Here is an error in the first chapter. The following claim appears:

For example, the disturbance or conversion of coastal ecosystems - particularly mangrove forests and vegetated dunes – typically results in greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Such removals may also exacerbate the severity of climate change impacts such as coastal flooding (Dahdouh-Guebas et al. 2005). Conversely, rising and increasingly stormy seas – which are among the expected impacts of climate change – can accelerate the loss of some coastal ecosystems, particularly inter-tidal mudflats and mangroves (Sharp 2000).

Sharp 2000 is referenced as:

Sharp, J. (2000) Coast in Crisis, Protecting wildlife from sea level rise and climate change, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, UK. URL: http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/CRISIS72_tcm9-133013.pdf (last access 17 June 2010)

Here is a quote from the document:

Coasts are places of dynamic change – much of the landscape and ecological value of the coast has been formed by the sea. However the coast of Eastern England is no longer a pristine wilderness.... There is an urgent need to create new intertidal habitats as part of a sustainable coastal defence strategy for Eastern England which will benefit biodiversity, flood defence, fisheries and people.

Can you spot one error already? The TEEB claim ends "and mangroves", yet this report is entirely about Eastern England. There are no mangroves in Eastern England. The report doesn't mention them once. This was verified when I contacted the author of the report. He stated that he didn't mention mangroves because they don't have them in Eastern England, but he stated that "they are the tropical equivalent of saltmarsh, which is what the passage referred to ought to have mentioned". They didn't mention saltmarshes, however.

That isn't the only problem with this claim. The claim really is about increasing storminess which can create problems. However, the report only mentions this in passing, without citation, and has not done any research on it whatsoever (or doesn't mention it). Here is the passing reference:

Coasts are places of dynamic change – much of the landscape and ecological value of the coast has been formed by the sea. However the coast of Eastern England is no longer a pristine wilderness. Natural change is constrained by man-made development resulting in habitats being squeezed by fixed flood defences, rising sea levels and increasing ‘storminess’ due to climate change. Consequently coastal habitats are vanishing at a frightening rate, with drastic implications for the wildlife that depends on them.

That's it. Hardly a valid source for such a claim. There is a third error, and perhaps the most comical. The author's name is Sharpe, not Sharp. Oops.

There are two errors in Chapter 5: Increasing biodiversity business opportunities. The first deals with organic cotton:

In the garment and textile sector, organic cotton has become a marketing tool for many companies. Today, organic cotton cultivation covers about 32 million hectares of land (FiBL and IFOAM 2009).

The citation is referenced as:

FiBL and IFOAM (2009) The World of Organic Agriculture. Statistics and Emerging Trends 2009. Bonn, Frick, Geneva.

The 2009 version was unavailable, but the 2007 version is right here. Here is a graph from the document:

A rough estimate might be about 100,000 hectares based on the graph. Even if it is twice that, this isn't even close to 32 million. Unless organic cotton yields increased 32,000% in two years, this is wrong. Another source verifies this. In February of this year, Organic Exchange (they work with organic cotton) issued a press release entitled, Global Organic Cotton Production Grows 20% in 2009, New Organic Exchange Report Shows. In it, the following statistic appears:

Organic cotton weathered the global economic storm during the 2008/09 farming season, albeit with challenges, according to a new report by Organic Exchange (OE) documenting growth and challenges in the global organic fiber sector. Production grew an impressive 20 percent over 2007/08 to 175,113 metric tons (802,599 bales) grown on 625,000 acres (253,000 hectares).

There you have it, 253,000 hectares of organically grown cotton, not 32 million. My guess is the mistake happened as such: The 'key results' section for the 2009 report makes the following claim:

32.2 million hectares of agricultural land are managed organically by more than 1.2 million producers, including smallholders (2007).

This was misinterpreted to mean cotton production only, not all organic production. Sloppy, sloppy.

The second error in Chapter 5 deals with medical and aromatic plants, or MAPs. The claim appears:

Many businesses use wild genetic resources as inputs to production. Over 400,000 tons of medicinal and aromatic plants are traded worldwide every year; 80% are wild harvested, mostly without consideration of where they come from or the sustainability of collection practices (Traffic International 2006). Demand continues to grow for these plants.

Traffic International 2006 is referenced as:

Traffic International (2006) Traffic Bulletin, Vol. 21 No. 1 (July).

Here is a link to this bulletin. Search the article all you want, the figures in the claim are not in their source. The claim does appear the Traffic website however, but not in their bulletin. It appears in this press release. Notice there is no citation for the claim. Evidently the claim was taken from a press release, but cited as if it were in their bulletin.

Where did the claim come from? I'm not sure, the claim is all over the internet, but it is usually cited as Traffic International. The closest I can come is this paper, which does say 400,000 t, but doesn't make the 80% claim (at least in the abstract). Anyways, the TEEB claim doesn't match their source.

This report focused much less on science and the plight of our planet, and more on business than the interim report. The original report contained errors of statistics and claims about how our planet is being harmed. Because there is significantly less of that type of material in this report, there seems to be fewer mistakes. However, it isn't error-free, and these type of government-sponsored reports must be looked at very skeptically. This skepticism may arise from a concern that the report is intended to be used as justification for further government action. However, I am skeptical mostly because these reports are always so sloppy! It has the appearance of being written first and sourced later. In my opinion, businesses don't need a UN report to tell them about the environment. If helping the environment helps them, they will do it. If it hurts them, they probably won't. A UN report won't change that, but new regulations and laws (based on the UN report) might.

Why is the IPBES necessary?

After all, there are a myriad of organizations both national and international, government and NGO which deal with protecting biodiversity. To answer why, I looked at the IPBES site itself:

Scientific knowledge on the links between biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being has increased significantly since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MAs) was completed. There is however a need for a stronger international science-policy platform to enable emerging scientific knowledge to be translated into specific policy action at the appropriate levels.

