ClimateQuotes.com Remembering what they will want us to forget

The IPCC Meltdown and what it reveals, Part II

Let's look into the IPCC meltdown a little further, and take on some of the claims made in their defense.

Perhaps it was a massive blunder? I'm sure some would want us to give them the benefit of the doubt. As some have said, the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report is huge, it's unlikely it could be completely devoid of any mistake. Pachauri assures us that one mistake doesn't mean we should throw the whole report out (Although it is clear there are more mistakes). In other words, they made a mistake but there was no harmful intent. The words of Dr. Lal seem to indicate otherwise, but let's set them aside for the moment. If this was just one mistake with no malicious intentions, we should be able to tell by how they handled themselves when their false statement was challenged.

An entire team of Indian scientists led by the Indian Environmental Minister concluded that the IPCC's statement about the glaciers was 'alarmist and misplaced'. If the IPCC simply made a mistake without intent to deceive, when confronted with evidence of their failure they would have reviewed the data and concluded they were indeed wrong. Issuing a retraction would certainly have hurt their credibility, but at least they are engaging in the correct scientific procedure. This is not what happened. Instead, Pachauri lashed out at the report, calling it 'voodoo science', 'not peer-reviewed', and claiming 'we have a very clear idea of what is happening'.

Their response proved the IPCC as unscientific. Even if you can still claim (a difficult argument) that they did not intend to deceive, you are left with the reality that they did not even attempt to correct a blatant scientific error. Scientists' claims are always open to scrutiny. The IPCC didn't need the science on their side. One profession can always make claims without any data to support them, and then defend them vehemently when they are proved wrong. They are called politicians.

The IPCC Meltdown and what it reveals, Part I

This website began because we saw the future of climate science, and it wasn't pretty. Once the science failed we wanted those who pushed their agenda to be shown for who they are with their own words. We said: 'When the shoddy science is finally overturned they will not come out of the meltdown unscathed.'

The meltdown has begun.

The IPCC is finally being revealed as the political body it is, not the scientific organization it pretended to be. There have been signs before that the IPCC's credibility was suspect, such as the inclusion of the hockey-stick graph and their heavy reliance on computer modeling. However until now they have been able to maintain the look of a scientific organization, their (dubious) claim of 'thousands of scientists' caused many to trust implicitly. The recent revelations have removed the scientific sheep's clothing from the wolf, and his deceptive intent is laid bare.

For those unfamiliar with the sequence of events, read my previous post. In a nutshell, the IPCC made a blatantly false claim that the Himalayan glaciers are likely to melt by 2035. When confronted by a team of Indian scientists with data which proved them wrong, their chairman, Pachauri, called their data 'voodoo science' and dismissed it entirely. They finally had to retract the statement recently, though Pachauri has refused to resign and refused even to investigate the matter.

This wasn't the end. Just today the lead author for the Asia section of the report, which contained the false glacier quote, admitted that he knew the statement did not rest on any peer-reviewed science. Why did he include something that had no scientific basis? In his own words (Dr Murari Lal):

‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action...It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’ - Source

They wanted to impact policy-makers and politicians. Let's be clear: this is no longer science. This is politics, specifically of the fear-mongering type. When Asian countries affected by glacier melt read this, they understandably should be concerned. This is no minor claim. They want action to be taken, by both their own countries and the world as a whole. If action isn't taken, the glaciers will melt in 25 years with potentially disastrous consequences.

The problem isn't simply that the IPCC caused that sort of alarm with unscientific claims. That would be a problem in and of itself, but the real troubling concern is far deeper. They wanted that alarm. Even worse, they intentionally created that alarm by including a false statement and claiming it was science.

A supposedly scientific organization making alarming claims without any proof in order to 'impact policy-makers and politicians' should not be so easily dismissed as Pachauri would like. I guarantee it won't be.

In Part II we will look at the IPCC's response to these events and see how it further undermines their credibility.

‘Voodoo science’

Pachauri, the IPCC chairman

The IPCC was recently forced to admit that a central claim of their Fourth Assessment Report was false, and based on no real science whatsoever. Let's quickly review the sequence of statements made by the actors in this comedy of errors:

The Fourth Assessment report of 2007 stated:

'Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.'

India's Environmental Minister Jairam Ramesh led a team of Indian scientists to study the glaciers, and concluded the following:

'It is a serious issue. Most of the Himalayan glaciers are in a poor state, but the report that suggested that the glaciers will vanish completely by 2035 is alarmist and misplaced...'

Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC attempted to dismiss Ramesh's findings by saying such things as:

'Schoolboy science', 'voodoo science', 'not peer-reviewed', 'we have a very clear idea of what is happening' [in the Himalaya's]

The rest is history. As anyone with common sense knew, the hundreds of feet thick glaciers had a 0% chance of melting by 2035. This did not keep the chairman of the IPCC from dismissing (and openly mocking) a factual report created by an entire team of Indian scientists. What does this tell us about Pachauri and the IPCC?

1. The IPCC is not rigorous in validating their claims.
2. The IPCC is willing to use data originating from non-scientific sources.
3. When confronted with data which conflicts their own, the IPCC makes no attempt to check the validity of their own claims.
4. All of the thousands of participants in the IPCC failed to notice a blatant scientific impossibility in their own report.
5. Pachauri is not a scientist and does not understand the scientific process or Pachauri understands the scientific process and willingly chooses to deviate from it.

Pachauri is refusing to resign and refusing to even investigate how the error made it into the report. In his defense, that would be the shortest investigation in history and entirely pointless. The IPCC is not a scientific organization, it is a political body. They used whatever data supported their political goals. Investigation closed.