The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[Alex]

Eek, unfortunately the actual APS doesn't quite agree with that. The response from the APS to the story:

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 This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.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 yes, a specific newsletter within the APS dedicated an issue to debating the topic [changed this word]. Viscount Monckton took the anti-global warming position. Others in the issue took the pro-side. You can read the editorial accompanying the issue here and find that it does not put forward a policy position.

It is worth noting that Monckton is not one of the 50,000 physicists represented by APS. He is a policy consultant and former journalist. In fact the two physicists writing in this issue are both on the pro-global warming side.

So, yes, there are scientists who disagree with the accepted theories of global warming. But the APS has not changed its official position on the issue which can be found here. All that has happened is that an online newsletter published an article by someone who disagrees with the APS position.





Really, when in a debate and presented with what appears to be a pretty significant "gotcha" is it really that hard to spend 5 minutes double checking the information provided by some blog? Amazingly, those are frequently wrong.