The right’s misguided frenzy over the American Physical Society

July 18, 2008

Daily Tech had an item yesterday afternoon that caused a bit of a stir in conservative circles.

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.”

This, coming the same day as Al Gore’s speech, was apparently quite exciting to those on the right who prefer to deny global warming and/or its causes.

One said, “The Association of Physical Scientists has reversed its position on anthropogenic global warming. Where it once considered its position ‘incontrovertable’ [sic] it is now sponsoring open debate on the matter… This is a big deal. The APS represents some 50,000 physicists worldwide.”

Another argued, “[Physicists] bailing on Gore…. The rats are leaving the ship. Global warming alarmists are frauds.”

Jonah Goldberg initially said, “The same day that Al Gore does his man-to-the-moon spiel on global warming, the American Physical Society — the second largest professional association of physicists — rescinds its total support for the global warming. I await the usual chorus to sing us a tune about how the APS is ‘anti-science.'”

Red State told readers, “The headline at The Drudge Report website, ‘Group Repping 50,000 Physicists Opens Global Warming Debate…’ [linked to dailytech.com] says it all.”

Except, in this case, it didn’t say it all.

Here’s what the APS explained:

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 This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.

So, what happened here? Climate Progress explains the story very well, but it appears that one sloppy editor relied on one frequently-debunked British Lord — and conservatives reflexively pounced on a development that was far from what it appeared to be.

Kevin summarized this nicely: “Lord Monckton, who triggered the original article in DailyTech, may be a lord, but he’s also a longtime global warming skeptic. There’s nothing new here, and, as you might expect, scientists continue to believe that climate change is largely driven by human activity. Nice try, though.”

It’s amazing how one scientist seems to be able to veto the opinions of 50,000 in the minds of warming skeptics or evolution skeptics.

  • Uh huh, and there are biochemists with actual PhDs out there who will tell you that evolution is a sham perpetrated by the Darwinists in order to enslave humanity. Oh, and did you hear that there’s a drug that’s scientifically proven to make your penis larger? And also, I know of a couple of economics experts who can prove to you that the Brooklyn Bridge can be owned by a member of America’s lower middle class…

  • Why is this being held as a religious view (by ANYbody on either side)? Don’t get all up in arms because there’s a few scientists here and there that don’t concur. That’s how science works.

  • With the likes of Johah Goldberg, the opinion of fifty thousand scientists means nothing, but when one scientist tells him what he wants to hear – it’s major announcement time!

  • With the likes of Johah Goldberg, the opinion of fifty thousand scientists means nothing, but when one scientist tells him what he wants to hear – it’s major announcement time!

    Except that Monckton is not exactly a scientist.

  • “Why is this being held as a religious view (by ANYbody on either side)? Don’t get all up in arms … — Franklin

    But that’s what we do here. Last time folks got testy, we had regional boundaries to identify our enemies, hence, the “War Between the States.” This time, it’s a little more confusing because the enemy doesn’t live in another state, he’s next door or down the block. Or maybe he’s that bum your daughter married. Once we figure out who’s who, I’m sure we’ll settle our differences once and for all because hate rules the ignorant fool secure in the knowledge that his cause is just.

  • All I hope is that science will continue unabated by this shoddy government that we have that discounts/edits/ignores research in the pursuit of it’s own goals.

    Science is the search for truth. Truth is a major inconvenience for government(and wingers)

    I’m surprised that scientists are not still burned at the stake for making observations that are contrary to the views held by the state/church. Now we’re just ignored unless we can make some capitalist rich.

  • “Nice try, though.”

    It will NEVER cease to amaze me how liberals think that debunking something like this actually does any good accept to inform people who pay CLOSE attention and want the truth – all people who are NOT remotely the target of this.

    The fact is, this wasn’t just a “nice try” – it was another extremely successful effort to further cloud the issue going forward and mock the “losers” who believe in science.

    You think Jonah will retract his statement? My Lord, look at how they still tell people China is drilling in Cuba. Sure a couple people were shamed into saying they were wrong about that but by then it was TOO LATE!! The echo chamber is fed. Rush has his show for the day. The minds are molded and they will never see reality because their controllers won’t let them. You think the LA Times cares if Jonah were to also push this deception in their paper? Hell no, appears to me that they hired him to deceive their readers. Same thing with the NYT and Kristol – they know he will deceive their readers why else would they have hired him? You think the LAT doesn’t know who Jonah is? Can’t we admit that? How many times does a Kristol have to be corrected before it is obvious the NYT wants him to deceive their readers?

    How many times does one have to be kicked in the nuts before they admit they are being kicked on purpose?

