back to article Hefty physicist: Global warming is 'pseudoscientific fraud'

A heavyweight American boffin has dubbed the global warming movement "the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist", and resigned in protest from the American Physical Society, saying that the society has deliberately stifled debate on the subject. The prof's resignation …

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    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Take some valium

      A conspiracy by communists? The ones that live under your bed? What do *you* know about communists?

      There are two types of communists -

      1) the ones that believe that the whole world should live in a kibbutz, money should be abolished, private property should be abolished, everyone must work as much as he can and in return get as much as he wants (which is impossible).

      This type consists of octagenarians with alzheimer's and the students of the University College of London. The former's ranks are constantly diminished by natural attrition, the latter's - by facing reality when they graduate.

      2) the ones that see the "working masses" as a ladder for their own political careers where they can promise the moneys someone else makes to those who don't want to work and so get their votes.

      These "communists" are not really communists but can be known as labourists, socialists, unionists and many other -ists, depending on what is the most convenient or available -ism of the day. Our previous Government was made up of such -ists for 100%, for example.

      There are also ones that are overly excited about any single cause which they see, through lack of experience/knowledge/mental capacity as the only source of all evil in the world. This type is not strictly limited to communism because equally the same type of individuals can be hang up about - jews, foreigners, abortions, feminism, the Bible, the Koran, Christ, Antichrist, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, sex, evolution, global warming, global cooling, whatever.

      Now, which part of any of the above can conspire to say that there is no global warming?

      Clearly, the type 1 is incapable of any conspiracy a) because some of them are too old, b) the others are too idealistic to act on anything, c) none of them has any power to influence the society.

      Type 2 cannot conspire as such a conspiracy requires an agreement to act towards one goal regardless of short term gains or losses. As they type 2 are 100% pure egotists any conspiracy with their participation will be extremely short-lived and ineffectual.

      Type 3 don't have enough free will to conspire as they are the led masses, who will switch their alliance to anyone who frightens them the most at any particular day of the week.

      So, no conspiracy. However, as the type 2's were recently in power throughout the world, more or less, and this type strives on handing out other people's money to buy the votes of anyone who they think is currently for sale, it follows naturally that the governments were throwing cash at the fad of the day, which just happened to be the environment and carbon footprints.

      The only problem is - the money's run out and the child asked about the emperor's new clothes.

      The warming is probably happening and it's probably anthropomorphic but the Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are as far away from being the remedies for that as shamanism is the remedy for appendicitis.

    2. Sir Runcible Spoon
      FAIL

      Sir

      Do you have anything to say about the possibility of obscene amounts of funding being made available to scientists who are predisposed to sit on one particular side of this fence corrupting the scientific process at all?

      That couldn't possibly happen could, LET'S ALL GET SHOUTY and burn the fucking heretic already.

      You quote wikipedia in all seriousness, it's obvious to anyone that we *contribute* to climate change (how much is what the debate is about). Hundreds of scientists whose funding relies on them supporting the money wagon, and then you go and cite the Pentagon, who, as we all know, has everyone else's interests at heart really.

      You get the FAIL buddy, not because I think you are right or wrong, but because it's attitudes like yours that stifle the debate and have turned the whole bloody thing into a religion.

      1. strum

        Well, then

        >Do you have anything to say about the possibility of obscene amounts of funding being made >available to scientists who are predisposed to sit on one particular side of this fence >corrupting the scientific process at all?

        Do you have anything to say about the complete lack of denier science? There aren't hordes of anti-AGW candidates - proposing studies, suggesting data collecting methods, proposing new models - because there's no there, there.

        They haven't done the work, and they're not proposing the work. They're frauds.

    3. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      FAIL

      RE: IT'S ALL A CONSPIRACY!!!

      <Sigh> Whilst I respect your passion, maybe you should take a step back, take a deep breath, and then think before engaging your keyboard again?

