Sunday Letter of the Day
“When facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?”
Lord Keynes
The American Physical Scientists recently published a paper by Viscount Monckton that challenges the United Nation’s IPCC’s opinions on climate change.This peer reviewed paper was needlessly, but understandably, subject to petty academics, not to mention the frivilous warblings of the activists interested in denying scientic skepticism.
Here also is an Editor’s Note from the APS.
Viscount Monckton parries:
9 July 2008
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Carie, Rannoch, PH17 2QJ, UK
monckton@mail.comArthur Bienenstock, Esq., Ph.D.,
President, American Physical Society,
Wallenberg Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Bldg 160,
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305.By email to artieb@slac.stanford.edu
Dear Dr. Bienenstock,
Physics and Society
The editors of Physics and Society, a newsletter of the American Physical Society, invited me to submit a paper for their July 2008 edition explaining why I considered that the warming that might be expected from anthropogenic enrichment of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide might be significantly less than the IPCC imagines.
I very much appreciated this courteous offer, and submitted a paper. The commissioning editor referred it to his colleague, who subjected it to a thorough and competent scientific review. I was delighted to accede to all of the reviewer’s requests for revision (see the attached reconciliation sheet). Most revisions were intended to clarify for physicists who were not climatologists the method by which the IPCC evaluates climate sensitivity - a method which the IPCC does not itself clearly or fully explain. The paper was duly published, immediately after a paper by other authors setting out the IPCC’s viewpoint. Some days later, however, without my knowledge or consent, the following appeared, in red, above the text of my paper as published on the website of Physics and Society:
“The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Itsconclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Societydisagrees with this article’s conclusions.”
This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than
the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.Please either remove the offending red-flag text at once or let me have the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to it who considered my paper before the Council ordered the offending text to be posted above my paper; a copy of this rapporteur’s findings and ratio decidendi; the date of the Council meeting at which the findings were presented; a copy of the minutes of the discussion; and a copy of the text of the Council’s decision, together with the names of those present at the meeting. If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had; secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the “overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community”; and, tertio, that “The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions”? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific
grounds (if any)?Having regard to the circumstances, surely the Council owes me an apology?
Yours truly,
THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY
The American Thinker opines as well.
Oh, and we’ve seen so much coverage of this in the mainstream press which has set its agenda clearly against discussion and debate of the topic. And yet those who seek more information that even mildly contradicts or expresses a skeptical view of the “accepted wisdom” is shouted down as being in denial.
Of course, it is the opposite that is true. The march to consensus in climate ideology, as if anything so absurd could actually exist, denies debate, discussion and dismisses anything but cooperation and agreement with their views.
The very disclaimer from the APS aptly demonstrates true denial:
“The following 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 isn’t rationale consideration. Dismissing a paper it’s own group requested from Viscount Monckton in 2 sentences, without any discussion of the facts of the disagreement represents a stone wall.
I’ll let Dr. David Evans speak to the APS’s denial and give him full credit for the Lord Keynes quote which I used at the beginning of this post:
But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
Add comment July 20th, 2008
