Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Manipulation means you think the science is being manipulated

Quote:

The thing is they don't do it poorly. They do it quite cleverly and calculated for maximum effect. There are already millions of sheeple out there firmly convinced that the planet is doomed due to human caused global warming unless we radically change our lifestyle, limit our choices, accept restrictions on our activities, and condone higher taxes and higher costs to combat this. By manipulating the language or approach to be something less obvious, they will no doubt suck in many others who now are on the fence or who recognize the more obvious fraud that exists.

My position is that the manipulation is done poorly, though it is done well enough to work on the majority of people because the majority of people are incapable of thinking for themselves. On the other hand the democracy has been largely gutted, the majority have let the ruling elite hijack the strings of power in this society, and until the majority addresses that problem the majority is irrelevant anyways. My concern is the the elite, those who are able to think, are aware of all of the efforts to manipulate the debate on environmental degradation, and have thus been turned off from any effort to form a consensious.

Hmmm. I'll have to think about that one. Interesting perspective. It's much of the same kind of discussion we're having on the Conservatism thread re the erosion of power held by the people and the transferring of that power to a government that will control more and more of our lives whether or not we consent.

It is pretty much the same people who favor handing the government such power who are in favor of giving a few the authority and power to control our lives on the pretense that it will curb global warming.

The prescription to roll back global warming is not a prescription for increased prosperity,

Well, depending on what your definition of 'virulent capitalism' is, I don't know if I agree that is a problem. (I'm a small, limited government person who wants just enough law to prevent us humans from doing violence to each other and otherwise we should be left alone to live our lives as we choose.) My prescription for reducing stresses on the planet is to increase prosperity as that invariably is accompanied by greater demand for clean air, clean soil, clean air, and preservation of the beauty and wonders of the Earth.

Open mindedness has not been an option in dealing with the vast majority of the AGW religionists

Quote:

The prescription to roll back global warming is not a prescription for increased prosperity,

And of course we have historical evidence of this because when the US introduced cafe standards for vehicles the US economy was devastated and we have been in a 30 year recession.

Your projection of economic collapse isn't worth the paper it is written on Fox. Rolling back global warming could lead to exactly the opposite because we could find out we can get by on half the energy we currently use saving all that money to be invested in other things.

In a functioning democracy we would look at the evidence together, talk about it, and keep talking and looking with an open mind until we agreed upon what if anything should be done. Understanding and debate must come before sustained and coordinated action. We have skipped steps one and two which makes step three (effective action) impossible.

The IPCC under the Microscope

The charter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is

"... to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy.".

This make it a high-profile single-focus organization whose existence depends on its own reports. In other words it has a vested interest in promoting claims that would guarantee its funding and justify its continued existence.

This alone would be reason enough to closely examine its procedures and claims but the situation is made worse by the involvement of governments. These governments not only fund the IPCC but apparently accept its claims without question and allocate funding for climate research on the basis of those findings, then repeat the process when the next IPCC Assessment Report draws on the findings of that government-sponsored research to support its hypothesis.

Shouldn't you also be suspicious of an organization that seeks to imply (or fails to correct false perceptions) that
- it is impartial when it is clearly not,
- that its authors and reviewers have no vested interest when most do,
- that its climate models are accurate when they are not,
- that all reviewers support the IPCC's fundamental claims when very few explicitly do so
- that its authors have a wide range of opinions and experience when many work together or have co-authored papers together
- that all its authors support the critical claim when many merely reported on observations and far more others had to work from the assumption that the claim was correct?

Here are 50 articles that seriously question the credibility and integrity of the IPCC's activities and claims.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

24 Jul 2008 Climate Assessment Oligarchy - the IPCC
Roger Pielke Sr. discusses the closed shop that is the IPCC (Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group News)

25 Jul 2008 Recent Ignored Research Findings in Climate Science
Papers on the effect of aerosols, the bias in temperature monitoring and why outgoing radiation is proportional to temperature raised to the power 4, not temperature itself have not been refuted but have all been ignored by the IPCC. (What else might it also have ignored?) (Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group News)

