The Facts Behind A Societies Support For AGW

[westwall]

olfraud and all of his AGW buddies and sycophants just love to point out all the scientific societies who claim AGW is a substantial threat to the Earth. Here is how the APS wrote their policy, and more specifically how it was a small coterie of the APS who actually wrote it and ignored the wishes of their constituency.

Moreover it shows how one of the APS group that wrote the policy sits on the Science Advisory Board for a large international bank with a Green Portfolio valued at ove 60 BILLION dollars.

In other words follow the money honey. I have highlighted the response's to the APS's letter in blue and I lifted the whole thing from WUWT.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Tawanda W. Johnson
Press Secretary
APS Physics
529 14th St. NW, Suite 1050
Washington, DC 20045-2065

Phone: 202-662-8702
Fax: 202-662-8711
[email protected]

APS Comments on Harold Lewis’ Resignation of his Society Membership

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a recent letter to American Physical Society (APS) President Curtis A. Callan, chair of the Princeton University Physics Department, Harold Lewis, emeritus physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, announced that he was resigning his APS membership.

In response to numerous accusations in the letter, APS issues the following statement:

There is no truth to Dr. Lewis’ assertion that APS policy statements are driven by financial gain. To the contrary, as a membership organization of more than 48,000 physicists, APS adheres to rigorous ethical standards in developing its statements.

We know that the existing 2007 APS Statement on Climate Change was developed literally over lunch by a few people, after the duly constituted Committee had signed off on a more moderate Statement.

The Society is open to review of its statements if members petition the APS Council – the Society’s democratically elected governing body – to do so.

We have yet to receive a response to our Petition:

Signatures: APS Council Study

…delivered last spring and signed by 260+ members and former members, including nearly 100 Fellows, 17 members of national academies and 2 Nobels. Driven largely by the ClimateGate revelations, the Petition asks that the Society conduct an independent study and assessment.

As for democratic membership participation in matters of science, consider the reaction to a grass roots outpouring of APS member opinion on the 2007 APS Statement Members Bombard Councilors with Messages on Climate Change . “[APS Councilor] was uncomfortable with the idea of a membership-wide referendum on statements. He said that he was concerned that having a membership wide vote on controversial issues could lead to the adoption of scientifically unsound statements.” Evidently physicists should be excluded from inputting on a question of physics; only “physics monks” are entitled to do so ex cathedra .
Dr. Lewis’ specific charge that APS as an organization is benefitting financially from climate change funding is equally false. Neither the operating officers nor the elected leaders of the Society have a monetary stake in such funding.

The chair of the Panel on Public Affairs (POPA) that re-endorsed the 2007 APS Statement on Climate Change sits on the science advisory board of a large international bank Deutsche Bank Annual Report 2009 - Advisory Boards The bank has a $60+ billion Green portfolio, which it wishes to assure investors is safe…not to mention their income from carbon trading. Other members of this board include current IPCC chief Pachauri and Lord Oxburgh, of Climategate exoneration fame. The viability of these banks activities depends on continued concern over CO2 emissions . Then there is the member of the Kleppner Committee (that reviewed the APS 2007 Statement prior to POPA) who served on that committee while under consideration for the position of Chief Scientist at BP. The position had been vacated when Steve Koonin left to take a post in the administration at DOE. Soon after the Kleppner Committee report in late 2009, this committee member took the BP job. BP had previously funded the new Energy Laboratory at Berkeley, which was headed by current Energy Secretary Steve Chu.
Moreover, relatively few APS members conduct climate change research, and therefore the vast majority of the Society’s members derive no personal benefit from such research support.

This does not mention the firm expectation by federal government agencies such as the NAS and the Presidential Science Advisor’s office that the APS will continue to support the huge funding machine that diverts billions of taxpayer dollars into research that must support the alarmist credo. APS has been silent on the documented practice by some climate scientists aimed at preventing opposing research from being published.
On the matter of global climate change, APS notes that virtually all reputable scientists agree with the following observations:

Carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere due to human activity;
Carbon dioxide is an excellent infrared absorber, and therefore, its increasing presence in the atmosphere contributes to global warming; and

This passes over the fact that carbon dioxide absorption lines are nearly saturated.
The dwell time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is hundreds of years.