      ".....Every single science academy in the world has said that global warming is happening...." Every single one? Have you personally checked them all, one by one? Or is that just what someone spoonfed you? Even if you could just trim that down to "every leading science academy" (and we could then argue over the defintion of a leading sceintific academy) then I could point out that every leading science academy at different points in time thought the World was flat, the Sun orbited the Earth, and that Darwin was a hoaxer. Science is not about accepting the majority opinion, it is about rational, non-emotive discussion leading to a theory supported by empirical facts. Harold Lewis is just one of many that have highlighted the fact that the Climategate emails cast serious doubt on the validity of many of the "facts" presented as truths by the global warming fraternity. His letter is about his unhappiness with the response of the general scientific community to such criticism, to whit it has largely responded in a manner similar to your frothing rant about conspiracies, and how unprofessional and unscientific that response is. In looking for a cause to explain such a response, Harold Lewis (along with many others) has suggested that the massives amounts of money being throw at climate research may be the cause. In your case it more likely just the quasi-religeous hatred of anyone slightly to the right of Ken Livingstone that denies you the ability to dispassionately examine the scientific evidence.

      "....The Pentagon...." An easy one to explain. The Pentagon is a massive drain on the US taxpayer. The Pentagon employs lots of people to present their case for more funds in as best (and by that I mean "voter-friendly") manner as possible, and they will use ANY current affairs type interest to assure more funds. For example, consider the following:

      PENTAGON GENERAL (speaking before committee on defence spending): "We would like to spend $30bn on frikkin' shark-mounted lasers as they could be more effective against enemy swimmers than submarines."

      COMMITTEE (having ship-building yards in their districts): "No, we prefer manned submarines."

      PENTAGON GENERAL: "Very well."

      The next day, the same General appears before a committee allocating climate-friendly development funds.

      PENTAGON GENERAL: "We would like to spend $30bn on frikkin' shark-mounted lasers as they could be much less polluting than submarines. Sharks are of course natural and therefore do not generate the same carbon footprint as submarines, saving the US $<first number he pulled out of his a$$>bn and ensuring our children can play in a cleaner World."

      COMMITTEE (worried about the Green vote): "Approved!"

      SCIENTISTS (predicting mucho-mucho employment developing shark-mounted lasers, and endless papers to prove they are carbon-friendly): "We approve too!"

      Comprendez?

      "....The IPCC is not a committee. It is a panel of hundreds of qualified scientists who create a report based on the review of *thousands* of peer reviewed documents. Their conclusion is unequivocal....." And shown to be based on flawed evidence. And then shown to be amazingly resistant not only to discussion of those flaws but even to the extent of first denying there is a problem with the evidence, then desperately trying to muzzle anyone from their own ranks that tried to query their approach. That is not the action of a scientific communtiy, that is a committee trying to maintain its reputation and income by suppressing the very dissent that is vital to the development of science itself. Science without disagreement and discussion is just dogma.

      ".....I don't know why the Register has such a one sided editorial policy on climate change (I mean seriously, WTF??) but it's a fail" I think that just highlights the problem with climate change supporters - you just don't want to debate the issues, you just want everyone to mindlessly accept your point of view. You are saying The Reg shouldn't have an article discussing the news simply because it upsets you? Tough!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Matt Bryant

        You're wrong;

        There's no evidence to suggest that anyone truly believed the world was flat. This concept was introduced midway through the 1800's.

        If I were a CC supporter I'd claim that it invalidates your entire argument!

        My theory is that climate change is the result of human actions - we are all eating far too many curries!

        1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          Happy

          RE: @Matt Bryant

          "You're wrong...." I know, the correct answer in entirety is that the World is flat, supported on the backs of four giant elephants, and that they in turn stand on the shell of an immense tortoise. Curries are not a factor, it must be that any climate change can be blamed on giant elephant and tortoise flatuence! One does shudder to think of the results if man was silly enough to feed the elephants curries though....

      2. strum

        Put up, or shut up.

        >I could point out that every leading science academy at different points in time thought the >World was flat, the Sun orbited the Earth, and that Darwin was a hoaxer.

        But, if you did, you'd be wrong. No science academy ever taught that the world was flat.

