Since I'm a member of the APS I can bring you up to date on the above statement which is from 8 years ago. It was written by a small number of people and when it came out there were a lot of complaints from the membership. The basic problem was that only one side of a substantive issue was being discussed. Signatures were gathered in protest, some famous physicists quit the society, etc. You can read more about the turmoil here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/...n-physical-society-over-global-warming-issue/ Eventually the APS decided to convene a "workshop" on global warming. They selected a "neutral" physicist to chair the meeting, Steven E. Koonin. He has a BS and PhD in physics from Caltech and MIT and was appointed by President Obama as Under Secretary for Science at the US Department of Energy. The Workshop invited 6 experts to the workshop, three arguing that the science shows that there is a man-caused global warming problem and three arguing that the science does not show that. You can read the transcript of the workshop at the APS website here: http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf Now the above is a 573 page document but it's double spaced typewritten and reads pretty quickly. Go ahead and read it. Anyway, the end result of the workshop was that the "skeptics" cleaned the clocks of the "alarmists". The Obama appointed "neutral" chairman eventually wrote an article that was published in the Wall Street Journal announcing that the science was not, in fact, settled. You can read his article (with annotations and references) at his website here, or you can google the somewhat shorter Wall Street Journal version: Climate Science is Not Settled Steven E. Koonin, Wall Street Journal, Sept 19, 2014 http://cusp.nyu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Climate-article-annotated1.pdf So yeah, the APS has a statement about disruptions being a result of incontrovertible science. But the physicists who know the most about it don't believe it anymore. APS statements get regularly reviewed; I'm guessing this one gets reviewed this year or next and the results of the workshop will influence the next statement.
This could be one of the dumbest things i have ever read, they are basically saying yeah a carbon tax would be highly regressive, but if we cut other taxes we could make up for it. And it took a study for these geniuses to figure that out. Guess what if I was to raise taxes on the poor but then just start handing out money to the poor at the same time, I could make up for the new tax burden. It didnt even take a study for me to figure that out.
Anybody ever get tired of this continuing global warming debate here on ET? If nobody's changed their mind one way or the other, I think it's somewhat of a futile effort. How many years has this been going on???
I am open-minded enough that if someone posts new information; a study, survey, report, paper, etc. then I am interested enough to take a look and welcome the new information. If I disagree with it then I will politely respond with my points. I am however tired of the same old propaganda being posted over & over again - in many cases hundreds of times with the associated name calling (idiots, deniers, etc.) - I am pretty sure that any reasonable person will figure out quickly who I am referring to.
But, that's kinda part of what I am saying. While you want to be somewhat open minded, you must ask yourself if the people you are talking to, also want to be open minded. I think they don't. Usually, here on ET, the posters on both sides of this topic exhibit virtually no room for the other sides opinions.
No really, among the climate scientists the debate over the basics is over, done, moving on to details now. This idea that they are debating it is absurd and only held by right wing nut jobs, which the APS has plenty of evidently. The reason the debate over the basics is over? CO2 is a greenhouse gas and we have raised levels of it by 40%. This basic truth is inescapable. Let's review what the official ( not some backroom gathering of Fox News watchers) statement of the APS is... American Physical Society "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." No science org in the world denies AGW. None, zip, zero.