15 Jul 2008 Prejudiced Authors, Prejudiced Findings
A report that shows more than 40 of the 53 authors of the crucial chapter of the IPCC 4AR had either worked together, co-authored papers together and in all probability acted as peer reviewers for each others' work. Instead of being the product of a set of authors with a wide range of views, as the IPCC mandates, the key chapter comes from a narrow coterie of scientists. (John McLean - SPPI)

27 May 2008 UN's IPCC preying on people's ignorance
The IPCC has manipulated ignorant politicians, the media and the public and been deceptive about its claims. "...the most recent ‘human signal’ is not actual evidence. It comes from carefully manipulated computer models designed to isolate a portion of temperature increase as clearly human." (Dr Tim Ball - Canada Free Press)

20 May 2008 Has the IPCC Exaggerated Adverse Impact of Global Warming on Human Societies?
IPCC reviewer Madhav Khandekar says "yes" and points out that warming would be beneficial for many countries. (ICECAP)

2 May 2008 "No Working papers". "No Correspondence"
Steve McIntyre continues with the theme of 1 April and 30 January, and shows that IPCC review editors are not complying with the requirements of their role and their employers are defending them. (This was followed up on 20th June 2008 as Fortress Met Office, Fortress CRU and Fortress CRU #2:Confidential Agent Ammann, and on 23 Jun 2008 Fortress Met Office continued) (Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit)

30 April 2008 How UN structures were designed to prove human CO2 was causing global warming
Science creates theories based on assumptions that are then tested by other scientists performing as skeptics. The structure and mandate of the IPCC was in direct contradiction to this scientific method. They set out to prove the theory [of man-made warming] rather than disprove it. (Dr Tim Ball - Canada Free Press)

1 Apr 2008 IPCC Review Editors' Comments Online
Steve McIntyre shows what a sham the IPCC review editing really is. Most of the editors' comments were nothing more than a form letter. In at least one case a review editor said that he had disposed of his working papers but that's in breach of IPCC requirements. (Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit)

30 Jan 2008 Did IPCC Review Editor Mitchell do his job?
Steve McIntyre contrasts the IPCC's description of the tasks of a review editor with the work done by John Mitchell of the UK's Met Office. He concludes "Review Editor Mitchell did not discharge all his IPCC responsibilities and acquiesced in a section that contained a rather one-sided exposition of a relevant controversy and the lamentable quality of his Comments show his acquiescence in this particular section of the IPCC Report failing to meet IPCC standards." (Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit)

28 Dec 2007 Physician, Heal Thyself
Website "Climate Resistance" hits back at a posting critical of those who declared themselves sceptical of a significant human influence on climate, and in doing so has revealed the dubious qualifications of many authors and contributors to the IPCC's WG II report.. (Climate Resistance)

19 Dec 2007 Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC, Science and Politics
Despite the mandated "policy neutral" status of the IPCC it seems that chairman Pachauri decides that he can advocate certain policies. This would be severely dealt with in other international bodies so why is the chairman of the IPCC somehow exempt? (Roger Pielke Sr.)

18 Dec 2007 Request to the IPCC (PDF)
An open letter to the IPCC pointing out many problems with the communication of climate change issues and asking the IPCC to take a lead in clarifying the situation. You can take it as either tongue-in-cheek or an indirect exposure of many of the communication failings of the IPCC. (Syun-Ichi Akasofu)

05 Dec 2007 Politics Posing as Science: A Preliminary Assessment of the IPCC's Latest Climate Change Report (PDF)
The SPM to the 4AR Synthesis Report "...is a political document that downplays assessments of uncertainty from the scientific reports written by the main body of the IPCC, which themselves are far more subjective than the IPCC would have one believe. Equally important, both the IPCC’s summaries and main reports omit much contrary evidence." (Steven F. Hayward, Kenneth P. Green, and Joel Schwartz for the AEI)

05 Dec 2007 Dishonest political tampering with the science on global warming (PDF)
Christopher Monckton shows some instances of the IPCC making claims that are unsupported by the evidence and/or missing appropriate clarification. In his opinion these are deliberate exaggerations which deceive the reader. (Christopher Monckton, Jakarta Post)

