: “I agree with the claim that the term ‘incontrovertible; is strong…”
Strong?? That word is a scientific LIE.
Liars lie. Deal with it. The AMS is run by liars.
Microbiologist says: “…What is motivating Gore? He is a failed politician who has amassed great wealth….I honestly don’t get it. Unless he thinks he can still be President?”
I think he’s hoping for a seat on the Supreme Soviet of the People’s Republic of America. No election will be required.
Kevin Kilty says: “I resigned from APS a while back over the Sokal hoax, and APS trying to find some middle ground…”
I’d like to hear more, Kevin. I’m familiar with the brilliant Sokal hoax–I go back once every year or two and re-read the whole story. It shows, if nothing else, that Science is ready to fall on its sword: “[Sokal] also fumed over ‘how readily they [Social Text] accepted my implication that the search for truth in science must be subordinated to a political agenda.”
Ms. Kirby is a demonstration of the fact that when you make an administrator out of a scientist, you’ve made a scientist disappear.
____
Oh, Arfur, the reason your explanation of italicization and bolding didn’t work is that the carets you used actually work as intended, rather than displaying. You have to use special coding to make them show as text.
Like this: <i>Enter text here </i> <b> Enter text here </b>
Alternatively, install the Greasemonkey Firefox Add-on and then the CA Assistant script. It even allows blockquotes, links, and previews.
Joel Shore says:
September 14, 2011 at 7:26 pm
Shows how much you know about economics, Joel. I don’t think automakers are making, selling, and pricing SUVs (or should) so that they can make all-electric vehicles someday, nor do I think that oil companies are (or should) price their products so that windmill makers can have their massively inefficient and uneconomical businesses (is there a buyer for Solyndra, anyone?). That is true delusion.
Larry;
If Joel’s admonition, “a product that you think should have a price on it that more accurately reflects all the true costs of using that product” were followed with solar and wind, both products’ sales would immediately shrink back to 1% of 1% of 1% of current levels, where they were before–in their tiny niche markets.