        If you wish to challenge the assertion that ".....Every single science academy in the world has said that global warming is happening...." it should be relatively easy for you to do so. Just name one that hasn't. Go on, then.....

        >You are saying The Reg shouldn't have an article discussing the news simply because it >upsets you?

        I think a lot of us are disappointed in the Reg's anti-science attitude (especially Orlowski - who usually hides behind no-comment shields). Has the Reg ever reported anything positive about the climate change consensus - no. But every time some angry old man spouts off on the denier side - it's straight on the Reg pages.

        1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          FAIL

          RE: Put up, or shut up.

          ".....No science academy ever taught that the world was flat....." Oops, better not mention the Imperial Chinese Court, whose scientists did not abandon the flat Earth concept until the late 17th century, and who set the standard for what was taught in all China. Is what was, even then, the largest single nation on Earth being taught the World was flat a good enough example for you?

          ".....Just name one that hasn't....." How about CATO, which - whilst broadly in agreement that global warming is occurring but as a natural process - is dismissive of attempts to link it to man's activities, and also dismisses ideas that we can somehow reverse it by modifying human behaviour. And before you accuse CATO of "just being a tool of Republican-backing industries", you may want to consider that they described Bush's 2003 energy bill as "hundreds of pages of corporate welfare, symbolic gestures, empty promises, and pork-barrel projects". So not exactly the bunch of screaming capitalists you'd no doubt like to make them out as.

          ".....I think a lot of us are disappointed in the Reg's anti-science attitude...." Reading through the comments it should now be obvious to you that there are many readers that are quite happy with the Reg being at least objective, and many that are very happy for any articles exposing the sham science behind much of the CAGW claims. So sorry if you expected to sail through life without any doubts or discussions to confront, but maybe science just isn't for you?

    4. David Beck
      Thumb Down

      It's all about the money

      Every single science academy in the world has said that global warming is happening and that it is caused by human activity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change .

      And the Sun is the cause.

      Over eight out of ten climate scientists believe that human activity contributes to global warming: http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html .

      And their grants depend on it.

      The Pentagon (that bastion of commie socialist libtard propoganda) has examined the facts and believes global warming to be real, a threat to global stability and thereby the security of the United States: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1730759_1731383_1731632,00.html

      Without threats they don't a job, or funding.

      The IPCC is not a committee. It is a panel of hundreds of qualified scientists who create a report based on the review of *thousands* of peer reviewed documents. Their conclusion is unequivocal.

      Who did the peer reviews of the retreating glaciers then.

      But no. The REAL reason that all these people say that climate change is not occurring / natural caused by the sun / medieval warm period / cosmic rays is because IT IS A COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY LEAD BY AL GORE AND THE PINKO F***ING EURO SOCIALISTS WHO WANT TO TAX THE WORLD AND GIVE ALL THE MONEY TO THE OIL COMPANIES.

      I feel no guilt.

      I don't know why the Register has such a one sided editorial policy on climate change (I mean seriously, WTF??) but it's a fail

      Huh?, the Register reports. The editorial policy is expressed by the readers.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You're reading this as black and white

      Yes, most scientists, both proponents and sceptics, agree that climate change is happening - given 4.5 billion years of climate change on this planet, they would be fools to deny that there is change.

      A vast proportion of them will also agree that man is making a difference.

      But here is where the arguments divide. Is man responsible for the majority of the change that is happening? How fast is it actually happening? Would it have happened anyway? Can anything we can do now change it? Should we even try!

      The problem is that too much research is being done to show that man is responsible, and virtually none to see whether it would have happened anyway. This skews the results, as even if only 10% of the research that is looking for man-made climate change finds some evidence, this will be more than 100% of the non-existent contra-evidence. So you get a self-confirming result, which may be wrong.

      Science can be influenced by short-term thinking, so long as people are able to do the research, eventually, whatever the truth is will become the accepted norm.

      Maybe we are there with the climate research, but there are sufficient numbers of people who believe that current biased nature of the research will not find the truth, which is getting increasingly worrying for the scientific establishment.