    In short, this was a SUCCESSFUL effort to further condition the cult of conservatism’s minds.

    They win. Talking like a couple blog posts or a spot on Olberman is push back or does any good is just foolish, blind, silly. Look at how many still think Obama is a Muslim. Lot of good “push back” did there. CNN can do a show on how this Global Warming report was twisted and you know what conservatives will think? “That is CNN, they are liberal, I believe Jonah.”

    heck, Jonah could retract it and the cult of conservatism, firmly planted in their false reality will say, “Oh I bet some liberals forced him, we know he really mean it.” If you doubt that you have kept your eyes shut the last 20 years.

    That is how it works. Conservatives think what they are told to think and they ONLY go to approved sources for info. They are controlled group.

    Huge win for the cult of conservatism, period.

  • Funny how a few people doubting global warming is enough to make the rightwingers want to jam on the brakes and do nothing, but when it turned out that significant doubts about the intelligence on Iraq existed before the war (and were ignored) they shrug it off and say “we had to do something!”. Even when those doubts turned out to be small potatoes compared to the outright fabrications by Cheney et al, the rightwingers say that it was all just a big ol’ misunderstanding. Meanwhile, a “Lord” publishes a paper and they’re all shouting about a global conspiracy to enforce Al Gore’s “ideology”.

    Must suck to have no internal logical bearings whatsoever.

  • “newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. ”

    So the forum was on Physics and Society. It seems to me as though they could have had something pertinent to say. Perhaps before you post comments you should read and understand what they have written.

    Some of the vast other 39 groups that didn’t release any comments include the following:
    Biological Physics
    Fluid Dynamics
    Laser Science
    Particles and Fields
    Polymer Physics
    Instrument and Measurement Science Magnetism

    Which of them did you expect to take a more learned approach to global warming? The newsletter contained a couple of relevant assessments. The article that is the subject of criticism is concerning are relevant component of the analysis – the time factor of warming based on climatic factors.

    The newsletter is a call for open dialogue and comments from among the 50,000 members. Not for a re-iteration of opinions from only one scientist. There are some interesting facts in the mix including the warming of all of the neighboring planets. Are our exhausts warming the local planets of the Sun as well?

    Release your blind attachment to a political side and join intelligent people for a discussion involving facts found with the tools of science. Certainly the Physicists forum is a reasonable origination point for this type of discussion. While there has been “incontrovertible” evidence of global warming, there is not an “incontrovertible” cause that is universally agreed by physicists.

    To search more information note that we are actually moving to a cooling period and the oceans have declined most recently (not risen). Was that included in the APS original statement?

    Please educate yourself before you engage anyone on a topic that can be tainted by politically motivated positions.

  • So quick to believe their own opinions they don’t bother to check or investigate any opinion they can make support them.
    I got an email saying dems voted against English as the official language with some long drawn out tale of a colonels heroism only to come back to this kind of America. Snopes debunks this rumor campaign with the truth that the ‘Amendment” to an immigration bill had nothing to do with making English our official language but rather rather or not the government would provide services (pamphlets etc.) in languages other than English.

    This email says “please keep circulating till after the election”. It is merely a smear on Dems and a total lie with great effort put behind it. The link at Snopes is:

    http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/englishvote.asp in case you get this email, refer them here.

  • Someone had to say what Al Gore is saying; someone has to be intellectually honest and willing to speak out loudly and clearly as Al Gore is doing.
    Emergent and convergent global challenges, ominously looming before the family of humanity on the far horizon, threaten the future of human civilizations, life as know it and the efficacy of Earth as a fit place for human habitation:

    the human overpopulation of Earth;

    the pending loss of adequate fossil fuel reserves and other vital energy sources due to unrestrained international plundering;

    the dissipation of limited resources due to reckless per-capita overconsumption;

    the problems of global warming in particular and climate change more generally; and

    the insufficiently bridled pollution of air, land and water as well as precipitating irreversible degradation of the planet’s frangible ecosystems services due to relentless industrialization and unregulated economic globalization.

    Who knows, perhaps necessary change is in the offing.

    Steven Earl Salmony
    AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
    established 2001
    http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php

  • The thing that has always bothered me about this argument is one side has nothing to gain but a better future for everyone and the other has billions to lose, yet we are painted as godless freaks trying to trick the world and that Big Oil is simply protecting them from the charlatans.

    This is true for anything in which big business is involved, the right flocks around big business like it’s their baby and screams that the we are the con artists even though we have nothing to gain.