Well, it depends on what you mean by “dwell time.” If it is the conventional half life of an impulse loading of carbon dioxide, the statement is wrong – by a lot.. The IPCC’s Bern carbon cycle model A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE BERN MODEL gets a 16 year half life. If it is the time for the last molecule to get picked up by a sink, the statement is meaningless. At the very least, the statement is sloppy and hardly befitting a world class scientific society.[/COLOR]On these matters, APS judges the science to be quite clear. However, APS continues to recognize that climate models are far from adequate, and the extent of global warming and climatic disruptions produced by sustained increases in atmospheric carbon loading remain uncertain.

This is much better than the 2007 APS Statement itself. However, the phrase “climate disruptions” is noteworthy because it is the new buzzword recently introduced by Science Advisor John Holdren Global warming is dead. Long live, er, 'Global climate disruption'! – Telegraph Blogs , evidently enabling advocates to assign any unusual weather event to human causes. It is curious that that the APS press release happens to echo this new phrase.
In light of the significant settled aspects of the science, APS totally rejects Dr. Lewis’ claim that global warming is a “scam” and a “pseudoscientific fraud.”

What we have here is a bait and switch. No one is saying that the greenhouse effect itself is a scam. This passage seeks to transfer the ‘scam’ charge from its real target to the trivial. The fraud/scam is to be found in the continual drumbeat that the science is settled; that the effects will be catastrophic; that it requires draconian economic sacrifices to avoid; and that mandates and subsidies for rent-seeking corporations are justified.
Additionally, APS notes that it has taken extraordinary steps to solicit opinions from its membership on climate change. After receiving significant commentary from APS members, the Society’s Panel on Public Affairs finalized an addendum to the APS climate change statement reaffirming the significance of the issue. The APS Council overwhelmingly endorsed the reaffirmation.

Never mind that the Panel on Public Affairs is chaired by an individual whose research funding stream (from BP) depends on continued global warming alarm. And you have to keep your eye on the pea. The dispute was not over the “significance” of the issue; it was over the alarmist nature of the statement. The addendum used more than five times the number of words to try to explain what the original statement meant. Not a good sign that they got it right the first time.
Lastly, in response to widespread interest expressed by its members, the APS is in the process of organizing a Topical Group to feature forefront research and to encourage exchange of information on the physics of climate.

Never mind that the Topical Group was proposed in a petition organized by a group of five members that included Dr. Lewis. Also, the Council has not yet approved a TG; therefore it is not in the process of being “organized.” It is being considered. No formal charter or bylaws have been set down. What we have here is the first attempt to co-opt the TG for PR purposes. This before it has even been approved by the APS Council.

Read the APS Climate Change Statement and Commentary: Climate Change.

APS should be very reluctant to draw public attention to this Statement, with its infamous phrase, “The evidence is incontrovertible,” despite the fact that nothing in science is ever incontrovertible.
About APS: The American Physical Society (APS Physics | APS Home) is the leading physics organization, representing 48,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories, and industry in the United States and internationally. APS has offices in College Park, MD (Headquarters), Ridge, NY, and Washington, DC.

Tawanda W. Johnson
Press Secretary
APS Physics
529 14th St. NW, Suite 1050
Washington, DC 20045-2065

Phone: 202-662-8702
Fax: 202-662-8711
[email protected]

APS responds! – Deconstructing the APS response to Dr. Hal Lewis resignation | Watts Up With That?

 

[Old Rocks]

Hey Walleyes, got your but kicked on the Royal Society statement, now you have to lie concerning the APS statement.

Guess what? One society has changed its statements about AGW because of member pressure. That was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. They changed from rejecting AGW, to saying it was possible, because the geologists in the Association would not stand for the lie in the statement, and enough threatoned to resign the Association, that they changed their position.

Scientific opinion on climate change - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

American Association of Petroleum Geologists
As of June 2007, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Position Statement on climate change stated:

the AAPG membership is divided on the degree of influence that anthropogenic CO2 has on recent and potential global temperature increases ... Certain climate simulation models predict that the warming trend will continue, as reported through NAS, AGU, AAAS and AMS. AAPG respects these scientific opinions but wants to add that the current climate warming projections could fall within well-documented natural variations in past climate and observed temperature data. These data do not necessarily support the maximum case scenarios forecast in some models.[82]
Prior to the adoption of this statement, the AAPG was the only major scientific organization that rejected the finding of significant human influence on recent climate, according to a statement by the Council of the American Quaternary Association.[2] Explaining the plan for a revision, AAPG president Lee Billingsly wrote in March 2007:

Members have threatened to not renew their memberships... if AAPG does not alter its position on global climate change.... And I have been told of members who already have resigned in previous years because of our current global climate change position.... The current policy statement is not supported by a significant number of our members and prospective members.[83]
AAPG President John Lorenz announced the sunsetting of AAPG’s Global Climate Change Committee in January 2010. The AAPG Executive Committee determined:

Climate change is peripheral at best to our science…. AAPG does not have credibility in that field…….and as a group we have no particular knowledge of global atmospheric geophysics.[84]

 

[Old Rocks]

You see, Walleyes, most scientists are honorable people and do not like lies being supported in their name.