I could probably finish this post here, because this quote reveals that the IPBES is not about advancing the science. It exists to "enable emerging scientific knowledge to be translated into specific policy action". 'Specific policy action' isn't something which scientists or citizens create (directly), policy is created by governments. The IPBES' admitted purpose is to use science to create policy. They don't perform any science (they only review) and they can't make policy, so what are they really? They are the basis, the starting point, the foundation, of future policy action. Just like those in Copenhagen would create new treaties based on the IPCC's 'findings', the IPBES is being used to form a basis for such future action.

So far this isn't very controversial. The IPBES more or less openly admits this on their site. However, it isn't only the IPBES that sees this new panel as a way to force 'specific policy action'. I've looked through the documents of other organizations to see their view on the issue, and I've found some revealing items.

This document is from Ramsar, a global convention on wetlands, titled "Progress and advice on IPBES", and written in late April or early May this year. This contains a chronological account of how the IPBES was formed, and is an informative read. Page 5 states the following:

Awareness-raising campaigns for the general public are also needed

22. Access to and use of knowledge, which should be policy-relevant and not policy
prescriptive, was seen as critically important. It is also important, upon request, to develop
tools and methodologies to assist policy formulation, e.g., sub-global assessments with the
involvement of end users; multi-criteria decision analysis tools; cost benefit analyses; and
valuation methodologies for ecosystem services. It was considered vital for the knowledge
base to be interpreted for users.

Interesting turn of phrase. Still, there are more blatant admissions elsewhere. In this IUCN information paper they talk about the "IUCN’s vision for an Intergovernmental and Multistakeholder Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)". Here is their vision (excerpts from various places, emphasis mine):

Based on the five identified needs above, and a review of existing processes meeting some of these needs, the overarching role of IPBES should be to provide relevant decision making processes with independent, authoritative, internationally peer-reviewed scientific information on changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services, the implications of these changes for human well-being, and possible response measures at multiple scales. IPBES should be established with the view to it becoming the standard international source of policy-relevant scientific information on knowledge relating to biodiversity and ecosystems services, and therefore meet the needs of decision-makers in the environmental sectors, and at the environment development nexus.

1. Facilitating and catalyzing knowledge generation:

IPBES should not itself conduct research, but rather should identify gaps in policy-relevant science that could be filled by further research, play a role in catalyzing such research, and also form a channel for the existing scientific information to contribute to policy making. IPBES would provide a synthesis mechanism to respond to the needs of MEAs and others stakeholders for scientific information on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and in doing so would provide a robust international peer review process for scientific contributions to policy making.

In addition, in facilitating knowledge generation, IPBES should ensure that guidance is provided to the scientific community on the identified policy priorities. This could involve, for example:

1. Disseminating direct requests from subsidiary bodies of MEAs and other relevant processes to scientific networks, and convening representatives of the scientific community to plan a response to those needs.

2. Compiling science-policy digests for the scientific community to raise awareness of key policy needs and gaps in knowledge to support policy development.

3. Liaising with international research networks and organizations (such as ICSU, DIVERSITAS, and IHDP) and national research funding councils to support prioritizing investment in and implementation of policy relevant science.

In addition to supporting and undertaking assessments, IPBES should also have a function of horizon scanning and early warning on policy-relevant biodiversity and ecosystem services science. Whilst this would build on the assessments implemented, it would also provide opportunity for rapid assessment of key emerging issues to be brought to the attention of the IPBES bureau and/or plenary.

In order to be most effective, IPBES would benefit considerably from building capacity to undertake policy relevant science, to assess that science through scientific assessment, and to use information from such an assessment in the decision-making process. IPBES could carry out capacity building activities such as the production and promotion of training material on biodiversity and ecosystem service assessment, and providing opportunities for scientists and decision-makers from developing and developed countries to engage in science-policy processes. There will also be indirect capacity building opportunities provided by IPBES, through raising international awareness of policy-relevant science and options to deliver this into decision-making processes at national and international scales.

I'm sure you can see the dangers of this vision. An institution which is the "standard international source of policy-relevant scientific information", which will "identify gaps in policy-relevant science that could be filled by further research", by helping "play a role in catalyzing such research, and also form a channel for the existing scientific information to contribute to policy making" wields tremendous influence. The "IPBES should ensure that guidance is provided to the scientific community on the identified policy priorities". In this vision, the same massive inter-governmental organization will decide which science needs attention and which doesn't, and then determine how the science applies to policy. This will blur the line between science and policy so far that the scientists could really be considered policymakers. After all, they are being told which 'gaps' need to be filled, then their findings are being used to further 'specific policy action'. Scientists studying biodiversity will be directed by the IPBES towards certain areas (climate change anyone?) instead of others, and this alone poses a risk to the scientific community. Do we really trust the UN and world governments to direct the scientific inquires of an entire field, especially when the admitted purpose behind such research is 'specific policy action'?

Another international organization has made their views of the IPBES known. Here is the Commonwealth Secretariat's view on IPBES specifically (excerpts, emphasis added):

4.4 Permanent Base Science-Policy Interface

44. Rationale: Need for sound science for policy making, need for integration and holistic approach to scientific advice including development and environment interlinkages, need policy and MEA implementation review, need to address proliferation of multiple science assessments, identify emerging issues and threats...

47. Level of Political Difficulty: Medium-low difficulty--there has already been a lot of lessons learned from scientific mechanism such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and integrated assessments such as the Millennium (Ecosystem) Assessment (MA) that main challenge is to set up the authorizing environment for multiple MEAs and ensure the independence of science while keeping it salient to policy. Processes such as Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES formerly the International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity or IMOSEB) have already created fertile ground for furthering this reform. The key now is to link it with the current IEG reform agenda.

