UC Physicist: Global Warming A Fraud

OCT. 11, 2010

By WAYNE LUSVARDI

Harold Lewis, Professor of physics emeritus at University of California at Santa Barbara has resigned from membership in the top professional association for physicists in America saying that “the money flood” has corrupted science and calls global warming a “scam.” The coincidental timing of Dr. Lewis’ statement may give a boost to Prop 23 on the upcoming California ballot to suspend the California “Global Warming Solutions Act.”

In an open letter published in the Telegraph newspaper in the United Kingdom and addressed to the president of the American Physical Society (APS), Lewis writes that “his former pride in being a fellow of the APS has turned to shame” due to “the money flood” from government.  Lewis states that former President Dwight Eisenhower warned of this corruption of science by government money in his precautions about the “military industrial complex.”

Professor Lewis writes:

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. 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.

Lewis states that the American Physical Society has “accepted corruption as the norm” by:

• Stifling debate;

• Dealing with global warming in secret meetings;

• Issuing official statements on global warming that did not reflect the preponderance of its members;

• Failing to change its position statement when the Climategate scandal broke;

• Squelching dissent by denying the APS membership list to members to communicate with each other to gather signatures for a petition;

• Forming another secret group to counter those who dissent about global warming.

Lewis speculates that all of these devious actions are due to the “trillions of dollars involved” as well as the “fame and glory and trips to exotic islands” that are involved with “being a member of the club.”

Dr. Lewis is not some outcast or kook physicist. His pedigrees are too lengthy to recite but includes serving as former member of President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee, Advisory Committee on Nuclear Safeguards, Defense Science Board study on nuclear winter and author of several books.

Anthony Watts, a meteorologist, states on his blog (ClimateRealists.com) that Lewis’ letter is an important document in the history of science and ranks with Martin Luther’s nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door that initiated The Reformation.

Dr. Lewis’ letter comes at a timely moment for Proposition 23 on the November California ballot that would suspend the “Global Warming Solutions Act” (AB32) until the unemployment rate dropped to 5.5 percent.

Concurrently, Dr. Ben Zycher, an economist at the Pacific Research Institute (parent organization of CalWatchdog), has issued a summary of a study he conducted indicating that if Prop. 23 passes on the November ballot it will increase employment by 150,000 by 2011 and by 500,000 by 2020 compared to the employment level if the Global Warming Solutions Act is allowed to continue.

It is unclear is all the large number of pending renewable energy projects on federal lands in desert areas would be suspended by Prop. 23.  But surely the construction of transmission lines from green power projects on federal lands would be affected.

Voters should be aware that Prop. 23 on the California ballot has been apparently made intentionally confusing by the California Secretary of State.  By assigning the number 23 to the proposition to suspend Assembly Bill 32 the inversion of the same numbers may be confusing to the voters.  Also, a YES vote on Prop 23 is a NO vote.  So a YES is a NO vote on green power.