On September 14, renowned Nobel Prize winning physicist Ivar Giaever announced his resignation as a Fellow at the American Physical Society (APS). The reason? His grievance over their stance on global warming, which they believe, rightfully so, is conclusively real and man-made.

Their stance on global warming reads,

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.

Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

This is a fairly straightforward statement on global warming, and one that is in line with the overwhelming scientific consensus. One would think Giaever, a trained and renowned scientist himself, would agree with the statement himself.

Late yesterday, reports started zinging around suggesting that the Obama transition team was ready to announce its energy and environment leaders.

By now it’s clear they are the following: former New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection commissioner Lisa Jackson will head up the Environmental Protection Agency; current Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory director Steven Chu will become Secretary of Energy; and Clinton administration EPA head Carol Browner will fill a newly created post, that of White House “climate czar.” In addition, Nancy Sutley, the current City of Los Angeles “deputy mayor” for Energy and Environment (and, of these four, the person with the thinnest Wikipedia profile), will come in as chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Wow. There's denial of reality, there' delusion, there's delusions of grandeur, and then there's the prolific climate denier S. Fred Singer claiming that he is a Nobel Prize winner.

In a bio description for an upcoming talk to a UK skeptics society meeting, (sent to us by a very astute DeSmog reader) Singer has this to say about himself:

As a reviewer of IPCC reports, he [Singer] shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore."

The Paradox of Al Gore When Al Gore won the Nobel Peace prize last Friday—along with the very deserving U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the fulminations predictably followed. Previous victims of what Paul Krugman calls "Gore Derangement Syndrome" had new flare-ups of the disease, often in the most embarrassing of places. There was a rash of bad science reporting, suggesting that Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (the film version) is somehow much more inaccurate than it actually is.

And then came the powerful defenses of Gore, the skewerings of the Gore deranged, and just general voicing of reason. Alas, the Gore defenders, while being broadly accurate about Gore's "broadly accurate" film, also seem to have missed some key matters that bear addressing.

So let's add some needed perspective here.

A DeSmogBlog exclusive weekly column by best-selling author and science writer, Chris Mooney.

First, our warmest congratulations to Al Gore. The Nobel Prize is one of the world's great honors and, in our view, one that is extremely well-deserved.

But I'm conscious that the standing ovation Gore is enjoying today is not exactly unanimous. The climate change conversation has become polarized - and belligerent - over the last decade. And Al Gore - a politician who dared to address a controversial public issue outside the conventional political process - has become a lightning rod for some hyper-political criticism. How can we get people from all points on the political spectrum to celebrate Gore's Nobel Prize without feeling that they are sacrificing their own cherished political interests?

The former U.S. vice president will descend on Victoria September 29, then cross the Georgia Strait for an engagement that evening in Vancouver. After his address, expected to focus on daily actions to combat climate change, the audience will be treated to high tea at the venerable Empress Hotel.