What is this IEG (International Environmental Governance) reform agenda? Here is another quote from the same paper:

Global governance is the only means by which we can respond to the scale and
complexity of environmental challenges and the evolving context within which they have to be
addressed. Though some issues can be solved at the national level, many environmental problems,
like pollution and overexploitation of shared resources, have international implications and
require collective action. No state is immune to the effects of global environmental change and all
states require effective governance to mitigate and adapt to such change.

No commentary needed. Let's finish with the recent TEEB for Business report, issued on the 13'th of July. On page 13, in the section about politics, they make the following statement:

According to WBCSD, the key challenge in the transition to sustainability is improving the quality of governance. As described in Vision 2050, governance systems should respect the principle of subsidiarity (i.e. decentralizing and making decisions at the most appropriate local level) but they must also “pool sovereignty” where necessary to address international challenges such as trade, infectious disease, climate change, water resource management, high seas fisheries and other trans-boundary issues (WBCSD 2010: 6). According to WBCSD, future governance systems also need to be better at guiding markets to internalize environmental externalities, ensure transparency and inclusiveness, create a “level playing field” and enable business to develop and deploy sustainable solutions. An outstanding question is whether the expected shift in economic and political power towards the larger emerging economies (i.e. the so-called BRICS) will result in new attitudes and approaches to environmental management and ultimately help or hinder efforts to reach international cooperative agreements on managing the global commons.

The key challenge is improving governance. This is the heart of the issue. The IPBES was created in order to improve governance, by pushing scientific inquiry into certain areas then recommending policy based on that coerced science. These new policies would improve the quality of governance, at least according to those quoted above.

The science which will be directed by the IPBES is a tool, it will exist primarily as a justification for government action.

From TEEB Scientific Coordination

Dear Sam, Thank you for your feedback on Chapter 1 references in TEEB’s “Interim Report” of May, 2008. It is heartening to note your in-depth study of this report. You raised some valid points, which have now been addressed in a note appended to this Interim Report (see : ‘Corrigendum and Additional References’, TEEB Interim Report, http://www.teebweb.org ). Kind Regards, TEEB Scientific Coordination, teeb@ufz.de

This seems legit, considering they link to the TEEB site which now does in fact have a Corrigendum (pages 67 and 68) attached to the original. I saved the original report, which has no Corrigendum whatsoever.

When I found multiple mistakes in the AR4, I contacted the IPCC authors to inform them. Initially I received responses, and my corrections were included in their erratum. However, as I continued reporting more and more errors they eventually replied with form letters then not at all. So I didn't even bother contacting the TEEB folks, figuring they were of the same UN mindset. This response was a pleasant surprise, especially surprising because I don't know how the TEEB folks even heard about my criticism. I suppose since my TEEB articles were linked at Climate Depot a few times word reached them somehow.

However it happened, they took my criticism seriously and responded to (some of) my points with this corrigendum (a word I honestly had not heard before). More interesting than their response to my findings was their response to...well, their own findings. In their response they list twenty corrections altogether, only two of which I raised. I only looked at the first chapter, they corrected mistakes in all four of the chapters. Perhaps having a few errors in just the first chapter prompted some navel-gazing on their part?

Here are the corrections for chapter 1:

Chapter 1

Page 12 left column first bullet: data for forest loss
was drawn from Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
(2005) Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current
State and Trends. Island Press Washington D.C.
URL:

http://www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.290.aspx.pdf

Page 12 right column first bullet: the numbers for the
loss of wetlands since 1900 are estimated by OECD –
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development and IUCN – International Union for
Conservation of Nature (1996) Guidelines for aid
agencies for improved conservation and sustainable
use of tropical and sub-tropical wetlands. OECD,
Paris.

Page 12 right column second bullet: Wilkinson (2004)
estimates that 20% of the world’s coral reefs have
been effectively destroyed and show no immediate
prospects of recovery. Furthermore, his report
predicts that 24% of the world’s reefs are under
imminent risk of collapse through human pressures;
and a further 26% are under a longer term threat of
collapse.

In the corrigendum they correct two of the three errors I raised. The first mistake was the report making a forest loss claim based on the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment of 2000 or 2005. The claim actually came from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report of 2005. However, I pointed out that this claim only exists in the summary and is not supported by the findings of the report, and there is no citation for the claim at all. This issue was not addressed in the corrigendum. The second mistake they corrected was the wetland loss claim based on Mosher 1996. The claim actually came from an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and International Union for Conservation of Nature 1996 report. They correctly note that this was an estimate, something missing from the original report.

I raised one more mistake previously, of the 1,000X extinction claim. They did not address this at all. However, they did address a mistake which I didn't. They correct the point about coral reefs. The report claims 30% of reefs are 'seriously damaged', but the correction gives a few different figures, all under 30%. Interesting.

I've hardly looked at all the other corrections yet, a quick skim seems to show them as minor. I'm actually impressed by this correction, this was a very pro-active move to respond to some very low-profile criticism. I give credit where credit is due, and I applaud the 'TEEB Scientific Coordination' for their response. I've sent them an e-mail saying as much. I will wait to see the quality of the final report before I make any more claims about the credibility of these reports.

No offense to Brits, but I'm glad I'm American, and today is the day to celebrate that. Happy Independence Day!

Newspapers Retract 'Climategate' Claims, but Damage Still Done

He wanted my opinion on it. I wrote a quick review of the article, and I'm reposting it (slightly modified) below.

Joe, this article is written by a women who either does not understand the issue, or is willing to further distort it. This is readily apparent in multiple ways, and I'll highlight a few. You got my fingers going, so this is going to be fairly long.