14 Nov 2007 Unsound Science by the IPCC (PDF)
"Despite persistent efforts, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has never succeeded in the task set to it by the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), of supplying sound scientific evidence for the belief that human emissions of greenhouse gases are harming the climate. The evidence that has been supplied is based on unsound scientific methods and mathematics. This paper is an attempt to summarise some of it." (Vincent Gray, expert reviewer of all IPCC assessment reports)

14 Nov 2007 IPCC: The Only Game in Town? (PDF)
"In this special issue of E&E, a number of authors have raised some of the pertinent problems of the IPCC and its political culture. They range from the conflict of interest notable among IPCC editors who are charged with assessing their own research, to the political selection of IPCC officials and administrators." (Benny Peiser, editorial for Energy & Environment)

13 Nov 2007 No consensus on IPCC's level of ignorance
"While most IPCC participants are scientists and bring the aura of objectivity, there are two things to note:
- this is a political process to some extent (anytime governments are involved it ends up that way)
- scientists are mere mortals casting their gaze on a system so complex we cannot precisely predict its future state even five days ahead." (John Christy, for BBC)

12 Nov 2007 Bias and concealment in the IPCC Process: The 'Hockey Stick' Affair and its implications (PDF)
"It is concluded that the IPCC has neither the structure nor the necessary independence and supervision of its processes to be acceptable as the monopoly authority on climate science." (David Holland, in Energy & Environment)

11 Nov 2007 Why the IPCC should be disbanded (PDF)
10 reasons to dissolve this very partisan organization. (John McLean)

10 Nov 2007 What's Wrong with the IPCC (PDF)
"It should be abundantly clear by now that the AGW hypothesis is contradicted by the facts, measurements and observations, and should therefore be abandoned and be substituted by a hypothesis which better matches the facts." (Hans Labohm)

08 Nov 2007 Global Warming's Senseless Consensus and Survey of IPCC Climate Experts
A test of the so-called consensus among US scientists involved with the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report finds ... umm... little consensus. (Steve Milloy, www.junkscience.com)

24 Oct 2007 An Analysis of the Review of the IPCC 4AR WGI Report (PDF)
Examines the reviewers' comments and the authors' responses to them. Shows that just 5 reviewers, none very credibility, endorsed the IPCC's fundamental claim. (John McLean)

23 Oct 2007 ICC AR4 and the Return of Chucky - He’s Baaack!
The discredited hockey-stick temperature graph of TAR (2001) returns in the 4AR, created by a different team but the old problems remain. Quoted IPCC review comment - "As a matter of prudence, it seems risky to me for IPCC to permit section lead authors to publicize and rely heavily on their own work, especially when the ink is barely dry on the work. In particular, Osborn and Briffa 2006, which is by one of the section lead authors, was published only in February 2006 and is presented in the Second Order Draft without even being presented in the First Order Draft. Nonetheless, it has been relied on to construct the important Box 6.4 Figure 1. This is risky. Osborn and Briffa 2006 uses some very questionable proxies, including the infamous Mann PC1." (Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit)
(Hint: If the graphs don't completely display then right-click on them and open them in a new window or tab.)

15 Oct 2007 IPCC: The dangers of enforcing 'consensus'
While appearing to be the ultimate experts on global warming, the UN's climate panel has actually distorted public discussion of the issue. (Tony Gilland of spiked)

14 Oct 2007 Support for Call for Review of UN IPCC
Vincent Gray supports David Henderson's call for a review (see 11 Oct, below) and he explains why. (Vincent Gray, NZ CSC)

12 Oct 2007 The IPCC's dubious evidence for a human influence on climate (PDF)
The IPCC's claim of a significant human influence rests on very weak evidence. (John McLean)

11 Oct 2007 Misplaced Trust - Inconvenient Truths about the UN's global warming panel
"Despite the numbers of persons involved, and the lengthy formal review procedures, the preparation of the IPCC Assessment Reports is far from being a model of rigor, inclusiveness and impartiality. ... A specific weakness in some IPCC documents is the treatment of economic issues, which is not professionally up to the mark." This is an opinion piece based on the paper "Governments and Climate Change Issues - the case for rethinking" (David Henderson, opinion orig. pub WSJ, paper in World Economics, 7(4), 183-228)

