Watt’s Up With That brings us some interesting news:
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.”
In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,”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 global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.”
But the Goracle testified before congress that climate change due to anthropogenic global warming was the most certain scientific fact with the possible exception of gravity. Obviously the physicists are wrong.
President Bush on (hopefully soon-to-be-former) Attorney General Gonzales’ testimony to Congress:
The president said that Gonzales’ testimony before skeptical Judiciary Committee senators last week “increased my confidence” in his ability to lead the Justice Department.
Great. Next thing we’ll hear is that Sheryl Crow will be made the Global Warming Prevention Czar.
This is how I’ll always remember her:
SHERYL CROW AND HER TOILET PAPER: I think this is an example of “negative branding.” As I drove home, I heard a local DJ saying that no one will ever be able to listen to her music without thinking of butt-wiping, and then speculating that maybe Lance Armstrong had left her because “she wasn’t diligent enough with the paperwork.”
Planet Gore points to some very bad science in the IPCC report:
The key analytical exhibit purports to demonstrate that global warming has caused escalating economic losses using a “gee whiz” chart that shows a rising trend in global temperature from 1970 to 2005 moving in rough lockstep with a rising trend in global economic losses from weather-related catastrophes over the same period.
I’ll resist the temptation to take the low road in illustrating the obvious point that correlation does not equal causality.
OK, I won’t. What the authors don’t mention is that, obviously, ANYTHING showing an increasing trend over the past 35 years will show a great fit with the losses from weather-related catastrophes line. The variable “Jim Manzi’s Age” is statistically correlated with estimated losses at the 5% significance level - so apparently I am personally responsible for many billions of dollars of disaster costs.
It is continuing melodrama, scare mongering, hyperbole, and simple lies that keep pushing me toward the skeptic/heretic camp. Gore’s own statement that global warming caused by man is a scientific fact whose certainty is only exceeded by the scientific certainty in gravity, is another example of such insanity. Even I can come up with examples of facts for which there is greater scientific certainty than gravity: the Laws of Thermodynamics.
I am willing to entertain the potential for climate change caused by man, but I will only do so with real science with rational evidence but not with the continued stream of political hyperbole.