The headline claims that multiple papers have retracted 'climategate' claims. She actually only quotes one paper (references another German paper), and here is the problem: Neither of these articles have anything to do whatsoever with climategate. It is a subtle misdirection, she opens up by talking about climategate then mentions the two article retractions, but there is no link between the two. Climategate was a leak or hack of emails from the CRU in Britian, the articles were talking about mistakes in the UN IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), two totally separate issues. This mistake invalidates the entire point of the article, but the mistakes don't stop there.

Her opening statement speaks of climategate as a "highly orchestrated, manufactured scandal", which is a hard pill to swallow. The emails were released on a relatively unknown blog, and bloggers (like me) went through the emails and found all the goodies ourselves. Even is this claim is to be believed, the author attempts to completely dismiss climategate by mentioning the 'inquiries' into Jones and Mann. The inquiry into Jones is almost comical in its brevity. Considering the gravity of the accusations and the serious implications of Jones cooking the books, the Oxburgh report was a total of....five pages. Not only that, but they didn't keep any record of how they reached their conclusions that Jones was innocent, leaving us to simply trust them. The Mann investigation was just as bad. Penn State had little incentive to chastise the man who gets them millions every year in funding.

If it is hard for you to believe that both of these investigations could be farces, let me simply direct you to the climategate e-mails themselves. Anyone who claims that climategate is a non-issue has not read the e-mails, or doesn't understand them. Read them here (I can highlight a few of the better ones if you desire):

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php

Yet another problem with the article is the focus on ONE mistake in the AR4. This is still regarded by many to be a mistake, but even if you throw out this Amazon claim the AR4 is still full of mistakes. The false glacier claim is the most well known, but there are many more, quite a few which yours truly has found. They claim that climate change will reduce African tourism, but their source doesn't mention Africa or tourism. They claim Canadian wildfires substantially negatively affected the local economy, but their source actually shows positive gains. They claim that the mangroves in Bangladesh are being irreversibly damaged by climate change, yet their source only mentions Pakistan's mangroves. They cite a newspaper article claiming that 1.3 billion agricultural workers will be negatively affected by climate change, yet the article doesn't cite any study or article at all. These are just some of the mistakes I personally have found. Yet another IPCC mistake (at least it seems to be so far) was revealed just yesterday:

http://climaterealists.com/?id=5910

To claim that climategate is now rendered false by two newspaper's retractions about a separate issue, and to go on and claim that the AR4 actually isn't full of mistakes, is a lie. As Mark Twain said, "A lie can get halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on."

The TEEB isn't a scientific body, it exists to influence policymakers. This isn't a contentious claim, they say so on their webpage:

The TEEB study aims to:

* Integrate ecological and economic knowledge to structure the evaluation of ecosystem services under different scenarios.
* Recommend appropriate valuation methodologies for different contexts.
* Examine the economic costs of biodiversity decline and the costs and benefits of actions to reduce these losses.
* Develop "toolkits" for policy makers at international, regional and local levels in order to foster sustainable development and better conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity.
* Enable easy access to leading information and tools for improved biodiversity practice for the business community – from the perspective of managing risks, addressing opportunities, and measuring impacts.
* Raise public awareness of the individual’s impact on biodiversity and ecosystems, as well as identifying areas where individual action can make a positive difference.

They obtain these goals by attempting to instill fear in their audience. Once the fear is instilled, they recommend new taxes to solve the problem.

On this section of their website they give 'presentation tools'. I guess if you are concerned about biodiversity you can download them and lecture your friends with a powerpoint slide. One presentation is particularly interesting, The Origins and Goals of TEEB.

It starts with a picture of the globe now, and then a picture in 2050 showing how much biodiversity we are going to lose. It is typical to start off with a graphic like that, I suppose it ensures the audience is listening. Then this slide follows:

If this weren't seeming to advocate a 'total overhaul' of the 'model of capitalism' it would be funny. This slide is almost childish. However, the next slide is what really takes the cake:

This attempt at placing guilt on the audience is ridiculous enough, but look at the caption below the slide:

Think about it –
Are you happy to leave your grandchildren a qorld where Nature is only valued at one-seventh of what we perceive it as today?
With current economic models that is exactly what we are saying right now.

I don’t feel comfortable with that, and I am pretty sure most of you wouldn’t be either.So we have to change things.

I can't help but laugh at this. Or maybe, quagh at it. This looks more like a comment from an un-educated pre-teen on some blog than a coherent presentation of the facts about biodiversity loss. Remember, this is on the TEEB's own website, in their own section called 'presentation tools' and it is labeled 'The Origins and Goals of TEEB'.

Yes, I am making fun of this, but why not? This is being touted as the basis for a new IPCC-like panel to look at biodiversity loss, and it looks at though it is being presented by fear-mongering amateurs. However, some other presentations aren't quite as silly. Patrick ten Brink is the TEEB for Policy Makers Co-ordinator at the Institute for European Environmental Policy. He gave a presentation to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in Montreux, Switzerland on March 12'th of this year. Here is the presentation (a pdf).

Most of it is pretty standard stuff, but there are a few slides worth noting. The first is a slide that also exists on the TEEB site:

This is a collage of the headlines after the first TEEB report was released. While it isn't surprising to see that they desired positive media attention, to still be touting such attention two years later must mean they value it VERY highly.

A large emphasis of the TEEB is protection of the world's biodiversity, which of course will cost money. Where will the money come from? Well, let's see:

I like the juxtaposition of FDR's comment with the new environmental comment. Here is the next slide:

And the next:

They clearly support all kinds of new taxes, but it isn't only taxes they support, they also favor new trading systems:

The bottom line seems to be government action. To save biodiversity on our planet, we must support new taxes and trading systems. Where is the science to back up these claims? Don't bother looking for it in the slides, it isn't in there. This presentation isn't a one-off either, here is a slide from a presentation in Sweden in 2009:

And another slide from a presentation in the Netherlands in April of this year:

Note the interesting reference to the IPCC.

