Quote:The following is a letter
to the American Physical Society released to the public by Professor
Emiritus of physics Hal Lewis of the University of California at Santa
Barbara.

Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara

To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years
ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the
money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a
half-century ago).

Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor
of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all
that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as
thirty-five years ago, when I chaired
the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The
Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside
there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were
therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal
of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence
of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf,
and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of
what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee,
in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in
which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked
from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and
the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research,
the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for
untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become
clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been
turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer
you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally)
trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists,
and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and
most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a
physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should
force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare.
(Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that
any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without
revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word
scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this
challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along
with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a
fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then
President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got
the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage
discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that
as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the
last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was
apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is
certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have
long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it.
One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was
the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics,
certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee
that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed
the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit
strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe
the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council
kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer
“explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but
brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The
original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also
contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world
governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I
am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun
and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our
national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific
society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and
the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world.
It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to
describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all.
This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is,
after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the
necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a
Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the
scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial
to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was
not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the
APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of
the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in
mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept
our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to
run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the
Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to
form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition,
and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you
would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no
such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment
part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you
cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever
you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your
constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked
committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress
serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do
you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it
is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS
HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some
have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to
be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money,
exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are
indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and
glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member
of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman)
would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn
State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East
Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the
financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you
don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.
Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point
enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a
careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is
not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics,
University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member
Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on
Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards;
Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman
APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review
Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF
Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books:
Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a
Coin (about decision making)

Logan Darklighter Wrote:I think what he's saying here is that he tried to investigate the matter via the normal accepted process and was blocked at every turn by his peers.

Morganni Wrote:

Logan Darklighter Wrote:I think what he's saying here is that he tried to investigate the matter via the normal accepted process and was blocked at every turn by his peers.

Yes. I was disappointed to see this turn into a discussion of global warming in general, because that's kind of a side issue in this context. The concerning thing here is that this organization is violating it's own rules to squash dissent. This, in itself, suggests they are not entirely confident of their own claims, but isn't really what I'd call conclusive. Nonetheless, even if everything they claim is 100% accurate, these are foul deeds.

-Morgan.

ECSNorway Wrote:

Morganni Wrote:

Logan Darklighter Wrote:I think what he's saying here is that he tried to investigate the matter via the normal accepted process and was blocked at every turn by his peers.

Yes. I was disappointed to see this turn into a discussion of global warming in general, because that's kind of a side issue in this context. The concerning thing here is that this organization is violating it's own rules to squash dissent. This, in itself, suggests they are not entirely confident of their own claims, but isn't really what I'd call conclusive. Nonetheless, even if everything they claim is 100% accurate, these are foul deeds.

-Morgan.

This is exactly my point. Regardless of whether or not Climate Change is in fact a) real, b) a serious danger, and/or c) human-caused, the science needs to be open to investigation by all interested parties. This kind of attempt to repress conflicting thought reminds me too much of the controversies surrounding, for example, Darwin and Galileo. If they were genuinely confident of their claims, they would have no issues with others investigating the question. That they have to resort to extreme measures to prevent the research from being questioned demonstrates pretty thoroughly that there is Something Rotten In Denmark.

Dartz Wrote:Money corrupts science.... on both sides. It's not as if the pro-Climate Change site isn't being funded by those with a vested interest in climate change being true either? It's a very easy chunk of mud to grab and fling. simply dismiss those who disagree with you as being in the pay of big - $INDUSTRY.

I get concerned when science is being used to drive a commercial agenda. Take a look at the labelling and advertising that announces something new and expensive as being green and friendly to the environment. There's a fair lot of money now behind the pro-climate change scientists too, isn't there?

nemonowan Wrote:1 - WHO ON EARTH could possibly WANT climate change to be true? An apocalypse cult? That is the main problem: it is very bad news and most people would rather believe it is not true until the effects are too great to deny. And by that time there won't be much we can do about it (if we haven't reached that point yet)

Quote:2 - When those who disagree are a very vocal minority of the scientific community, and they happen to be aligned with the position of the deepest pockets around, it is them who are primarily suspect. If all you care about is money, there is a lot more to go around in the side with less supporters, less evidence and more shouting.

Quote:3 - The commercial agenda of "green" companies isn't being driven by scientists but by marketers. Expect a lot more of that as more and more companies realize that they can also make profits by tweaking their old products and rebranding them "green"

Quote:4 - I should also point out a trend that climate deniers are starting to switch from "climate isn't changing" to "Ok, it is changing, but humanity couldn't possibly affect that so it is all natural and not our fault, keep calm and carry on business as usual"

Quote:People in colder climates perhaps . People who can make money from the hysteria surrounding it.

Quote: It is not bad news in and of itself, but it has been whipped up into bad news.

Quote:Also, why should we do anything to stop it. The idea that Earth could turn into Venus is moronic at best. It'll get warmer, it'll get cooler... it's done so while we're here

Quote:And how many currently accepted 'facts' started out as being proposed by a vocal minority?

Quote:this marketing is encouraging a consumerist 'throwaway' culture that is doing the real harm.

Quote:Or perhaps I'm just seeing corporate demons behind every advert. I have a
tendency to assume that the vast majority of what I encounter day to
day is just feeding the marketer's encouragement to consume and purchase
crap I don't really need.