      I liken it to asking the banks whether they should pay big bonuses. Many people think that they should not, even some of those in the banking industry, but letting the people who would benefit decide makes the decision a certainty!

      I am AC'ing this, as although I don't think I've said too much, where I currently work cannot endorse anything other than what the IPCC recommendations.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Science?

      +1 to that. I am also frankly appalled that so many opinion pieces on ACC don't have comments enabled, and that when they do, a man who sounds suspiciously like a well-known meerkat to me, wield a very heavy censor's pen.

      Comments like "citation needed" are deemed to transgress.

      Learn some fucking science Editards.

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Paris Hilton

      Erm.....

      Not got the energy to argue with you in either direction, but can you not see the issue with this sentence?

      "Over eight out of ten climate scientists believe that......."

      I think the point the prof is making, is that they would say that. Why? Because they are terrified that the gravy train will end.

      Re the Pentagon and the IPCC: It's not like Government decisions have been influenced by political will contrary to scientific fact before is it? Oh wait, yes it is!

      My general feeling at the moment is that it is as stitch-up. But it's a gut feeling rather than an educated opinion, why? Because critics have been silenced. Which is exactly what the prof has written about.

      If you want to believe in Human Aggravated Climate Change, or even in sky fairies, that's fine. But I'd like to be allowed to read documents from both camps to form my own opinions, but historically that's not been allowed to happen. It's not like science should be transparent right???

      Oh and I assume you missed the story about the Sun being at least partially responsible?

      A/C cos I'm at work. Paris cos she gets me thorugh the day!

    8. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      "Their conclusion is unequivocal"

      Except when the IPCC includes data that has not yet been certified and bases some conclusions on that data, which then turns out to be flat-out wrong.

      Come on, if there is one thing that ClimateGate has taught us it is that big money is indeed involved and some unscrupulous scientists can fudge the numbers to fit the conclusion.

      The data is the data. If it does not fit the conclusion, then the conclusion is wrong. That is science. But of course, that supposes that the data is properly and rigorously evaluated in the first place, without bias or preconceptions of any kind.

      And as far as all this global warming hoopla is concerned, there is no such thing as absence of preconception anymore. Global warming is now indeed a religion, with deniers as the excommunicated. Each party hangs on desperately to its own side of the argument and refuses to listen to anything that might be a valid counter-argument.

      In this situation, it will be extremely difficult to continue to do proper science and actually answer the question of whether or not global warming is indeed happening and what we can do about it (never mind if it is our fault or not).

      And that's a shame because I am convinced that we do actually need an answer.

    9. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @IT's all a conspiracy

      Actually, I thought this was one of the less biased bits of Reg reporting on the subject.

      Maybe I'm being turned?

    10. Josh 15

      @ It's All A Conspiracy

      "...Over eight out of ten climate scientists believe that human activity contributes to global warming: http://stats.org/stories..."

      And since when did turkeys ever vote for Christmas? Pfft!

      As far as I'm aware the El Reg has a healthy, often ironic scepticism regarding AGW. I consider that a laudable journalistic trait, but I'm old-fashioned like that.

    11. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      caloric

      The problem is that *both* sides are religious - sort of like Catholics (warmers) and Protestants (deniers).

      "We all agree so we must be right"

      v.s.

      "you're ganging up on us and stifling debate"

      So... let's burn each other at the stake

      The problem is, a *wrong* scientific consensus can impede real progress. A couple of centuries ago some bright spark postulated a particle "caloric" that mediated heat - if you put something with lots of caloric in contact with an object that had less, it would flow from one to the other to equalise things.

      That explained a lot... but unfortunately was quite wrong and the the scientists who pointed out the holes were sneered at, and being lone voices they weren't taken seriously.

      The theory crumbled when an engineer making cannon noticed they would get hot when the holes in the barrels were being turned... the caloric had to come from somewhere....

      My objection to the global warming hype is that there isn't yet a theory which ties together all of the observations - there are mathematical models with various knobs that can be tweaked to fit the observations, but that's not the same thing.