This recent push to value biodiversity seems no different than other government sponsored eco-scares. They present scary graphics and statistics, and while everyone is breathing into a paper bag they reveal their solution: more taxes, more regulation, and more government.

However, the levels of many of the benefits we derive from
the environment have plunged over the past 50 years as
biodiversity has fallen dramatically across the globe. Here are
some examples:

• In the last 300 years, the global forest area has shrunk
by approximately 40%. Forests have completely
disappeared in 25 countries, and another 29 countries
have lost more than 90% of their forest cover. The
decline continues (FAO 2001; 2006).

• Since 1900, the world has lost about 50% of its
wetlands. While much of this occurred in northern
countries during the first 50 years of the 20th century,
there has been increasing pressure since the 1950s for
conversion of tropical and sub-tropical wetlands to
alternative land use (Moser et al. 1996).

• Some 30%of coral reefs – which frequently have even
higher levels of biodiversity than tropical forests – have
been seriously damaged through fishing, pollution,
disease and coral bleaching (Wilkinson 2004).

• In the past two decades, 35% of mangroves have
disappeared. Some countries have lost up to 80%
through conversion for aquaculture, overexploitation
and storms (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
2005a).

• The human-caused (anthropogenic) rate of species
extinction is estimated to be 1,000 times more rapid
than the “natural” rate of extinction typical of Earth’s
long-term history (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
2005b).

Let's take the wetlands claim first. Their reference for the 50% reduction claim is Moser et al. 1996, referenced as:

Moser, M., Prentice, C. and Frazier, S. (1996) A Global
Overview of Wetland Loss and Degradation. Available
at www.ramsar.org/about/about_wetland_loss.htm
(last access 6 May 2008).

That link no longer works, this is the correct link.

However the report was wrong to cite this source, as this claim is only quoted in the article. Here is the excerpt where it was quoted:

In a very generalized overview, OECD (1996) states:

"Some estimates show that the world may have lost 50% of the wetlands that existed since 1900; whilst much of this occurred in the northern countries during the first 50 years of the century, increasing pressure for conversion to alternative land use has been put on tropical and sub-tropical wetlands since the 1950s.

No figures are available for the extent of wetland loss worldwide, but drainage for agricultural production is the principal cause; by 1985 it was estimated that 56-65% of the available wetland had been drained for intensive agriculture in Europe and N America; the figures for tropical and subtropical regions were 27% for Asia, 6% for S America and 2% for Africa, making a total of 26% worldwide. Future predictions show the pressure to drain land for agriculture intensifying in these regions."

OECD is the correct source. It is referenced in Moser as:

OECD/IUCN. 1996. Guidelines for aid agencies for improved conservation and sustainable use of tropical and sub-tropical wetlands. OECD, Paris.

I found it here. Here is what the source says:

The drainage of wetlands has always been seen as a progressive, publicspirited
endeavour which enhanced the health and welfare of society, to alleviate
the dangers of flooding, improve sanitation, and reclaim land for agriculture. Some
estimates show that the world may have lost 50 per cent of the wetlands that existed
worldwide since 1900; whilst much of this occurred in the northern countries
during the first 50 years, increasing pressure for conversion to alternative land-use
has been put on tropical and sub-tropical wetlands since the 1950s. In northern
countries, the consequences of this loss such as decline in fisheries productivity,
greater intensity of major flooding, and loss of biological and landscape diversity,
and amenity value has led to efforts to preserve and restore wetlands.

No figures are available for the extent of wetland loss worldwide, but
drainage for increased agricultural production is the principal cause; by 1985 it was
estimated that 56 - 65 per cent of the available wetland had been drained for
intensive agriculture in Europe and North America; the figures for tropical and
subtropical regions were 27 per cent for Asia, 6 per cent for South America and
2 per cent for Africa, making a total of 26 per cent worldwide. Future predictions
show the pressure to drain land for agriculture intensifying in these regions.
Wetlands may be lost completely by drainage or infilling, but many of the benefits
can be lost even if the wetland itself remains, but in a degraded state. Pollution or
the overuse of wetland products (e.g. by deforestation) are examples of this.

They don't cite any source for their 'some estimates show' claim, but it hardly matters because they openly admit "No figures are available for the extent of wetland loss worldwide". Remember the original claim:

Since 1900, the world has lost about 50% of its wetlands

From an estimation with no source to a verified fact, in just three sources. This is like a citation version of the telephone game.

Let's look at the last claim, perhaps the most alarming at first glance:

The human-caused (anthropogenic) rate of species
extinction is estimated to be 1,000 times more rapid
than the “natural” rate of extinction typical of Earth’s
long-term history (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
2005b).

At least they admit this is an estimation (unlike the wetlands), but 1,000 times? That seems significant. Here is the reference:

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005b) Living
Beyond Our Means: Natural Assets and Human Wellbeing.
Island Press, Washington DC.

Here it is. At first glance, this seems justified. On page 15 they say this:

Although actual disappearance of a recognized species is quite rare in terms of human time scales, it is estimated that people may have increased the rate of global extinctions by as much as 1,000 times the “natural” rate typical of Earth’s long-term history.

Below that claim is this graphic:

There is a source in the bottom corner, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Here is the chapter on biodiversity.

In it, the following claim appears (emphasis added):

The trend in species extinction rates can be deduced by putting
together extinction rates characteristic of well-recorded lineages
in the fossil record, recorded extinctions from recent times,
and estimated future extinction rates based on the approaches just
described. All these estimates are uncertain because the extent of
extinctions of undescribed species is unknown, because the status
of many described species is poorly known, because it is difficult
to document the final disappearance of very rare species, and because
there are extinction lags between the impact of a threatening
process and the resulting extinction (which particularly affects
some modeling techniques). However, the most definite information,
based on recorded extinctions of known species over the
past 100 years, indicates extinction rates are around 100 times
greater than rates characteristic of comparable species in the fossil
record. Other less direct estimates, some of which refer to extinctions
hundreds of years into the future, estimate extinction rates
1000 to 10,000 times higher than rates recorded among fossil lineages.