 

[westwall]

Trying to rewrite history huh olfraud? I seem to recall you saying the Royal Society would come out with a revised policy even more hardlined than their previous one. It seems you were wrong. They in fact moderated their postion a great deal, or do you think changing from "the science is settled " to

" ... Some uncertainties are unlikely ever to be significantly reduced. ...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... The size of future temperature increases and other aspects of climate change, especially at the regional scale, are still subject to uncertainty. ...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... There is little confidence in specific projections of future regional climate change, except at continental scales. ...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future. ...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... There remains the possibility that hitherto unknown aspects of the climate and climate change could emerge and lead to significant modifications in our understanding. ...


That sounds like what I predicted would occur or do you live on a different planet?

 

[westwall]

You see, Walleyes, most scientists are honorable people and do not like lies being supported in their name.

You don't have the vaguest idea of what honor is.

 

[Old Rocks]

LOL

Sentences out of context, the refuge of a liar.

Climate Change: A Summary of the Science - Publications - The Royal Society

1 Changes in climate have significant implications for present lives, for future generations
and for ecosystems on which humanity depends. Consequently, climate change has
been and continues to be the subject of intensive scientific research and public debate.
2 There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has
been caused largely by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes
in land use, including agriculture and deforestation. The size of future temperature
increases and other aspects of climate change, especially at the regional scale, are still
subject to uncertainty. Nevertheless, the risks associated with some of these changes
are substantial. It is important that decision makers have access to climate science of
the highest quality, and can take account of its findings in formulating appropriate
responses.
3 In view of the ongoing public and political debates about climate change, the aim of this
document is to summarise the current scientific evidence on climate change and its
drivers. It lays out clearly where the science is well established, where there is wide
consensus but continuing debate, and where there remains substantial uncertainty. The
impacts of climate change, as distinct from the causes, are not considered here. This
document draws upon recent evidence and builds on the Fourth Assessment Report of
Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in
2007, which is the most comprehensive source of climate science and its uncertainties.

 

[Old Rocks]

http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/

Changes in atmospheric composition
25 Global-average CO2 concentrations have been observed to increase from levels of
around 280 parts per million (ppm) in the mid-19th century to around 388 ppm by the
end of 2009. CO2 concentrations can be measured in “ancient air” trapped in bubbles in
ice, deep below the surface in Antarctica and Greenland; these show that present-day
concentrations are higher than any that have been observed in the past 800,000 years,
when CO2 varied between about 180 and 300 ppm. Various lines of evidence point
strongly to human activity being the main reason for the recent increase, mainly due to
the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) with smaller contributions from land-use
changes and cement manufacture. The evidence includes the consistency between
calculations of the emitted CO2 and that expected to have accumulated in the
atmosphere, the analysis of the proportions of different CO2 isotopes, and the amount
of oxygen in the air.

26 These observations show that about half of the CO2 emitted by human activity since the
industrial revolution has remained in the atmosphere. The remainder has been taken up
by the oceans, soils and plants although the exact amount going to each of these
individually is less well known.

27 Concentrations of many other greenhouse gases have increased. The concentration of
methane has more than doubled in the past 150 years; this recent and rapid increase is
unprecedented in the 800,000 year record and evidence strongly suggests that it arises
mainly as a result of human activity.

 

[westwall]

LOL

Sentences out of context, the refuge of a liar.

Climate Change: A Summary of the Science - Publications - The Royal Society

1 Changes in climate have significant implications for present lives, for future generations
and for ecosystems on which humanity depends. Consequently, climate change has
been and continues to be the subject of intensive scientific research and public debate.
2 There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has
been caused largely by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes
in land use, including agriculture and deforestation. The size of future temperature
increases and other aspects of climate change, especially at the regional scale, are still
subject to uncertainty. Nevertheless, the risks associated with some of these changes
are substantial. It is important that decision makers have access to climate science of
the highest quality, and can take account of its findings in formulating appropriate
responses.
3 In view of the ongoing public and political debates about climate change, the aim of this
document is to summarise the current scientific evidence on climate change and its
drivers. It lays out clearly where the science is well established, where there is wide
consensus but continuing debate, and where there remains substantial uncertainty. The
impacts of climate change, as distinct from the causes, are not considered here. This
document draws upon recent evidence and builds on the Fourth Assessment Report of
Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in
2007, which is the most comprehensive source of climate science and its uncertainties.