      It is something we should take seriously, investigate further, and attempt to mitigate the observed effects - but not "incontrovertible fact".

    12. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Tiem refund

      I wan't the time it took to read your post refunded with damages.

    13. TeeCee Gold badge
      Grenade

      Conspiracy?

      "Over eight out of ten climate scientists believe that human activity contributes to global warming:"

      That, in itself, is proof that AGW is *not* a proven fact. That very statement indicates that over 10% of 'em with access to the same data come to a different conclusion.

      That's not a fact, that's a theory (albeit a well-recieved one). Proving a theory requires both experiment and debate. It is the Society's evangelical suppression of the latter, against it's core principles, that is the core theme of this letter.

      Incidently, now we know that learned societies are actively stifling dissent and debate from within, it makes: "Every single science academy in the world has said that....." not worth a tinker's damn.

      You don't have to go back more than a few hundred years to find a situation where every established scientific authority held that the world was flat and personally constructed by God. It didn't make it true. It's a good thing for science that there are people around who are prepared to think that just because something is accepted wisdom doesn't make it also a fact.

    14. Anonymous Coward
      Paris Hilton

      Then why....

      Do the Russians disagree? Or is their report an "inconvenient truth?"

      Paris's "hotness" (I can't believe I wrote that) is clearly the major cause of global warming...

  1. Ian Rogers
    Boffin

    In this case curse the sinners not the sin.

    Harold Lewis makes the careful and accurate distinction that it's the global warming movement that is corrupt (and therefore possibly mistaken), not the issues around global warming.

    The use of the word "incontrovertible" in an issue as complex as climate change is of course repulsive to any decent scientist.

    I think Prof Lewis would be quite happy if global warming is proved to be true - he's a scientist, he doesn't care either way - but he is obviously insensed by the way a single point of view is being steamrollered through a supposedly scientific organisation. He wants the debate to be open and treated the same way as any other in the APS.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Nigel Lawson

    Whose tenure at the Department of Energy presumably set the stage for the stupid "natural gas everywhere, yay!" endgame in the supposedly "vibrant" British energy market, where "vibrant" is slang for passing on all the costs to the consumer and not thinking any further ahead than "maybe we'll need to learn Russian one day".

    (And before people start whining their usual, tired "ad hominem" retorts, it's completely acceptable to criticise someone on what they have done, which is precisely what this is doing.)

  3. Gene

    No facts is the problem...

    Ignore him. He's a real scientist and those guys insist on real proof of things like human involvement in global warming, which is glaringly absent. Of course it's getting warmer - we're coming out of an ice age. It's going to keep getting warmer too. Live with it.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Follow the money

    Follow the money, and you will find the reason for anything, so the theory goes.

    So, academics are being paid lots of money to conduct research in to man-made climate change by people who are worried, nay, frightened that it is happening. They have a vested interest to keep those people frightened, thus to keep gaining money.

    On the other hand, there are academics being paid lots of money by fossil fuel manufacturers to prove it's not happening. They also have a vested interest. *

    So who's right? In this instance, it's hard to say. Both sides appear to have thrown out the scientific rule book. They appear to be starting with the answer: "man made climate change is (not) happening" and trying to prove that statement. I always thought science in general was about observing and making judgements based on those observations, not making judgements, then finding the observations which back that up.

    Really, it's the same problem as the "solve world hunger / aids / cancer" charities have. Obscurely, from a financial point of view, they have an interest in the problem being as wide-spread as possible. If AIDS stopped being a problem tomorrow, think of how many people would suddenly become unemployed. Same with world hunger, it is in their interest that people stay in poverty, it keeps them in a well funded job. The more poverty, the better funded their job.

    Of course, this line of argument assumes that all people involved are heartless bastards. I truly hope that is not the case.

    * By the way, I also accept that some academics DO have ethics, and perform their trials / experiments with complete integrity.

    They are probably also the ones who moan about being underpaid and under appreciated. Such is the modern world I'm afraid.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Paid a lot of money?

