| | | Physicist mocks climate 'scam' Graham Lloyd
A senior US professor has resigned in disgust from the American Physical Society
He joined a panel of sceptics to protest against what he said was the triumph of money over scientific integrity in climate change research.
Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said in his resignation letter to APS president Curtis Callan Jr that the "global warming scam" had "corrupted so many scientists and carried APS before it like a rogue wave".
"It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist," he said.
Professor Lewis, a member of APS for 67 years, said anyone who had the faintest doubt about his assessment should read the so-called climate-gate documents, which lay it bare.
"This is not fun and games -- these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance," Professor Lewis said in his letter of resignation.
He accused APS management of "gaming" the problem from the beginning to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims.
"Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don't think that is an issue," Professor Lewis said. "I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago."
Australian climate sceptic Ian Plimer, from the University of Adelaide, said he was not surprised by Professor Lewis's resignation.
"Only younger people with careers in front of them are afraid to rock the boat," Professor Plimer said.
"Older scientists, near the end of their career, can expose the fools and frauds and blow the whistle that major bodies of information are not appearing in publications," he said.
But ANU climate scientist Will Steffen, who sits on the federal government's climate change committee, said Professor Lewis had not published in the climate science or earth sciences literature.
He said three investigations into the so-called climate-gate scandal had exonerated those involved and found there had been no perversion of the peer review system.
Professor Steffen delivered a paper at the climate forum in Hobart yesterday questioning "when the science on climate change is so clear, why is it still portrayed as uncertain in the media?"
He said there was a big divergence between what was known with a high degree of certainty and what was reported.
Professor Lewis has joined the Academic Advisory Council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which evaluates new studies and reports, explores future research projects and makes recommendations on issues related to climate research and policy. |
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