Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Forum on Physics and Society Oct. 2008 Newsletter

The APS Forum on Physics and Society Oct. 2008 newsletter is now online. Hopefully, it doesn't generate the same brouhaha has the July issue.

In this issue, they addressed the controversy generated in the July issue with the Monckton's "article". Because of that debacle, the newsletter now carries this disclaimer:

"This contribution has not been peer refereed. It represents solely the view(s) of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of APS."

This is to prevent certain unscrupulous individuals from using it as if it has been peer-reviewed (you know we are talking about you, Lord Monckton). There are other things being clarified as stated in the Editor's comment:

Our editorial comments in the July 2008 issue include the following statement: “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 the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.” In fact, we have not polled any scientific community (e.g., the climate research community, the physics community, or the general science community) as to the extent of its consensus regarding human-activity-caused global warming, and we apologize for making such a remark for which we do not have supporting data. We now do know that, in addition to the American Physical Society, the following scientific organizations have issued statements and/or reports in support of the IPCC’s main conclusion concerning the role of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in global warming: The National Academy of Sciences, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.


That, I believe, clears up everything.

Zz.

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