    I get the feeling that making liberals look bad is far more important that anything else. They can’t cave on global warming because then people might think we actually know what the hell we are talking about and they might listen to us about other issues.

  • Who’s maing this a political issue? (Note the headline that House Dems failed… not Republicans Obstructed…)

    House Dems fail attempt to make Big Oil drill on the land it’s got
    Posted at 10:15 AM on 18 Jul 2008

    A bill that would have required oil companies to drill on land they already own before seeking new conquests failed in the House of Representatives Thursday. The legislation’s “use it or lose it” provision would have required that oil companies exhaust oil exploration on already-owned land before acquiring new acreage. The legislation also would have required a yearly auction of leases in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. Democrats introduced the bill under rules that disallowed any additional amendments but required a two-thirds majority in the chamber. The vote was 244 to 173, split largely along party lines; many Republicans said they would have given the thumbs-up if the bill had included a provision to open coastal areas to offshore drilling.

  • Give Goldberg some credit.

    This is the bottom of his post.

    “Correction: Nevermind. I’ve led you astray. See here. From the APS website:

    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.”

    #########
    Goldberg was wrong and openly admitted he was wrong.

    I wish more people could admit there mistakes.

  • Speaking of physics did you know that the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface is 6,000 times the amount of energy used by all human beings worldwide. The total amount of fossil fuel used by humans since the start of civilization is equivalent to less than 30 days of sunshine.

  • Neil – If he really wanted to stop misleading people, he’d take the post down.

    Has he done that? How many people will read the first few line, say Ha, I knew it!, without ever getting to the bottom?

  • #11, David, “There are some interesting facts in the mix including the warming of all of the neighboring planets. Are our exhausts warming the local planets of the Sun as well”? Please provide a citation.

  • David wrote: “So the forum was on Physics and Society. It seems to me as though they could have had something pertinent to say. Perhaps before you post comments you should read and understand what they have written.”

    But if you’d actually read this post, you’d have seen the following disclaimer from the APS: “Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum.”

    Emphasis mine. If you went to the forum newsletter in question, you’d also read, in red letters, “This article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.”

    This is the whole point of this blog post: the views of this one researcher who wrote an article in a newsletter are representative of him and him alone, regardless of what the right-wing thinks.

    Perhaps before you post comments you should read and understand what the point of the blog post is.

  • Oh, and let’s look at the conclusions of the article preceding the one by Monckton:

    “Earth is getting warmer. Basic atmospheric models clearly predict that additional greenhouse gasses will raise the temperature of Earth. To argue otherwise, one must prove a physical mechanism that gives a reasonable alternative cause of warming. This has not been done. Sunspot and temperature correlations do not prove causality.”

  • Neil – If he really wanted to stop misleading people, he’d take the post down.

    At which point we in the liberal community would point and say “he’s trying to hide the post because he’s embarrassed” and then we’d post screen caps. He was wrong, he admitted it, and he posted the retraction on the same page as the original claim, as I’ve seen dozens of other bloggers do. Give credit where credit is do and go mock the 3 dozen other bloggers who still have this nonsense up on their site as God’s honest truth.

  • “Give Goldberg some credit.”

    Credit? For what? The short period of time one has until he deceives the cult of conservatism again?

    So they retract AFTER the message has been sent. Drudge pulls his lies off the front page often. It does no good, the message has been sent, the minds have been trained.

    The hate talkers will yammer about this for three hours today and maybe one in ten will give a five second “correction” a week from now. Too little too late.

  • 14. On July 18th, 2008 at 2:54 pm, Steven Earl Salmony said (the human overpopulation of Earth)

    I’ve invented a new “tree” like the giving tree at Christmas time in the cafeteria and the new “School supply tree” that showed up at the beginning of summer at my employers coffee stations. Mine is called the “contraception tree” and it actually eliminates the need for both the giving tree and the school supplies tree. It should also stop new carbon footprints.

  • Steve, you’re so kind.

    I’ll have to remember to say someone’s having a “misguided frenzy” when they’re f&*ked -up lying sacks of $hit.

