Physicists Stick to Warming Claim Post-ClimateGate

(CBS)

The professional association for physicists is facing internal pressure from some of its most distinguished members, who say the burgeoning ClimateGate scandal means the group should rescind its 2007 statement declaring that global warming represents a dire international emergency.

When CBSNews.com asked on Monday whether it will rethink the statement calling for immediate reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, the American Physical Society said it would not. APS spokeswoman Tawanda Johnson replied with a pre-ClimateGate announcement from November 10 reiterating support for the 2007 statement; neither APS president-elect Curtis Callan nor Johnson would answer other questions on the topic.

Pressure on this venerable society of physicists, which was founded in 1899 at Columbia University, is coming from members who are squarely in the scientific mainstream and are alarmed at the state of climate science revealed in the leaked e-mail messages and program files from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. (See CBS News' prior coverage.)

Those files show that prominent scientists were so wedded to theories of man-made global warming that they ridiculed dissenters who asked for copies of their data, plotted how to keep researchers who reached different conclusions from publishing, and discussed how to conceal apparently buggy computer code from being disclosed under the Freedom of Information law. Internal investigations are now underway at East Anglia, Penn State, and the British government's weather forecasting unit.

One APS dissenting member is William Happer, a physicist who runs the Happer Lab at Princeton University. Another is Hal Lewis, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A third is Robert Austin, another Princeton physics professor and head of a biophysics research group.

They've been circulating a letter saying: "By now everyone has heard of what has come to be known as ClimateGate, which was and is an international scientific fraud, the worst any of us have seen... We have asked the APS management to put the 2007 statement on ice until the extent to which it is tainted can be determined, but that has not been done. We have also asked that the membership be consulted on this point, but that too has not been done."

Some of the same scientists had asked the APS, pre-ClimateGate, to revise its climate policy statement. To the applause of like-minded bloggers who dubbed the petition "a silly distraction," the APS shot down that idea on November 10.

In the aftermath of the embarrassing data leaks, however, Princeton's Happer says that about half of the APS members they've contacted now support the petition (which, after all, is only asking for an independent analysis of the science involved).

Of the signatories so far, Happer says, 77 are fellows of major scientific societies, 14 members of the National Academies, one is a Nobel laureate, and there is a large number of authors of major scientific books and recipients of prizes and awards for scientific research. He adds: "Some have accepted a career risk by signing the petition. The 230 odd signatories can hardly be dismissed as lightweights compared to those who spread the message of impending climate disaster."

This has become a common refrain: Hans von Storch, director of the Institute for Coastal Research, calls the climate change axis a "cartel." A colleague, Eduardo Zorita, went further and said the scientists implicated in the e-mails "should be barred" from future United Nations proceedings and warned that "the scientific debate has been in many instances hijacked to advance other agendas." One estimate from a free-market group says that 12 of the 26 scientists who wrote the relevant section of a U.N. global warming report are "up to their necks in ClimateGate."

Below are excerpts from e-mail messages that the scientists behind the petition to the APS sent me on Monday:

Princeton University's Robert Austin:

I view it as science fraud, pure and simple, and that we should completely distance ourselves from such unethical behavior by CRU, and that data files be opened to the public and examined in the full light of day. We as taxpayers pay for that work -- we are owed examination of the analysis.

Princeton University's William Happer:

The APS has not responded to our petition. We submitted the petition several weeks ago... Prof. Callan, the president elect of the APS, who works in the same building in Princeton University as Professor Austin and I, has been unable to find time to discuss the petition with us.

We have independently contacted as many members of the APS as we can to ask for their support of the petition. We are getting about as many supportive as negative responses, so I would judge that about half the membership of the APS agrees with us. Those who oppose us usually have little or nothing to say about the science and plenty of things to say about what evil people we are. Those who agree with us are troubled by the lack of scientific support for the current APS statement and the highly political nature of it.

Hal Lewis of the University of California, Santa Barbara:

I think it behooves us to be careful about how we state the science. I know of nobody who denies that the Earth has been warming for thousands of years without our help (and specifically since the Little Ice Age a few hundred years ago), and is most likely to continue to do so in its own sweet time. The important question is how much warming does the future hold, is it good or bad, and if bad is it too much for normal adaptation to handle. The real answer to the first is that no one knows, the real answer to the second is more likely good than bad (people and plants die from cold, not warmth), and the answer to the third is almost certainly not. And nobody doubts that CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing for the better part of a century, but the disobedient temperature seems not to care very much. And nobody denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, along with other gases like water vapor, but despite the claims of those who are profiting by this craze, no one knows whether the temperature affects the CO2 or vice versa. The weight of the evidence is the former.

So the tragedy is that the serious questions are quantitative, and it's easy to fool people with slogans. If you say that the Earth is warming you are telling the truth, but not the whole truth, and if you say it is due to the burning of fossil fuels you are on thin ice. If you say that the Earth is warming and therefore catastrophe lies ahead, you are pulling an ordinary bait and switch scam. If you are a demagogue, of course, these distinctions don't bother you -- you have little interest in that quaint concept called truth.

So it isn't simple, and the catastrophe mongers are playing a very lucrative
game.