The TEEB report is off by a factor of ten. Both the Millenium assessment report and the TEEB report claim 1,000 when the source clearly states 100. Also, notice the very uncertain aspect of obtaining these estimates, and note that yet again they include no citation for these estimations. However, I think I already know where this claim really came from. The 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Global Species Assessment. If anyone is interested, the claim appears on this page in section 3.4 What is the Rate of Extinction? This extinction issue is a bit of a debated topic, with this claim by the IUCN being repeated frequently. Bjørn Lomborg has talked about it in his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. All I know is that for such an important claim, there appears to be very little science behind it. The IUCN just does some very simple calculations based on the (estimated) background extinction rate, then compares them to the (estimated) current extinction rate, and claims we are killing the world.

I don't know the current extinction rate, that isn't the point. My point is that the TEEB report makes the claim that is ten times higher than its source, the source doesn't have a source, but the real source of it all is a report with little actual research. Could the extinction rate be 1,000 times higher then historically? Maybe, I don't think anyone really knows. Should we take action? Maybe, although the largest group of lost species seem to be molluscs (which hopefully won't result in mankind's demise). Should we take the recommendation of a UN report which advocates spending trillions of dollars (and euros) annually and can't even keep its citations straight? No way.

If I've read the sources wrong let me know and I'll admit the TEEB report isn't full of errors in the first chapter alone. Until someone does, let me say this:

The TEEB report contains multiple errors in the first chapter alone.

Do I have to go through the entire report? This looks like yet another government-created piece of science-plated garbage. It looks like science on the outside, but don't scratch the surface!

Tomorrow I'll post about how these claims have spread to show what a danger these pseudo-science reports really can be.

This article from the Guardian talks about new UN biodiversity report. It's worth reading. Here is an interesting quote:

The report will advocate massive changes to the way the global economy is run so that it factors in the value of the natural world. In future, it says, communities should be paid for conserving nature rather than using it; companies given stricter limits on what they can take from the environment and fined or taxed more to limit over-exploitation; subsidies worth more than US$1tn (£696.5bn) a year for industries like agriculture, fisheries, energy and transport reformed; and businesses and national governments asked to publish accounts for their use of natural and human capital alongside their financial results.

Shock! The UN is using protection of the natural world as a reason to make massive changes to the global economy? This sounds familiar, which I'm sure is why Morano posted it. Whenever the UN puts out a report that involves the world spending a lot of money, I get suspicious, so I decided to take a look at the interim report (the final isn't going to be published until later this year). Here is the report.

I started at Chapter 1. On the second page of Chapter 1 (page 12 on the pdf) there is a short list of items showing how the earth has lost its biodiversity:

However, the levels of many of the benefits we derive from
the environment have plunged over the past 50 years as
biodiversity has fallen dramatically across the globe. Here are
some examples:

• In the last 300 years, the global forest area has shrunk
by approximately 40%. Forests have completely
disappeared in 25 countries, and another 29 countries
have lost more than 90% of their forest cover. The
decline continues (FAO 2001; 2006).

• Since 1900, the world has lost about 50% of its
wetlands. While much of this occurred in northern
countries during the first 50 years of the 20th century,
there has been increasing pressure since the 1950s for
conversion of tropical and sub-tropical wetlands to
alternative land use (Moser et al. 1996).

• Some 30%of coral reefs – which frequently have even
higher levels of biodiversity than tropical forests – have
been seriously damaged through fishing, pollution,
disease and coral bleaching (Wilkinson 2004).

• In the past two decades, 35% of mangroves have
disappeared. Some countries have lost up to 80%
through conversion for aquaculture, overexploitation
and storms (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
2005a).

• The human-caused (anthropogenic) rate of species
extinction is estimated to be 1,000 times more rapid
than the “natural” rate of extinction typical of Earth’s
long-term history (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
2005b).

If you read this list you can see why we need to take urgent action. Forests have disappeared in 25 countries, and in 29 they have lost 90% of their forests. Half of the worlds wetlands have gone in only a century. Species are going extinct 1,000 times more quickly because of humans. This is frightening.

This also sounds familiar. Making startling claims about how much damage humans are doing to our planet is nothing new. But just because something is startling doesn't mean it isn't true, and these claims have citations, so let's look at them.

The source for the claims about the 30% reduction of coral reefs isn't peer-reviewed, but otherwise it at least matches the source.

The source for the claims about Mangroves isn't peer reviewed, although that source references a Science article, and the claim does match the source. So far, two of these five claims at least match their source.

However, the rest are all estimations or patently false. Not only that, but none of the references for the entire first chapter of the TEEB report are peer-reviewed. They are nearly all (UN) government reports or environmental institute reports. Not only do they entirely rely on non-peer-reviewed material, but their claims don't even match their cited sources. Let's start with the first claim:

" In the last 300 years, the global forest area has shrunk
by approximately 40%. Forests have completely
disappeared in 25 countries, and another 29 countries
have lost more than 90% of their forest cover. The
decline continues (FAO 2001; 2006)."

FAO 2001 and 2006 are referenced as:

FAO – Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations (2001) Global Forest Resources Assessment
2000. [Found here]

FAO – Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations (2006) Global Forest Resources Assessment
2005. [Found here]

None of these claims are in the FAO reports. In fact, one of the claims is roundly contradicted by their own source. They claim that "Forests have completely disappeared in 25 countries", yet the FAO report says (page 14 of 2005 report):

"Seven countries or areas have no forest at all, and an additional 57
have forest on less than 10 percent of their total land area."