Quote:I never said humanity couldn't possibly cause the effect.... in fact, I doubt as a collective we'd ever be able to stop or truly mitigate it's effects. Not when so much of our infrastructure, so much of our way of life generates Co2, or any number of other pollutants. Never mind that, within the next century or so, we're going to stop burning fossil fuels whether we like it or not, so we'll have to ween ourselves off it eventually.

Logan Darklighter Wrote:I think what he's saying here is that he tried to investigate the matter via the normal accepted process and was blocked at every turn by his peers. As Climategate has proven, it's -their- data that is in question.

nemonowan Wrote:

Quote:People in colder climates perhaps . People who can make money from the hysteria surrounding it.

That's like saying iodine vendors want more nuclear plants because they'll make a killing when they fail.

Quote: It is not bad news in and of itself, but it has been whipped up into bad news.

Tell it to the micronesians. Islands have already disappeared

Quote:

Quote:Also, why should we do anything to stop it. The idea that Earth could turn into Venus is moronic at best. It'll get warmer, it'll get cooler... it's done so while we're here

Let's see... Because it is the first time in our history that warming is being at the very least compounded by human action? And that unlike solar activity or other causes an increase in greenhouse gases is going to take a long time to disminish? And because it runs the risk of of becoming a natural-fueled vicious circle? And because Earth doesn't need to become anywhere near Venus for the effects to be catastrophic (whether ecologically or economically)?

Quote:

Quote:And how many currently accepted 'facts' started out as being proposed by a vocal minority?

Climate change itself, to begin with. The difference is that nobody paid them to scream against a well supported consensus, but they gathered over decades the evidence that build the consensus. It's not because someone is a "maverick" running against the herd that they are right or even honest.

Quote:

Quote:this marketing is encouraging a consumerist 'throwaway' culture that is doing the real harm.

I have seen a lot of pseudo-green products that are quite preposterous, but they tend to pose against said 'throwaway' culture. Then again I'm not in the USA so maybe things have devolved faster there.

Quote:Or perhaps I'm just seeing corporate demons behind every advert. I have a
tendency to assume that the vast majority of what I encounter day to
day is just feeding the marketer's encouragement to consume and purchase
crap I don't really need.

That actually very wise and I agree. But remember that even if Nike is trying to sell you Air Soles, gravity is not a lie.

Quote:

Quote:I never said humanity couldn't possibly cause the effect.... in fact, I doubt as a collective we'd ever be able to stop or truly mitigate it's effects. Not when so much of our infrastructure, so much of our way of life generates Co2, or any number of other pollutants. Never mind that, within the next century or so, we're going to stop burning fossil fuels whether we like it or not, so we'll have to ween ourselves off it eventually.

Indeed, they are two crises that go hand in hand and it looks like they are going to hit us at the same time. And that makes it worse, because preparing for either will already take more resources than we are willing to spare (and the more we wait, the more it will take and the less will be available)

Dartz Wrote: As it is, the history of human migration has been defined by climate change... people move where the weather goes. We can expect to stand bolt still while the world changes around us.

Quote:And yet historically, a warmer world has shown much higher biodiversity....So it is also possible that there is a natural warming trend?

Quote:

Quote:Climate change itself, to begin with. The difference is that nobody paid them to scream against a well supported consensus, but they gathered over decades the evidence that build the consensus. It's not because someone is a "maverick" running against the herd that they are right or even honest.

My point is, that just because the herd is going in one direction, does not make it correct either. Might be a herd of lemmings running off a cliff, casting themselves bodily out into space.

Quote:

Quote:That actually very wise and I agree. But remember that even if Nike is trying to sell you Air Soles, gravity is not a lie.

But that they might do anything to mitigate the effects of gravity *is* a lie.

Quote:This is why expending energy and resources to combat global warming seems so wrong to me. It feels like wasted energy, when our energy today may well be best spent finding alternate forms of energy, rather than finding ways to make current sources cleaner. This has the pleasant side effect of most alternate energies, and improved energy efficiency, also assisting with the whole global warming thing. If you believe it.

Epsilon Wrote:

Logan Darklighter Wrote:I think what he's saying here is that he tried to investigate the matter via the normal accepted process and was blocked at every turn by his peers. As Climategate has proven, it's -their- data that is in question.

Uh, no. Climategate proved nothing of the fact. If it did, perhaps you can point to where this proof is. Site your sources, the specific e-mails and so on with relevant quotes.
------------------
Epsilon

Logan Darklighter Wrote:Frankly not sure if it's worth the time to go and find all the stuff - AGAIN - just to prove myself to someone who has decided to hold anything I say in contempt and not worth his time. Would you be convinced of anything?

Quote:Tell you what - you're not going to believe anything I
say. How about Berkeley professor Richard A. Muller? Here's a guy who
believes what you believe. That global warming is real. And HE is
disgusted with the "science" involved.

Quote:As for specific sources. How about you go do the damn research yourself? Here's the ENTIRE archive of emails and data from Climategate.
Not a single thing taken out of context. Nothing held back. It's the
entire archive of material that broke the scandal in the first place. Go
for it.

Epsilon Wrote:You're the one making a positive claim, you have to make your case. You'll have to do better than a youtube video. Perhaps a link to some peer reviewed papers by Muller disputing the facts would be better.

ECSNorway Wrote:This is part of the problem that people are running into trying to get research counter to the "consensus" published.
Their peers won't review it.
That is in fact what the original post in this thread was all about. Research contradicting the "the sky is falling" viewpoint is being actively suppressed.