---

Declan McCullagh is a senior correspondent for CBSNews.com. He can be reached at [e-mail] and can be followed on Twitter as declanm. You can bookmark Declan's Taking Liberties site here, or subscribe to the RSS feed. Before becoming a CBS employee, Declan was chief political correspondent for CNET, a reporter for Time, and Washington bureau chief for Wired.

[patkelly03]

I realize that the conservative mind is afraid of change. I also realize that the conservative mind is quite happy to form opinions based on flawed logic, rumor, innuendo or just about anything they can grab on to just so long as it supports some preconceived notion or fictitious need. While I realize all of this it is still hard to understand how or why anyone in their right mind would argue against doing something to stop increasing levels of air pollution. Perhaps the problem is that conservative minds are more sensitive to lower levels of oxygen and increased pollutants and that this has already begun driving them crazy.

Let?s face it. Some people are just slow learners. And there is no real way to rationally argue with a conservative mind because they are incapable of realizing when they lost the argument. From their perspective the person with the biggest mouth wins. However I think I have come upon a way to convince conservatives that global warming is not only real but a bad thing.

Take their most outspoken spokespersons (most of the commentators at FOX ?News? should do nicely (Please forgive the misuse of the word ?news.")) and put them in a sealed container with air that matches projected air quality in say 50 or 100 years if we do nothing. E.g. Just run a tube from the tailpipe of a running SUV into a room. I know there are some who would say lock the doors but let?s be nice and agree to let them out after they admit global warming and air pollution are real problems well worth doing something about.

[ffoulkes-2009]

You really like to attack people and look down your nose at half the nation, don't you? Well, the slow learners are those who believe that scientists never have their own agendas to follow. They are human as you or I, and they do make mistakes and there are quite a few that are dishonest.

[Changein2012]

Take your fingers out of your ears and listen to the debate before you jump in Mr Helper. The theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming is unproven. Before anyone can be "afraid of change", we must first know where we stand. You are of the generation that has been taught WHAT to think rather than HOW to think, a very sad form of child abuse.

[bruce691]

Why is this story concerning PHYSICISTS. Aren't the true experts meteorologists and climatologists? This is a earth science question.

[Robinson101]

Do you really believe that? The Physicists are the only ones doing real, actual empirical research in this area (the CLOUD experiment at CERN for example). These Climate Scientists are doing nothing more than fiddling with data, adjusting it to suit their existing preconceptions. Many of them call themselves "post normal scientists" (that is, not a seeker after truth, but seekers after political ideas).

A lot of meteorologists don't believe it anyway. The two scientists in charge of the satellite data don't believe it. It's only the surface station stick fiddlers who promote it. Everyone else takes on trust the fact that they're straight and the rest of the scientific community is riding the grant funding mechanism somewhat opportunistically. There's so much horse-manure out there masquerading as research the stench of corruption is really quite overpowering. 95% of the research is of the "what if" variety ("what if the stick fiddlers are right?"). The mainstream media dutifully publish all and every single abstract as though it was gospel. It isn't.

By the way, here in the UK it isn't a left/right issue. In the US, as usual, everything becomes polarised between D&R. If anything I'm centre or slightly left of centre, but I still don't believe this crap.

[provita67]

Dear Corporate News Media heads:
For years you have perpetuated the Lie of Global Warming (as well as other lies) fueled by your owners with orders from, demonically influenced, on-high leaders. And to the editors, you have prostituted yourselves and crucified your God given "Freedom of the Press Rights" to these same leaders. Thus you damage your integrity and your own conscience, which will lead to mental illness. And when it's all said and done, if you give away your personal integrity, when you go home from the office, you will die a "lonely man."
I ask you, "Is it not time to stand for truth?" I pray to see you in heaven.

[provita67]

Dear Corporate News Media heads:
For years you have perpetuated the lie of Global Warming fueled by your owners with orders from demonic influenced on-high leaders. And to the editors, you have prostituted yourselves and crucified your God given "Freedom of the Press Rights" to

[meyecommander]

The End of Global Warming: <http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2665>

[bruce691]

I just wanted to alert everyone about the so called experts on the site you mention.

Our motto is ?Leading the debate. Beating the Street.? We publish on the Web to help you understand the key issues in the energy sector and to help you make money in the energy business. We believe our news and analysis, combined with our various stock lists and indices, will allow you to do just that.

[meyecommander]

The End of Global Warming: <http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2665>

[Andrew_30]

The science must stand on its own.
<br/>
In science the burden of proof is on the theory.
<br/>
The theory must provide the proof.
<br/>
If the theory makes a prediction, which it must to not simply be a hypothesis, and the prediction is wrong then the theory is discarded.
<br/>
That is part of the scientific method.
<br/>
The AGW theory predicts that CO2 causes global warming.
<br/>
CO2 is higher now then it was in 1998.
<br/>
Average global temperature has been declining since 1998
<br/>
The prediction made by the theory is wrong therefore the AGW theory must be discarded.
<br/>
QED.
<br/>
It is called the scientific method. It only takes one wrong result to discard a theory.
<br/>

'No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.' Albert Einstein
<br/>
Please see also:
<br/>
scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/climategate.html
<br/>
For a satirical look at the climategate computer programming:
<br/>
Anthropogenic Global Warming Virus Alert.
<br/>
www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i64103