This is repeated and gone into more depth in the report but the numbers are the same. Only 7 countries are without forests, not 25. The other claims are not in the report, the article doesn't talk about forest loss before the 1940's when countries started to report the state of their forests. Also, there is no mention at all of "another 29 countries have lost more than 90% of their forest cover". Where did these claims come from?

Another UN document. Surprised? This time it is the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Chapter 21, Forest and Woodland Systems. Here is part of the first claim in the 'Main Messages' section at the beginning of the document:

In the last three centuries, global forest area has been reduced by approximately 40%, with three quarters of this loss occurring during the last two centuries. Forests have completely disappeared in 25 countries, and another 29 countries have lost more than 90% of their forest cover.

This is practically verbatim to the TEEB claim. They clearly cited the wrong source.

The claim itself is suspect. The first part, about 40% reduction, appears here (pg. 588):

From today’s perspective, however, preagricultural impacts on
overall forest cover appear to have been slight. Since that time,
the planet has lost about 40% of its original forest (high certainty),
and the remaining forests have suffered varying degrees of fragmentation
and degradation (Bryant et al. 1997; Matthews et al.
2000; Ball 2001; Wade et al. 2003). Most of this loss has occurred
during the industrial age, particularly during the last two centuries,
and in some cases much more recently. Some analyses have
yielded substantially smaller estimates. Richards (1990), for example,
estimates global loss of forests to have been only about 20%.

Just reading this leads to some uncertainty, they admit that some research indicates that it has only been 20% loss. Also, all of those references (except Wade et al. 2003) are done by environmental groups. But the real deception is in the statistic itself. The implication of including this statistic is that this loss of forest is bad, but clearly this isn't the case as the study itself admits in the very next sentence:

Much of the progress of human civilization has been made possible by the conversion of some forest areas to other uses, particularly for agricultural expansion.

Even if the 40% statistic is accurate, it is hardly a cause for concern in and of itself. It reflects mankind's progress to this point, to be able to tame the outdoors and provide ourselves with food.

The second half of the claim "Forests have completely disappeared in 25 countries, and another 29 countries have lost more than 90% of their forest cover" is not mentioned in the report at all. If you find it in there please let me know. As I mentioned before, it is contradicted by their cited source, which claims only 7 countries have no forest and the FAO report makes no mention of the 90% claim.

I'll address the other two errors in another post, this one has gotten quite lengthy.

I'm uncertain why, but UN reports seem to have difficulty correctly citing their claims. It doesn't seem as though using one UN report is any better than using another UN report (FAO paper versus Millennium Assessment), so why can't they keep their citations straight? Also, the reliance on other UN reports seems to cast serious doubt on the report itself. Of the 16 references for Chapter 1, 7 of them are from UN reports (along with 4 news articles and 5 reports from environmental groups). I don't know what the full report will look like this summer, but just the very first chapter of this report is pretty pathetic.

Barry Smit

You might recall an earlier false claim in the AR4 about tourism, about Canada and wildfires. There is another mistake in the AR4 regarding tourism, this time it is in WGII, Chapter 9.4.7 Tourism. The following claim appears:

Although scientific evidence is still lacking, it is probable that flood risks and water-pollution-related diseases in low-lying regions (coastal areas), as well as coral reef bleaching as a result of climate change, could impact negatively on tourism (McLeman and Smit, 2004).

First of all, this claim is so uncertain it probably shouldn't even be in the report. Let's read it again with all the uncertain words in bold:

Although scientific evidence is still lacking, it is probable that flood risks and water-pollution-related diseases in low-lying regions (coastal areas), as well as coral reef bleaching as a result of climate change, could impact negatively on tourism (McLeman and Smit, 2004).

In any event, they support this claim with McLeman and Smit, 2004. This is referenced as:

McLeman, R. and B. Smit, 2004: Climate change, migration and security. Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Commentary No. 86. http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/en/publications/commentary/com86.asp.

That link is no good. The article is available here. So, for this claim to be true, the article must make at least one of the following claims:

1. It is probable that flood risks and water-pollution-related diseases in low-lying regions could negatively affect tourism.

2. It is probable that coral reef bleaching as a result of climate change could negatively affect tourism.

Actually, for the IPCC standards, if it simply mentions tourism and coral bleaching at all anywhere in the article, it could be used as a source. But since I'm writing an article on this, you know that isn't true.

Coral bleaching is not mentioned once in the article.

Water-pollution-related diseases are not mentioned once in the article.

Flooding is mentioned once, in relation to Pakistan. Nothing to do with the IPCC claim.

Actually, tourism itself is not mentioned once in the article.

Since this claim and citation appear in the Tourism section of the Africa chapter, and the claim itself is about potential reduced tourism, citing an article without even a single reference to tourism is dumbfounding. Perhaps they made a typo, and meant to cite McLeman and Smit, 2005 instead of 2004. I looked at that possibility. Here is the article, here is the citation:

McLeman, R. and B. Smit, 2005: Assessing the security implications of climate change-related migration. Preprint, Human Security and Climate Change: An International Workshop, Oslo, 20 pp.

I look at the article shows nothing about tourism, and nothing about coral bleaching. It mentions both disease and floods only briefly and not related to Africa or tourism (it talks about Honduras):

These groups were then obliged to seek shelter in crowded conditions at relief shelters, conditions which facilitated outbreaks of water-borne diseases that ensued as a result of storm damage to drinking water supplies and sewage systems. Years of occupation and clearance of hillsides served to increase the devastation of the storm by exacerbating the occurrence of landslides and flooding.

