Klimaat: Plakkaat van Verlatinghe

Het Plakkaat van Verlatinghe, ondertekend te Den Haag in 1581 was de officiële verklaring van een aantal Nederlandse provinciën, waarin Filips II werd afgezet als hun heerser. Het kan dus worden gezien als de Nederlandse onafhankelijkheidsverklaring.

Daar moest ik aan denken toen ik destijds las dat Hal Lewis, emeritus professor aan de Universiteit van Californië, zijn lidmaatschap opzegde bij de 'American Physical Society' (APS).

Uit zijn opzeggingsschrijven citeer ik het volgende:

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara

To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society 6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach.

I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs.

For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society. It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has 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. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example: About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate.

En zo noemt hij nog een aantal voorbeelden. Hij besluit:

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. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.

Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question. I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

Lees verder hier.

Het voorbeeld van Hal Lewis is nu gevolgd door een andere excellente wetenschapper. Ook Ivar Giaever, Nobelprijswinnaar natuurkunde 1973, heeft dezelfde stap genomen. Marc Morano rapporteerde daarover het volgende:

Nobel prize winner for physics in 1973 Dr. Ivar Giaever resigned as a Fellow from the American Physical Society (APS) on September 13, 2011 in disgust over the group's promotion of man-made global warming fears. Climate Depot has obtained the exclusive email Giaever sent to APS Executive Officer Kate Kirby to announce his formal resignation.

Dr. Giaever wrote to Kirby of APS: “Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I cannot live with the (APS) statement below (on global warming): APS: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.'

Giaever announced his resignation from APS was due to the group's belief in man-made global warming fears. Giaever explained in his email to APS: "In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period."

Giaever was one of President Obama's key scientific supporters in 2008. Giaever joined over 70 Nobel Science Laureates in endorse Obama in an October 29, 2008 open letter. In addition to Giaever, other prominent scientists have resigned from APS over its stance on man-made global warming. Giaever, a professor at the School of Engineering and School of Science Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has become a vocal dissenter from the alleged “consensus” regarding man-made climate fears. He was featured prominently in the 2009 U.S. Senate Report of (then) Over 700 Dissenting International Scientists from Man-made global warming. Giaever, who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and won the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physics.

Lees verder hier.

Door slechts weinigen opgemerkt, heeft ook Henk Tennekes, Neerlands klimatoloog met de hoogste plaats op de internationale citatenindex, al enige tijd geleden om overeenkomstige redenen zijn lidmaatschap van de KNAW opgezegd. Voor zover mij bekend, is dit nog nooit in de geschiedenis van de KNAW voorgekomen. Het pleit overigens voor Robbert Dijkgraaf, de huidige president van de KNAW, dat hij bij Henk Tennekes persoonlijk op bezoek is geweest om, naast andere zaken, naar zijn beweegredenen daartoe te informeren. Of dat enig effect heeft gehad, zal nog moeten blijken.

We wachten bijvoorbeeld nog steeds met spanning op het verslag van de bijeenkomst die onder de hoede van het KNAW zo'n jaar geleden heeft plaatsgevonden, waar protagonisten en antagonisten van de menselijke broeikashypothese met elkaar van gedachten hebben gewisseld.