The APS is a society of physicists, any opinions they may have about global warming are generally outside their field of expertise. However even if they were experts, some dissent is part of the scientific process, that is just part of how viable theories are further refined.

The department of the NAS that deals with climate issues still feels that human activity contributed to global warming. As does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These are actual climatologists whose whole career is dedicated to understanding the Earth’s climate, not interested physicists.

“A handful of APS members …”

**************

The “handful” were the ones who tried to lie their way around the APS’ position. The statement I cited came from the governing board, the APS Council, and not some hair-brained righties with an agenda unrelated to science. Amazing how the APS is bold and cutting edge when they purportedly say what you would like them to say, but weak-kneed and squeamish when they don’t!

This is more right-wing deception. Because APS sponsored a debate on the topic in a news letter, several right wing wacko bloggers decided that the venerable society had modified its stance. Using the time tested “big lie” technique pioneered by their apparent mentor Joseph Goebbels, they rushed to the keyboard to trumpet a major policy change.In fact, APS had done no such thing and had to issue the following statement:

“The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:

“Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”

An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that “Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum.” This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.”

martha h, a good liar is always fun to expose. For you though, the lie is second hand and your credulity or just plain obsequiousness to your cause is tiring.

Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate
Michael Asher (Blog) – July 16, 2008 9:35 PM

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.”

The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity — the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause — has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton’s paper an “expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and “extensive errors”

In an email to DailyTech, Monckton says, “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 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.”

Monckton, who was the science advisor to Britain’s Thatcher administration, says natural variability is the cause of most of the Earth’s recent warming. “In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years … Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth.”

Not according to the National Academy Of Sciences, you know the organization founded by Congress in 1863 to be give independent unbiased advice and recommendations about science and technology.

http://dels.nas.edu/globalchange/clim.shtml
http://dels.nas.edu/dels/faq.shtml#gov

I thought martha was chinese and now we know for certain! I was thinking the same thing about govt. techniques for controlling knowledge and people. In Georgia, the whole cell phone system was down yesterday. In China whole things disappear on the internet and “news” as happens in the US. I think the people who do ham radio are on the right track. The latest technology is wonderful, but that old time religion (ham radio) is harder for them to control.

No authoritarian regime can survive without willing minions in the populace. We’ve got several of those here.

Jill

Come now rafflaw, poor martha h gets all her information at church over donuts and orange juice and she has now come to the firm conclusion that snakes talk, Bush is good for America, and global warming is the mad notion of evil-godless-liberals (one word). To conservatives like her, science is a “four letter word,” (some even think it is literally) and “consensus,” why that’s work of the devil.

Grow up and stop spouting your (100 foot houseboat, 20,000 foot mansion) Al Gore nonsense.

Have you noticed that all the “interviews on the street” have the Chinese people saying almost the same things?–glory of China’s past and their bright new future etc. This govt. really knows how to stay on message. You’ll die for not trying!