  • Wow..I’ve never seen such an organized revolt against the truth. I know liberals hate the facts, but this is amazing. This reminds me of the same assault on truth that my company goes through when the other side loses. An organized attack on facts..and a lot of emotion.
    Just more evidence that human induced GW debate is far from over. Did you know that 95% of Green house gases are from water vapor? Only 3% is from CO2. And the evidence is very controversial that it is from human activity and that it even matters. There are Sun activities, geological plate shifting, inaccuracy of models, inaccuracy of land based data monitors – which are prone to “urbanization effects” (especially when Satellite data has shown no change in the last 18 years in temperature) and many other factors that contribute to changing climate. Did you know that today CO2 levels are about at 300 mg and that during the Paleozoic era it was at over 1400 when temperatures were 12 degrees cooler? But libs love to ignore the facts, or more likely they don’t know them.
    Do we want to spend trillions of dollars when we don’t even know if we are contributing? This just shows that many scientists still disagree as to what our role is, if any.
    Steve

  • #27—Steve. Facts, what facts? I note a number of assertions, lots of assertions. You provide no proof, no references, no citations—just the same lame talking points we’ve seen before. If you enter a site like this, bring more evidence, not accusations. It’s your job to convince us, otherwise you’re just acting as a troll.

  • My problem here is the vitriolic nature of attacks like “liberals hate facts”. No more than conservatives “hate facts” and such talk instantly reeks of overly biased and less than clear-headed thinking.

    If there are legitimate concerns over any “alarmism” about climate change then there is at least as much concern over “denialism” of it. There is no “revolt against the truth” here and if all you can bring to the table is this sort of heated, useless rhetoric then it does call into question what you’re even doing here if you think it will change minds or do any good whatever.

    You sent us to the link about the Carboniferous Age. You don’t really make an argument yourself, but I assume it might be along the lines of any current change in climate caused by human activities is not measurable due to the “background noise” of natural variation.

    Okay, lets go with that. Have you done more research than this one article? Perhaps so and I’d be interested to see it. Perhaps not. Then you should do more. Cite a peer reviewed scientific study or two. Something more than one single article.

    That’s where the truth lies, and that’s where an honest debate lies.

    Or perhaps you just want to scold liberals. It’s the wrong website for that.

    Just my two cents…

  • So can anyone of you man made global warming geniuses tell me what SUV was available back then? Where were the oil refineries located in Greenland? And why weren’t the glaciers fully melted and falling down into the water as Algore showed the world in his fairy tale “An Inconvenient Lie” – oh thats right he cut and pasted that directly from a hollywood movie.

    It is now clearly evident that your science is no science and to even call the 50000 people “scientists” is laughable at best. See below oh wise ones about the findings published in the journal Science:

    Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said Thursday the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed.
    DNA of trees, plants and insects including butterflies and spiders from beneath the southern Greenland glacier was estimated to date to 450,000 to 900,000 years ago, according to the remnants retrieved from this long-vanished boreal forest.

    That contrasts sharply with the prevailing view that a lush forest of this kind could only have existed in Greenland as recently as 2.4 million years ago, according to a summary of the study, which is published Thursday in the journal Science.

    The samples suggest the temperature probably reached 10 degrees C (50 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer and -17 C (1 F) in the winter.

    They also indicated that during the last period between ice ages, 116,000-130,000 years ago, when temperatures were on average 5 C (9 F) higher than now, the glaciers on Greenland did not completely melt away.

    Say goodnite Algore and the APS. Your house of cards that is filled with smoke and mirrors is about to come crashing down. And that was truly man-made up.

  • One can, perhaps, ascribe political motivation to all laymen (as I assume all we posters are here) when they decide whom to believe in a scientific debate. This really isn’t the relevant point. When an overwhelming majority, and by this I mean upwards of 99%, of people who spent most of their adult lives studying these complex issues agree, what makes someone who simply wishes that they were wrong think that pointing to a handful of items is evidence that they are wrong? These items are often taken in isolation (out of context), not to mention the idea that the scientists don’t claim to have complete knowledge. On the contrary, they claim not to have all the answers, only the contrarians do so. When people ascribe to the scientists these ulterior motives I really have to protest.

    It might be true that human induced climate change is massively misunderstood at present, but if one wishes to propose this, he must refute the preponderance of the evidence, not some remaining side questions, most of which could turn out themselves to be false alarms. To do otherwise misunderstands the process of science. By taking reports from people that discover details which contradict their own previous understanding, using these partially understood reports to refute the validity of this understanding and then claiming that these same people are involved in a grand conspiracy to deceive the uneducated surpasses idiocy and enters insanity.

  • Well, if Al Gore says it exists then it must be true. After all, he did invent the internet so he can’t be wrong about anything. Read the article first folks. It is quite amusing to me that the global warming facists will ridicule the right when a report comes out suggesting global warming to be a myth and accuse them of blindly following their party. Exactly what is it liberals do when someone like Al Gore speaks about global warming? Blindly follow whatever that man says. Folks, computer models are not proof of anything. There is much more research and experiments needed before this theory is proven….period. But Al Gore doesn’t want anymore research. He says all the proof is there and no further research is necessary. Right on Al and now the entire left believes this same foolish notion.