I have no idea why (McLeman and Smit, 2004) was used. A look into the drafts and reviewer's comments shows one interesting thing. The claim did not appear in the First Order, but did appear in the Second Order, slightly different than in the final report. Here it is:

Although scientific evidence is still lacking, it is probable that flood risks and water-pollution-related diseases in low-lying regions (coastal areas) and coral bleaching could impact negatively on tourism (Barry and McLeman, 2004)

Notice the "coral reef bleaching as a result of climate change" was inserted into the final report. Also, the citation is Barry and McLeman, 2004. A look at the reference list shows this:

Barry and McLeman, 2004

No details, and this isn't standard procedure for the Second Draft. Most if not all all other citations have details. Look for yourself. This prompted comment E-9-281:

No reference for 'Barry and McLeman 2004' is provided.
(Daniel Scott, University of Waterloo)

The writing team responded:

Had noted this to check.

So maybe this 'Barry and McLeman 2004' actually contains the basis for the tourism claim. Except, there is no Barry and McLeman 2004 (at least not that I can find). Barry is the first name of Smit. So it is actually McLeman and Smit 2004.

Why would the draft cite a paper by the author's first name? Because, according to Barry Smit's biography:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): Third Assessment Report, 1998-2001, Convening Lead Author; Fourth Assessment Report, Lead Author, 2003-2006; Co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize 2007

He's a lead author (Chapter 17). This makes sense. They didn't need the details to use it as a citation, they just called it "Barry's paper" and threw it in there. This may also explain why the claim isn't supported by the article. This isn't the first time a lead author used his own paper inacurately.

Once again I need to point out that I am not attacking the claim itself, it may be true. It probably shouldn't be in the report at all considering the 'probable' and 'could', and also the fact that is doesn't have anything to do with Africa specifically (a point that several reviewers mentioned). I am pointing out that the claim doesn't match the citation => This is a mistake => The AR4 has many of these mistakes => This casts doubt on the credibility of the report itself.

In WGII, Chapter 10.2.4.3 Oceans and coastal zones, the following claim appears (bold mine):

Evidence of the impacts of climate-related factors on mangroves remain limited to the severe destruction of mangroves due to reduction of freshwater flows and salt-water intrusion in the Indus delta and Bangladesh (IUCN, 2003a).

Notice the "and Bangladesh" on the end. The claim is that the climate-related factors of reduced freshwater flow and salt-water intrusion are causing severe destruction of mangroves in both Pakistan's Indus Delta and in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh claim is what I am focusing on in this post.

Their source for the claim is IUCN 2003a. This is referenced as such:

IUCN (The World Conservation Union), 2003a: Indus Delta, Pakistan: economic costs of reduction in freshwater flows. Case Studies in Wetland Valuation No. 5, Pakistan Country Office, Karachi, 6 pp. Accessed 24.01.07: www.waterandnature.org/econ/CaseStudy05Indus.pdf.

That link is bad, the article is available here.

The article talks about what you would expect it to talk about: the Indus Delta, in Pakistan. There is something very obvious missing. There is no talk about Bangladesh. In fact, the word 'Bangladesh' doesn't appear once, and neither does the Ganges Delta or anything at all pertaining to Bangladesh.

I thought maybe they made a mistake in their citation (I've already found this before), so I took a look at IUCN 2003b also. This is referenced as:

IUCN (The World Conservation Union), 2003b: The lower Indus river: balancing development and maintenance of wetland ecosystems and dependent livelihoods. Water and Nature Initiative, 5 pp. Accessed 24.01.07: www.iucn.org/themes/?wani/flow/cases/Indus.pdf.

That link is also bad. The article is here.

Same story as first. No Bangladesh, no Ganges, only about Pakistan.

So where did the "and Bangladesh" come from? I looked back at the drafts and reviewers comments and found........nothing. Here is the Second Draft, same section:

There are also reports on destruction of mangroves due to climatic factors such as reduction of freshwater flows and related processes like salt water intrusion in Indus Delta (IUCN, 2003; Tablez et al., 2003).

No Bangladesh. I tried to find Tablez, et al., 2003, but didn't have any success. Since it wasn't used in the final report it doesn't show up in the reference list. If anyone can find it, let me know.

Since it wasn't in the first or second draft, I looked at the reviewer and government comments. There is no mention at all of Bangladesh in this section. It simply appeared out of the blue, with a citation that doesn't support the claim.

The claim itself is suspect. According to this FAO report (from 2002, slightly outdated), the largest mangrove forest in Bangladesh, the Sunderbans Forest Reserve, is not facing "severe destruction of mangroves". Here is a chart from the report showing mangrove extent:

That looks more like a slightly positive trend than "severe destruction".

That source was from 2002, so just to be sure that the mangroves hadn't been devastated by climate change from 2002 to 2007, I looked for more information. I found this recent article from thenews.com:

'Bangladesh forest model can be adopted to save Indus Delta’
Thursday, April 01, 2010
By Jan Khaskheli

The World Wildlife Fund-Pakistan is planning to initiate consultation with all the stakeholders, including the government and local communities, for the rehabilitation of the Indus Delta that has lost a wide area due to sea erosion for the last three decades. In this regard, the WWF-Pakistan organised a field trip for its staff, government officials and journalists to a forest in Bangladesh called Sundarban — the largest mangroves forest in the world and a natural wildlife sanctuary — to observe the forest’s model which might be helpful to save the Indus Delta.

Wow! This appears to contradict the IPCC's claim completely. The Bangladesh mangroves aren't facing "severe destruction", they are actually a model of how a good mangrove forest should look. Just to verify this article, I found the story on WWF Pakistan's site as well.

Where does this leave us? The IPCC claim of Indus Delta mangroves being destroyed stood alone in the first and second drafts, no reviewers mentioned anything about Bangladesh, yet out of the blue in the final report the words "and Bangladesh" appeared. The source cited does not mention Bangladesh once, and it appears that Bangladesh's mangrove forests are the largest and best preserved in the world.

Perhaps salt water intrusion and the reduction of fresh water flows are harming Bangladesh's mangroves. If this is true, it is on a very limited scale, and to claim "severe destruction of mangroves" is completely false. More scare tactics.