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Re: [Phys-l] Prof. Hal Lewis resigns from APS



I am not so sure about those "easily refutable lies" -- you may want to look at this: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/?ln=fr
(slides at http://indico.cern.ch/materialDisplay.py?materialId=slides&confId=52576 )

The science seems to be unsettled, and denying it won't make it disappear.

But arguing corporate funding ignores the fact that most (all?) major energy companies are heavily involved in green energy. Moreover, one could argue that higher taxes will just inflate their profits as their existing reserves will become more valuable, while nobody is talking about abolishing oil anytime soon. On the other hand let us not forget corporations (and VCs!) sucking at the green energy's public tits: corn growers with their ethanol subsidies, wind generator and solar manufacturers and their grants and subsidies, gifts to electric car manufacturers and electric car buyers, Vinod Khosla and his VC friends, and similar. These are, by now, huge vested interest that feed the AGW fever and the concomitant push for green energy.

Scientists need to have their integrity restored, and that will not happen through opacity or slandering the opposition. It only adds to the perception that scientists -- on both sides -- are not different from anyone else and are driven by similar vulgar incentives.

Ze'ev

On 10/18/2010 7:26 AM, Spinozalens@aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 10/18/2010 2:51:55 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
zeev@ieee.org writes:


The GW deniers have been spreading the same easily refutable lies for
years, often recycling the same lies over and over again. There is also clear
evidence of corporate funding to promote these lies. This is not dissimilar
to the tactics corporations used on the tobacco health issue and currently
being used by the so called intelligent design crowd. None of this has
any effect on you, but a few inappropriate emails you feel is convincing
evidence. You might want to follow the link below, or maybe you don't.

Bob Zannelli

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))


_http://www.cwwa2009.com/climate-change/climate-denial-machine-lackey-andrew
-montford-set-to-lead-fake-inquiry-into-the-3-official-inquiries-that-exoner
ated-u-k-scientists-of-allegations-of-fraud-and-misconduct/_
(http://www.cwwa2009.com/climate-change/climate-denial-machine-lackey-andrew-montford-set-t
o-lead-fake-inquiry-into-the-3-official-inquiries-that-exonerated-u-k-scient
ists-of-allegations-of-fraud-and-misconduct/)


)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))0




I am impressed by Dr. Clement clairvoyance about Dr. Lewis' intentions.
Nevertheless, all Dr. Lewis requested was for APS to follow its own
procedure. A petition with sufficient number of signatures was submitted,
yet APS chose to ignore its own process.

Regarding physicists and APS not benefiting from AGW, let me just say that
they both protest too much. I think that since global warming scare
physics,
and climate physics in particular, have seen influx of government funding
not seen by physicists in this country since the heyday of the cold war.
To
argue that neither climatologists nor APS have interest in keeping it as a
looming threat is disingenuous, to say the least. Those are the trillions
that Dr. Lewis is writing about -- not money in anybody's saving account,
but huge stream of funding for experiments, new departments, post-docs,
labs, journals, trips to Antarctica, and endless workshops, symposia, and
seminars around the globe. And 30-50% "overhead" cut to the hosting
institutions. Not bad at all.

Which brings me to the final issue that Dr.(?) Cleyet alludes to -- that
climate science is complex and hence neither laymen nor even non-climate
physicists can be trusted to examine the data and draw good conclusions.
Perhaps, but I doubt that. I am old enough to remember hearing such
argument
quite a few times in the past. Feynman didn't need to be a rocket scientist
to figure out what went wrong with the Challenger. Be it as it may, if
Cleyet is correct it is even more important that the public will be able to
trust the integrity of climate scientists. Yet this is the community whose
integrity, if nothing else, got a black eye in the climategate disclosures.
Dr. Lewis has a long and illustrious career behind him. If I, as a physics
layman, have to trust someone, it will not be the group of East Asia
clowns,
or their associates who tried to whitewash them, all arguing that nothing
much happened and that they have absolutely no financial interests.

Guys, wake up. It is about whom the public trusts at this point, and not
about the science. You are right, Dr. Cleyet -- I can't draw the
conclusions
myself and I need to trust someone. At this point in time I don't trust the
climate scientists. THAT was the biggest fallout of climategate. Right now
they look to me not more trustworthy on AGW than the tobacco companies
about
cancer research. It will take many years of perfect transparency before
this
may be forgotten and the APS debacle just made the distrust so much worse.

Ze'ev