Why is it so difficult, for some, to understand the meaning of an advocacy organization or a pressure group? Their very purpose is to push a certain perspective, a certain agenda on to public or polity consciousness, or directly work for pre-determined objectives.
Something has happened at the super-transparent world-bettering organization called the IPCC that Hilary Ostrov who has been yanking and tugging and pulling at this, says in wry Canadian understatement:
A disappointing but not unexpected result,…
One often encounters in the climate change debate, those who carry on with what can be called the ‘ecologists’ mindset’. This is, perhaps a poor choice of words, to describe a certain phenomenon - of our repeated and fumbling efforts to do a so-called ‘systems thinking’. Why, after all, should I invoke a specific discipline’s name to criticize a oft-committed intellectual error to which we are susceptible, throughout ages?
The Interacademy Council has finally released public comments submitted to its review of the IPCC.
Thanks are due to Hilary Ostrov, Donna Laframboise and the folks at the IAC who worked at redacting names and addresses, slow though their efforts may have been.
But that is how many references in the IPCC report, an ‘open letter from scientists’ told us, were from ‘peer-reviewed scientific journals’.
Back to the Future?
In 2008, in a message titled “IPCC and FOI“, Phil Jones asked Michael Mann to delete emails he might have gotten from Kieth Briffa, assuring him that Briffa would delete such emails as well. He said ’they’ was going to get in touch with Caspar Ammann asking him to delete emails too. Responding to Jones, Michael Mann replied sphinx-like, that he would get in touch with Eugene Wahl about the matter.
“After all, most people spend their lives making decisions under uncertainty, and that’s what dealing effectively with climate change demands – the same kind of decisions you make when you decide to buckle your seatbelt…”
-Chris Field, IPCC Working Group II Co-Chair, speaking to reporters at Busan
Evidently, such advice does not apply to the IPCC itself.
IPCC - Going off the Rails
Richard Black, BBC, thinks that ” Rajendra Pachauri will be here to usher” the AR5 in,” barring some major mishap”. In the rough-and-tumble world of climate change polity, the events of the last one year are not major mishaps then.
Richard Tol writes a blog where he discusses developments in how their writing of a chapter for the 5th assessment report for the IPCC is coming along.
So when the IPCC decided to keep RK Pachauri along for the rest of his term, it was widely reported in the news and blogs. Examining the reaction, Tol apparently thinks that all skeptics are absolutely thrilled and overjoyed by what the IPCC has done.
No conflict if you look for it quickly enough
Well, the climate establishment has delivered on what was expected from them. Richard Black, BBC, wrote yesterday dropping hints of what was to come.
“I believe it is scientifically clear and commonly understood that climate change is unequivocal…. We cannot afford to dismiss this opportunity to build a green and sustainable world for future generations with countermeasures against climate change,”
Also included is how to use the rise in temperatures as opportunities for job creation and new businesses by cultivating new subtropical plants or offering eco-friendly tourism.
The IPCC Himalayan blunders - impervious to change
Reuters reports here from the UN conference in Korea. Here are three facts presented in order, reflecting some hard facts about the IPCC on the ground.
“Among the council recommendations [IAC] were that the chair of the IPCC, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with U.S. climate campaigner Al Gore, should serve only one six-year term.”
“India has affirmed backing for Pachauri, making it hard for others to object to one of the few high-level climate posts held by a developing nation.”
“At Monday’s session, no nations called for Pachauri to quit.”
In case, you’ve missed this – global warming has resulted in its fair share of lawsuits, around the world. So it was, that Rajendra Pachauri the UN’s bureaucrat who is heading the IPCC, hung the threat of a lawsuit over the Telegraph’s head. The sword would come crashing down, because Christopher Booker and Richard North, had overstretched their case accusing Pachauri a.k.a ‘Patchy’ of making millions of dollars arising from climate change mitigation.
Can you believe this nonsense that anyone can make any money off climate change? Just for thinking such thoughts, Booker deserves a few lawsuits going his way.
(C) Carlos Peres
Roger Pielke Jr, indirectly, raised an important issue about the provenance of the IPCC Amazon statement at Climateaudit. “Why should we be content examining just the references quoted by IPCC Amazon defenders?” In doing so however, he succumbed to Amazon ‘jungle fever’ and started cutting through the thicket of citations himself.
At this stage, when the heavy lifting has been done, and done again, what would the outcome of any clear-eyed examination of the literature on the Amazon precipitation sensitivity be? That the IPCC’s statement on the Amazon in its Latin America chapter is unsubstantiated – is my guess.
