The Science Strikes Back

A day after Al Gore gave a speech that may or may not have included references to clean coal in pursuit of a 10 year mission for the US to go carbon neutral, the scientists at the American Physical Society have found that the IPCC, which has been pushing the human-caused global warming meme has some serious explaining to do.

In fact, they go beyond merely demanding explanations from the IPCC to pretty much calling the IPCC a fraud and that human caused global warming is unproven.

The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity — the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause — has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton’s paper an “expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and “extensive errors”

In an email to DailyTech, Monckton says, “I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC’s 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central ‘climate sensitivity’ question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method.”

When other planets in the solar system experience the same kinds of climate change, there's only one factor that would affect all - the sun.

It's the one factor that Al Gore and his followers discount and ignore, even as solar output appears to be waning over the past several years.

This undermines the argument by the global warming crowd that the scientists are in consensus about the human factor on global warming.

Hot Air has more, including how the Australian scientist in charge of developing that country's Kyoto compliance measures has come to realize how the facts have come to show that carbon plays only a minor role in climate change and that there were other more important factors to consider - like the sun.

As for Gore's speech yesterday, it's curious how a Times report today mentions clean coal as a solution for American energy needs.

“When we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges — the economic, environmental and national security crises,” Mr. Gore said. “We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.”

His solution was to do away with all carbon-emitting forms of electricity production in the United States within 10 years, replacing them with alternatives like solar, wind and geothermal power, conservation and so-called clean-coal technology in which all carbon emissions from the burning of coal are captured and stored. It is a bold, and some say, unrealistic goal given the tremendous cost and the nation’s fractious politics.

Given that the US already relies heavily on coal for power generation needs, increasing clean coal operations isn't all that much of a stretch. Of the alternative energy sources listed above, it's the one most likely to succeed in a short time frame and produce stable and steady power in the greatest capacity.

UPDATE:
Doug Ross has screen caps of Gore's entourage arriving in multiple cars and other acolytes arriving to attend his sermon on global warming and US reduction in carbon emissions.

The full video of that is here.

UPDATE:
It figures that the EPA bureaucrats would push that climate change can result in major changes to lifestyle. I don't think anyone's questioning that climate change can result in lifestyle changes, but the problem is that the junk science behind human-caused global warming is bunk. And some of those climate changes might actually enhance and improve lives, not harm them.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin points out that the APS position is more nuanced. One of the units of the APS notes the problems, with other units retaining their global warming outlook. Still, it doesn't exactly suggest that there's conformity or unanimity or consensus on human induced global warming.