01 Oct 2007 Spinning The Climate (PDF)
How the IPCC manufactures a distorted impression. "It is all a magnificent example of what public relations can achieve, but the consequences for most of us, and for the scientific community before it is eventually exposed for the deception that it is do not bear contemplation." (Vincent Gray, expert reviewer)

12 Sep 2007 Climate Corrections
"When millennial climate change patterns are mentioned, many people point to the '2,500 scientists from 130 countries' who have agreed that global warming is caused by the greenhouse effect. Yet not even the International Panel of Climate Change to which these people refer presents definitive scientific proof that the present warming is mostly caused by the greenhouse effect. It is simply an assumption that has morphed into a fact." (Syun-Ichi Akasofu, orig. pub. by WSJ)

01 Sep 2007 The 2007 IPCC Assessment Process - Its Obvious Conflict of Interest
"The same individuals who are doing primary research in the role of humans on the climate system are then permitted to lead the assessment! There should be an outcry on this obvious conflict of interest, but to date either few recognize this conflict, or see that since the recommendations of the IPCC fit their policy and political agenda, they chose to ignore this conflict. In either case, scientific rigor has been sacrificed and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow." (Roger Pielke Sr)

08 Aug 2007 Global Warming Audit
"Scott Armstrong and Kesten Green present the findings of their audit of the IPCC forecasts of global average temperature. They found the IPCC forecasts have no validity and conclude that there is no more reason to expect global warming over the next 90 years than there is to expect global cooling. It would therefore be foolish and extremely costly to base public policy on the IPCC forecasts." (Kesten Green and Scott Armstrong, publicpolicyforecasting.com)

02 Aug 2007 The Steamrollers of Climate Science
"[The IPCC] is a seriously flawed enterprise and unworthy of the slavish respect accorded to it by most governments and the media. In the decisions which have already been made on climate-change mitigation, to say nothing of future decisions, the stakes are enormous. In guiding these momentous judgments, the flawed IPCC process has been granted, in effect, a monopoly of official wisdom. That needs to change and the IPCC itself must be reformed." (Clive Crook of FT.com)

27 Jul 2007 Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts (PDF)
"We audited the forecasting processes described in Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s WG1 Report to assess the extent to which they complied with forecasting principles. We found enough information to make judgments on 89 out of a total of 140 forecasting principles. The forecasting procedures that were described violated 72 principles. Many of the violations were, by themselves, critical. ... The forecasts in the Report were not the outcome of scientific procedures. In effect, they were the opinions of scientists transformed by mathematics and obscured by complex writing. Research on forecasting has shown that experts’ predictions are not useful. We have been unable to identify any scientific forecasts of global warming. Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder." (Kesten Green and Scott Armstrong, orig. pub Energy & Environment)

19 Jul 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Initial Analysis and Summary (PDF)
An examination at the many claims made by the IPCC in the 4AR and how some key claims were revised downwards from the TAR of 2001. (Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, for SPPI)

01 Jul 2007 When is a prediction not a prediction
The IPCC playing with words and dodging issues. (Vincent Gray, expert reviewer)

04 Jun 2007 Predictions of climate
"In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers 'what if' projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios. There are a number of assumptions that go into these emissions scenarios. ... [T]he projections are based on model results that provide differences of the future climate relative to that today. None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models."
[Hmm... - the water-based components bear no relationship to the observed state and yet the climate models supposedly show variations from the 'current' state (whatever 'current' might mean) - ed.] (Kevin Trenberth, co-ordinating lead author, chapter 3 IPCC 4AR WG I report)

31 May 2007 Cunning IPCC Bureaucrats
The IPCC showed great reluctance to release the reviewer's comments for the WG I Report to the public, or in this case, to one of those reviewers. When challenged under US Freedom of Information laws the IPCC relented and the comments were put online via this web page. (Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit)

03 May 2007 Emotionalizing Climate Change - Is the IPCC Doing Harm to Science?
Looks at the process by which delegates to the IPCC determine the contents of a report, then goes on to discuss the relative absence of dispassionate science. "Peter Weingart, a sociologist of science from Bielefeld, ... believes that the climate experts' lack of distance has something to do with their training. Scientists usually learn only to reflect on the results of their work, not on their role within the social decision-making process. As a result, they join forces with politicians who share their views. And in this way they do harm to science.", (Uwe Buse, Der Spiegel)