  • The nearest thing that I found that connect title “the APS has reversed its stance on climate change ” at the APS site is
    “With this issue of Physics & Society, we kick off a debate concerning one of the main conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which, together with Al Gore, recently won the Nobel Prize for its work concerning climate change research. 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 the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.
    Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion.”

    There are 2 articles on the subject pro and con as said before one of articles come with warning
    one need a lot of Imagination to find any reverse of stance here.

    http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm

  • Displaying an attitude befitting his handle, PackItIn wrote:

    “In short, this was a SUCCESSFUL effort to further condition the cult of conservatism’s minds.”

    No doubt some conservatives had their mistaken beliefs reinforced by Marque’s editorial in the APS newsletter. But beliefs that are mistaken can usually be shaken. And there are always those whose minds aren’t made up. So I don’t think pointing out the truth is a waste of time.

  • #32—JHM—So, perhaps completely ruining the economy, per chance that the use of fossil fuels is causing global warming seems reasonable to you? Why then has the actual temperature of the Earth cooled from the peak in 98’/99′ to approximately 1980 levels? I heard that the crime rate is high, so should I quit working, stock up on ammunition, and wait for the eventual attack?
    If Mars, Venus, and Earth are heating/cooling in a synchronized mode, what do you think is causing Mars and Venus to heat up and cool? Is it CO2 emissions? Have you ever stopped and thought, how can Al Gore really care about the environment when his own home consumes 22 times the energy(after energy efficient technology installed, of course) of an average American home?

  • “All you global warming geniuses” “Global warming fascists” “Al Gore” Al Gore” “Al Gore” (yawn). What I said before about a reasonable debate? Never mind.

    Too many people are stuck in the comfort of muddle-headed thinking. I tried to offer someone back there the opportunity to offer some additional scientific evidence to some link he provided – and off we go again to invoking Al Gore (that is so tiresome already!), name calling, and blah, blah, blah.

    How many of these people have done anything on there own to learn about this (and I don’t mean listen to Al Gore or reading a blog post or two somewhere – really studying the issue)? Maybe talked to a scientist (or two), read a book that may not play into what they already believe to be true (or wish to be true – it can be tough, but try it, y’all might learn something or at least make your own arguments better), or understood that this is not a political issue at its core? Obviously trying to be reasonable falls on too many deaf ears.

    The comment right before mine: cite your sources, and try to keep it earth-bound.

    If Al Gore uses an inordinate amount of energy it reflects on Al Gore – why do we need to keep going back to this same straw man argument? Think what you want about Al Gore -despite what some people seem to think, Al did not invent climate change. You’re all late-comers to the party that generally don’t know what you’re talking about, nor are very skilled at forming coherent arguments. None of that has anything to do with whether I am a liberal or a conservative. There is no debate here, just shouting the same tired old “arguments”, barking at the same old straw men, and contributing nothing.

    OK, that should feed someone. Go for it. “bye now.

  • It’s all the fault of those Sea Pirates falling off the face of the earth. We really need to bring back Pirates because since they have been in decline the temperatures have soared!

  • It’s impossible to have a reasonable debate on a blog, but there is so much conflicting evidence only someone with an agenda would say that anthropogenic effects are conclusively causing global warming. And to address the blogger who said what can be wrong with erroring on the side of caution….I say trillions of dollars, affec5ting many jobs and families.

    I’ll just reference another recent site that talks about one of the factors I mentioned that causes the global warming hysteria. i.e. our ability to take correct data. Just within the last year the IPCC has had to change its assessment of the warmest years. It’s no longer within the last 10 years, its now back in the 1930s. This is just one of the many problems (intentional or not) with taking accurate data. Look at the attached website which talks about the misleading methods of taking temperature data. Can you really believe anyone after reading this? The IPCC has an agenda if we have to catch them at simple errors as this.

    http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/sppi_originals/u.s._temperature_rankings_rearranged_problems_and_concerns_with_temperature_data_sets.html

  • thomas…if you come back..(and for those who are interested in facts, not emotion)
    Here is another fact based website that establishes man’s contribution on green house gases. supporting that 95% of green house gases are from water vapor. Including CO2 (0.28%) and H2O, we contribtue no more that 5.5%. Do you know that in the other referenced website I gave that CO2 was as high as 7000ppm during the last 700M years. We are now at 380ppm or CO2. If we contribute only 0.28% of CO2 that would add only 10ppm for a total of 390, far from 8000ppm that natural forces conrtibutes. Please read.

    http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

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