      Typically someone doing a PhD in a climate related subject will get about 12grand, tax free because they are a student. This is not a lot of money, it is certainly not a gravy train. Industry pays a lot more.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming

    Prof Lewis's scientific reason for resignation is in part based on reading "The Hockey Stick Illusion;Climategate and the Corruption of Science" book by Andrew Montford; which examines how some bad statistics and curious choices of methodology gave a 'misleading' hockey-stick graph in the IPCC 3rd report 2001- with unpublished proxy data and undefined confidence limits by the CAGW proponents. (book is seven quid on the usual outlets)

    CAGW is as scientific as John Selwyn Gummer 'feeding' a hamburger to his four-year-old daughter Cordelia at the height of the BSE panic in 1990

    flame?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Nice to see the comments are open on this article

    wouldn't want to stifle any debate, now would we?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Just my 2 pennies

    Feels the same even among the layman debates. I'm a sceptic but to even voice that view in public is to get yourself labeld a wackjob.

    Science should be about debate and collaboration. Great scientific theories get proven or dis-proven through this process. Seems to me he is resigning because this process is being stifled by the scientific community.

    I'll get my coat, because lets be fair, 99% of us are groping blindly in the dark and just accept what the big media headlines say anyway

  8. The Stainless Steel Cat
    Happy

    I knew it!

    All those multi-trillion-dollar environmental corporations pouring their money into pro-GW PR, corrupting poor innocent scientists away from life-enhancing, energy-industry-funded research.

    Freeman Dyson OTOH, is only against GW because he wants us to build one of his spheres to grab *all* available heat and light...

  9. BoscoH
    Linux

    What if he's right?

    Of course he's right. And he's right about the mechanism. I saw this two decades ago taking a class from Nobel laureates Cicerone and Rowland with their hockey stick CFC vs. ozone layer stuff. It was already too late to have done anything, and we lost Big Macs that stayed warm and air conditioning that was inexpensive. Yet the decades between have been a mixed, variable bag for the ozone layer. We found out that it fluctuates a lot anyway and that the dire predictions just didn't pan out. The funny thing was that they whipped the sorority girls into a frenzy with dire predictions about the terrible cancers their kids would get at the hands of a depleted ozone layer. No price could be too high to prevent that! And it's taken 20 years to get a reasonable perspective on that whole thing, while we repeat the same giant pseudoscientific clusterfrack with global warming.

    Penguin because I still have funny notes of the lecture when Cicerone put up pictures of cute penguins and said they were all going to die because of CFCs.

  10. maclovinz
    FAIL

    Interesting...

    FAIL....Please have him back everything he says with incontrovertible facts and evidence. When he does such, then I will listen.

    Quite good timing of this, as midterm elections are coming up and most extreme right-wingers think global warming to be a myth.

    That is, in the U.S. anyway. But facts dont' matter to us Americans! (I am but one of so very few.)

    1. My Alter Ego
      FAIL

      Re: Interesting

      Reading the letter, it sounds like he's got a lot of correspondence to back this up. He's acting exactly as a scientist should, with disgust when it comes to stifling of debate. As somebody else mentioned, I wouldn't be surprised if he accepted AGW once incontrovertible* evidence is found. That however may take some time seeing as his confidence in some of the leading institutions appears to be fairly shaken.

      Even as a lay person I know that incontrovertible isn't a word one uses lightly in science. If I were to say that I have incontrovertible evidence that the force between two bodies can be calculated EXACTLY as F = G * m1 * m2 / d^2, I should rightly be asked to prove it. Just because it's accepted as being true at the moment, it doesn't mean that it will not be tweaked in the future to fit future measurements.

      Fermatt's last theorem has now been proved to be incontrovertible. It's pretty damn difficult to say the same of anything in natural science.

      Obligatory XKCD: http://xkcd.com/435/

  11. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
    Stop

    Another AC fail...

    Over eight out of ten climate scientists believe that human activity contributes to global warming: http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html .

