APS Position on Global Warming Remains Unchanged

On 18 July 2008, the conservative blog American Thinker has posted an article entitled "You were saying something about a Global Warming Consensus?". In a gloating manner, the article states:

"The American Physical Society representing nearly 50,000 physicists "has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming," according to an article in The Daily Tech. The leadership of the society had previously referred to global warming evidence as 'incontravertible.'
What does this mean? It doesn't mean that the APS has abandoned its position on man made climate change. What they have done is perhaps more significant; they have opened the subject up for debate once again. And once the facts can be judged on their merits and not on who is submitting them, at the very least global warming deniers have a powerful platform to present their findings."

Even conspiracy monger Alex Jones saw fit to repeat this posting in its entirety on his website Prison Planet.

But has anyone bothered to check the website of the American Physical society about this? If you did, you'd see on their website's front page (which I accessed on 20 July 2008), the following statement:

"The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:

'Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate.'

An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that 'Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum.' This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed."

Even Fox News had to admit it!

The July 2008 disclaimer listed here reads as follows:

The FPS Executive Committee strongly endorses the position of the APS Council that "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate." The statement in the July 2008 edition of our newsletter, Physics and Society that, "There is 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" does not represent the views of the Executive Committee of the Forum on Physics and Society.

If you'd like to read the APS statement on Anthropogenic Global Warming, simply click here.

So all I can say to you deniers is: "Close, but no cigar."