Thank you for proving my point. Their previous statement said there was no doubt that man was the sole cause of the perceived temperature increases.


Learn to read and understand the English language fool.

 

[Old Rocks]

Climate Change: A Summary of the Science - Publications - The Royal Society

Climate forcing by greenhouse gas changes

28 Changes in atmospheric composition resulting from human activity have enhanced the
natural greenhouse effect, causing a positive climate forcing. Calculations, which are
supported by laboratory and atmospheric measurements, indicate that these additional
gases have caused a climate forcing during the industrial era of around 2.9 Wm-2, with
an uncertainty of about ±0.2 Wm-2. Other climate change mechanisms resulting from
human activity are more uncertain (see later); calculations that take into account these
other positive and negative forcings (including the role of atmospheric particles) indicate
that the net effect of all human activity has caused a positive climate forcing of around
1.6 Wm-2 with an estimated uncertainty of about ±0.8 Wm-2.

29 Application of established physical principles shows that, even in the absence of
processes that amplify or reduce climate change (see paragraphs 12 & 13), the climate
sensitivity would be around 1oC, for a doubling of CO2 concentrations. A climate forcing
of 1.6 Wm-2 (see previous paragraph) would, in this hypothetical case, lead to a globallyaveraged
surface warming of about 0.4oC. However, as will be discussed in paragraph
The Royal Society Climate change: a summary of the science I September 2010 I 6
36, it is expected that the actual change, after accounting for the additional processes,
will be greater than this.

 

[Old Rocks]

Attribution of climate change

37 The size and sustained nature of the observed global-average surface warming on
decadal and longer timescales greatly exceeds the internal climate variability simulated
by the complex climate models. Unless this variability has been grossly underestimated,
the observed climate change must result from natural and/or human-induced climate
forcing.

38 When only natural climate forcings are put into climate models, the models are
incapable of reproducing the size of the observed increase in global-average surface
temperatures over the past 50 years. However, when the models include estimates of
forcings resulting from human activity, they can reproduce the increase. The same
result is found, albeit with a greater spread between different models, for the simulation
of observed surface temperature changes for each of the habitable continents
separately.

39 When known uncertainties in both observed trends and climate models are taken into
account, the observed vertical and latitudinal variations of temperature change are also
broadly consistent with those expected from a dominant role for human activity. There
is an ongoing controversy concerning whether or not the increased warming with
height in the tropical regions given by climate models is supported by satellite
measurements.

 

[Old Rocks]

Climate Change: A Summary of the Science - Publications - The Royal Society

Concluding Remarks

There is strong evidence that changes in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human
activity are the dominant cause of the global warming that has taken place over the last
half century. This warming trend is expected to continue as are changes in precipitation
over the long term in many regions. Further and more rapid increases in sea level are
likely which will have profound implications for coastal communities and ecosystems.

58 It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the
climate will change in the future, but careful estimates of potential changes and
associated uncertainties have been made. Scientists continue to work to narrow these
areas of uncertainty. Uncertainty can work both ways, since the changes and their
impacts may be either smaller or larger than those projected.

59 Like many important decisions, policy choices about climate change have to be made in
the absence of perfect knowledge. Even if the remaining uncertainties were
substantially resolved, the wide variety of interests, cultures and beliefs in society would
make consensus about such choices difficult to achieve. However, the potential impacts
of climate change are sufficiently serious that important decisions will need to be made.
Climate science – including the substantial body of knowledge that is already well
established, and the results of future research – is the essential basis for future climate
projections and planning, and must be a vital component of public reasoning in this
complex and challenging area.

 

[Old Rocks]

Yessirree, Walleyes, playing the doubt game. First you state that you cannot say completely certain in a scientific paper, then when the papers qualify their statements, you jump on that and state that they are saying that they really don't know.

Heads I win, tails you lose. But not that many of us are that gullable anymore. We understand how people like you twist things. From the effects of tobacco, to global warming, we see the same liars in play. And the same lies.

 

[westwall]

Ouch! Looks like I stung you again!