    "Over eight out of ten" : so is that nine or ten? Why not just say "nine" or "ten" then? I guess it's because most of the stats are flawed and that you just don't know. Is it also because the headline doesn't generate enough "drama"? And it's "drama" that drives the bucks in isn't it?

    What a scared little person you are.

    I have some other headlines for you that I have at a cost of billions of dollars in research grants undertaken...

    1. Over 7 out of 10 Bishops believe in the existence of God.

    2. Over 9 out of 10 cats preferred eating fish over Aluminium.

    3. Less that 2 out of 10 sane people really believe the global warming hyperbole.

    4. Over 9 out of 10 people are wondering why new technology marketed to help save money by being energy efficient actually cost more to purchase that can ever realistically be saved by using them.

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Coat

      RE: Another AC fail...

      "....4. Over 9 out of 10 people are wondering why new technology marketed to help save money by being energy efficient actually cost more to purchase that can ever realistically be saved by using them."

      As a petrolhead, I would just like to say a big "thank you" to Al Gore and all the frothing CAGW lovers, as you have so depressed the secondhand car market that I was able to indulge myself in another classic English (and very un-Green) sportscar this year. Said piece of automotive art consumes the old junglejiuce at a prodigeous rate (even more so with my heavy right foot!), so much so that the price of these vehicles has dropped by almost 75% over the last three years. This means I can actually run the vehicle, pay insurance, servicing and the petrol costs for LESS than it would cost me to buy new and pay fuel bills alone for one of your beloved (and soullessly boring) hybrids (and that's considering the hybrid comes with free insurance and servicing for the first year!). I did think of you selfless martyrs with a big smug smile of gratitude every time I planted the throttle to the floor this summer.

      /Can we have a "ROFL@U" icon, please? Coat as today I'm on holiday, it's not raining, so the rag-top is down and I will be burning up plenty of distilled dino! :D

  12. Nigel 11
    Thumb Down

    Not much of a physicist

    The one thing about global warming that is established beyond reasonable doubt, and which can be confirmed using completely controlled laboratory physics experiments in quantitative detail, is the physics. Greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, not to forget H2O) DO trap solar radiation within the Earth's atmosphere. Indeed, the Earth would be almost uninhabitable were it not for this effect - its black-body equilibrium temperature is only marginally above freezing, the greenhouse effect is the reason it is comfortable.

    What is happening or might happen to the Earth's climate as a result of the human race adding more CO2 and CH4 on top of the natural levels is still very open to debate, but it's also not physics.

    Given the lack of alternative Earths for us to live on should this global experiment go badly, I believe that it' s only sensible to err on the side of caution! Which sadly, we aren't.

    1. MeRp
      Stop

      Or is it too much of a physicist?

      All science is physics; everything else is stamp collecting, after all.

  13. Robinson
    FAIL

    So many fallacies, so little time.

    "I don't know why the Register has such a one sided editorial policy on climate change"

    Because it has an enlightened editorship. None of your points are valid as they are all based on fallacies. The main fallacy you are promoting is that science is done by consensus, or that the gate-keeper of various wikipedia articles doesn't himself have an agenda.

    As this scientist points out, it's not possible to argue against the consensus; your attempts to do so will be thwarted by institutional financial self-interest. That is what this article is about. I'm sure you haven't actually read it.

    So, given that you cannot argue against the paradigm, just how do you think the consensus has been reached?

    1. Anthony 13
      Dead Vulture

      So much hypocrocy, so little time ...

      So this guy apparantly can't argue against climate change; yet an IT web site constantly bombarding us with anti-climate change articles should be considered enlightened? Interesting ...

  14. Gordon Pryra
    FAIL

    Is anyone actually bothered by the problem itself?

    If the climate sceptics are being "silenced" by the "its getting hotter!" camp, then why is no one doing anything about the actual issues?

    Having a group of sceptics who have financial interests in their NOT being any impact from human actions is about as useful to the nay-sayers as a bunch of evangelical idiots is to the "its getting hotter!" camp.

