Unsolicited Climate Change Email

American Physical Society Statement ^ | December 10, 2009 | Cherry Murray

[AndyJackson]

Dear APS Member:

Recently, you may have received an unsolicited email from Hal Lewis, Bob Austin, Will Happer, Larry Gould and Roger Cohen regarding the APS and climate change. Please be assured that this was not an official APS message, nor was it sent with APS knowledge or approval. A number of members have complained to APS regarding this unsolicited e-mail. If the e-mail addresses used to send this message were obtained from our membership directory, this was contrary to the stated guidelines for members' use of the directory. We are continuing to investigate how the senders obtained APS member email addresses.

As many APS members are already aware, the Council of the Society has tasked the Panel on Public Affairs to examine the 2007 APS statement on climate change for issues of tone and clarity. Duncan Moore, the current chair of POPA, is in the process of convening a subcommittee to carry out the task. The subcommittee, which he is also chairing, will report its recommendations to POPA in early February, and shortly thereafter POPA will post the text for a three-week APS member comment period. We will alert the APS membership by email when the posting occurs. Duncan Moore's subcommittee will use the comments it receives to finalize the wording in time for the April Council meeting.

Some members of the APS have asked the Society to craft a statement regarding the issues surrounding the release of climate files stolen from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. The CRU maintains the repository for temperature measurements used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The APS leadership has concerns about both the improper release of private e-mails and any premature rush to judgment regarding scientific integrity at the CRU. Both the CRU and the IPCC are in the process of investigating the affair. Once the full range of information is made available, the APS Panel on Public Affairs will examine the case and recommend how APS should act.

We will continue to keep the APS membership informed about climate change issues through postings on the APS home page; articles in APS News; commentaries on the APS blog, Physics Frontline; and direct email alerts to the membership when necessary.

Best Regards,

Cherry Murray
APS President

[Publius6961]

Cherry Murray ?
APS President?

One would hope that the president of a science organization would not be limited to the same intellectual horsepower as Barbara Boxer.

Her grasp of the problem is identical; and her disdain for the underlying critical and ultimately more relevant issue non-existent.

"Stolen" emails.
Right.

[InterceptPoint]

You need to stay on message. The real scandal here is who leaked the APS mailing list. That is the story that has legs and will sell newspapers.

They are trying that of course but it isn't working.

What is surprising to me is how little actual investigative journalism has went into attempting to identify the identity of the leaker. The Russians apparently have some insight into the source IP address of the the person who posted the files to a Russian server. Where is the curiosity in the media about that? Methinks maybe they really don't want to know. Maybe they know in their heart it was grad student at CRU and identifying him/her would open up a can of worms that even the mighty MSM could not stuff back in the bottle.

[AndyJackson]

From what I can see about the collation of the emails, the CRU data was pretty carefully leaked. It would appear to have been collated and edited by someone focused on the issue at hand with careful avoidance of shopping lists, kids with runny noses and sexual partner problems that must permeate the email repositories of any large organization of people, all of whom have personal lives.

[SunkenCiv]

Instead of using the resources of the physics profession to understand and evaluate the serious question of whether climate change is real, her response is a witch hunt into who stole the APS mailing list and gave it to five prominent members of the society to mail their concerns to other physcists.

thanks AndyJackson.

[Bernard Marx]

ALL of us now have to ask ourselves every single time we hear a “scientist” speak, “Is this a scientist that collects data and theorizes, or is this a “scientist” that looks for data to support a very UNscientific socio-political agenda?”

I've been doing that for at least 30 years, ever since Carl Sagan, National Geographic and others went over to the political Dark Side. Sagan's "Nuclear Winter" was the 1970s anti-Reagan equivalent of AGW, and N.G. sold its soul to the Greens. Political Correctness has placed a Marxist stranglehold on free scientific inquiry in the U.S.