23 Apr 2007 'The IPCC goes looking for bad news'
An Australian academic who worked on the latest IPCC report says it overstates scary weather scenarios and understates man’s ability to adapt. (Rob Lyons of spiked)

02 Apr 2007 IPCC pulls numbers out of thin air
That 90% confidence expressed by the IPCC is not supported by its own data and comments. (Sinclair Davidson and Alex Robson, IPA)

23 Mar 2007 Bitten by the IPCC
Why the IPCC ignored a world expert on mosquito borne diseases, Paul Reiter, as a lead author for the chapter on Health. Reiter make several interesting observations about the operation of the IPCC. (Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post)

02 Mar 2007 New report finds red-faced errors by IPCC and Gore
The WG I SPM released on 2 Feb 2007 contained drafting comments and was furtively replaced on 6 Feb but the IPCC never acknowledged the correction. If the reviewers examined the draft version why did they not notice some fundamental errors? (Lord Monckton of Brenchley, http://ff.org)

05 Feb 2007 Man-made Morality Tale Climate
How the IPCC’s fairly sober summary of climate science has been spun to tell a story of Fate, Doom and human folly. A look at how claims of scientific truth are being used to quash debate and limit our horizons. (James Woudhuysen and Joe Kaplinsky of spiked)

02 Feb 2007 Political Science
"Unfortunately, the IPCC represents science by supercommittee, as rule 10 of its procedures states: 'In taking decisions, and approving, adopting and accepting reports, the Panel, its Working Groups and any Task Forces shall use all best endeavours to reach consensus.' I bet Galileo would have had a rough time with that." (Philip Stott, orig. pub WSJ)

August 2006 Inadequacies and criticisms of the IPCC (PDF)
Criticisms of the IPCC with emphasis on its Third Assessment Report (TAR) of 2001. (Professor Bob Carter)

August 2006 Critique of reasons given in the IPCC TAR for human-caused climate change (PDF)

Criticisms of the IPCC's so-called evidence for a significant human influence on climate is nothing new. Here's some comments about the evidence presented in the Third Assessment Report (TAR). (Professor Bob Carter)
http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm

If you think we would not have to reduce our standard of living and prosperity in order to get by on 'half the energy' we now use, I would like to see you support that with any credible evidence.

That's all well and good so long as you include checking the IPCC report too rather than assuming it is pure and infallible gospel:

Yeah, it was called the IPCC report and it's been updated multiple times with new information (including solar variance). I know it's a very thick read, but you should not be making this attack on Climate Change if you haven't even read the report. If you have read the full report and are still making this attack, then you're just being dishonest.

The CAFE standards were initially introduced to reduce dependency on foreign oil--remember that 30 years ago were were just coming out of the impending ice age scare and they hadn't thought up the global warming crisis yet.

They probably marginally did reduce some dependency on foreign oil but they also substantially added to the cost of an automobile. So how's the auto industry faring these days do you think?

If you think we would not have to reduce our standard of living and prosperity in order to get by on 'half the energy' we now use, I would like to see you support that with any credible evidence.

It is pretty well accepted that biofuels produce less 'offensive' emissions than pure fossil fuels, but they also can reduce the efficiency of the fossil fuels so that more fuel is required.

And it requires so much energy to produce the biofuels that they are not net energy efficient.

For instance the current efforts to convert beef and chicken fat into bio fuels requires much more energy to produce a gallon of fuel than is required to produce a gallon of gasoline and gasoline blended with such fuels won't take you quite as far. Gasoline produces marginally more energy than is required to make it. Biofuels do not.

The amount of energy required to produce usable hydrogen is far more than any savings from the clean burning hydrogen.

It is unfortunate that political correctness and environmental religionism is replacing common sense in these matters.

The more the government meddles in energy production and hinders the free market, the more just about everything costs. Meanwhile CO2 increases just as it did before and there has been absolutely zero evidence that we have accomplished anything of benefit from all these costly efforts.