    It seems both sides just want their cash to buy their nice cars and pay the mortgage sod the actual problem.

    Anyway, there is no problem, China will get hotter and we will just buy our stuff from them and their brutalised workforce!!!

  15. Zippy the Pinhead
    Thumb Up

    does it matter?

    As if the Human Caused Global Warming freaks have any real untainted evidence.. but they have already corrupted data to the point it can't be used. Poor Poor global warming shills.. your scam has been figured out!

  16. Neil Paterson
    Joke

    Lewis!

    Are you aware that Orlowski's hijacked your username and password to post items under your name?

  17. Blake St. Claire

    Global Warming is spelled C l i m a t e C h a n g e

    I was under the impression that "global warming" as a euphemism had been pooh-poohed by the academic community in favor of Climate Change.

    Yet even this emeritus professor can't get it right. That makes him a tiny bit less credible in my book. No less, he's emeritus from one of the UC party schools, and not UC Berkeley, which would be the natural or usual presumption when you don't qualify University of California.

    I'm sure UC Santa Barbara's Physics department is quite good actually, but still---

  18. Deetal
    WTF?

    The best you can do?

    Just who is this guy anyway, and why is El Reg giving him a platform? What are the criteria for dubbing someone "hefty" and "heavyweight?"? All I can find on him apart from his academic position (which has nothing to do with climateology) is page after page of stuff about his letter of "resignation" - I can't even find what position he actually had, if any, in the society he resigned from. It doesn't sound to me like this bloke is more of an expert on climate change than anyone else. Merely being a "boffin" doesn't count for anything, and if you ask me calling him "A heavyweight American boffin" is a tad generous, if not outright disingenuous. Amittedly I chose not to waste more than 5 minutes searching, so if anyone else wants to dig deeper, I'm sure we'd all be interested.

    Ya know, If there were really a massive global academic conspiracy, I'd expect resignations of rather a higher calibre than some random dude quitting the APS.

  19. Rupert Stubbs

    It's incontrovertible...?

    It seems that many of the posters here haven't read his letter, either.

    I don't think it's reacting emotionally to protest about a scientific authority defining climate change as "incontrovertible". This is a word that scientists should avoid, as Prof Lewis points out. Thus anyone who even wants to debate the issue is labelled a "denier", with all the jolly associations that has.

    Science does have a major problem, in that the general public - and the dumbed down media in particular - regard the inevitable equivocation of scientific statements as admissions of weakness of argument. Tough - you can't have it both ways. Once scientists start corrupting their conclusions in order to make them media-friendly, then they lose their scientific authority.

  20. This post has been deleted by its author

  21. whiteafrican

    @Glenn 4

    Yeah, he does, it's just not covered very well in the story. Read the full letter here: http://thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1670-hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society.html

  22. Tom 35

    Science for sale

    Has always been a problem. Tobacco, oil, chemical and drug companies have had pet scientists for quite some time. In all those examples it's clear who is running the show, and why. Who is running the Global Warming fraud? The people hiding the UFOs in area 51? Elvis? Greenpeace?

    Sure your going to get a few people jumping into anything to try and make a buck, and a few crackpots (what ever happened to Kevin Warwick?) making things difficult for others, but if this is a fraud someone is pulling the strings. Who?

    Everyone but me and my friends is making up stuff!

    Much better odds that he is a pet scientist dishing out some FUD.

  23. Bill Neal
    Thumb Up

    Well done

    reminds me of how much Al Gore has invested in "green" technologies, and when he said "the debate is over". Years later we will all look back and see this farcical show for what it is: smoke & mirrors. Indeed "no facts just politics" is what its all about.

  24. Chad H.

    So it's a scam because people are funding the research?

    I guess this makes medical science a scam too?

  25. Joe User
    Flame

    Deliberate censorship

    It's difficult to share your information when the so-called "professional" organizations block all attempts to do so....

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    Yawn.

    Since when have physicists become climate experts?

    Yawn, since I don't really care what a physicist thinks about the climate. Call us when you have something interesting to report in your field of expertise.

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