Tuesday, July 6, 2010

The Many Lies in the UN IPCC Report

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) earned the Nobel Peace Prize for its report on the need for immediate action to combat Global Warming.

In 2010, the IPCC lost whatever shred of credibility it had left.

The last few months have seen a torrent of holes poked in the claims of the IPCC. For every claim, there seem to be two unsourced claims if not outright lies. On June 24, another claim went by the wayside:

New global warming data fraud scandal seems to show a faked 'consensus' of the impact of solar forcing on Earth's climate based on one finding...The IPCC relied on evidence supplied by just only one Solar Physicist, Judith Lean, to create their "consensus that solar influence upon the climate was minimal...

A total of six further peer-reviewed papers were dismissed by the IPCC for inclusion. At least one of the papers, by leading solar expert Hans Svensmark totally contradicted the IPCC’s conclusions that the Sun was not a key player in climate change.

The report claimed that the Amazon Rain Forest would soon be wiped out and that there would be no glaciers on the Himalayan Mountains. Both claims were unverified and unsourced. Many temperature stations used throughout the world to calculate global temperature have been inspected by independent observers and found to be unreliable and, in some cases, missing. It claimed that 55% of the Netherlands is below sea level (false) and that coral reef degradation is a direct result of climate change (false). It claimed reductions in the amount of ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa, and based those claims on anecdotes from climbers rather than actual science.

But this sun issue is worse than an unverified claim or a unreliable temperature station. This is willful negligence of the best available scientific information, supposedly to promote an agenda. It took the word of one scientist over the disputes of six. There can be no other explanation than that the IPCC is more interested in promoting its agenda than in discovering the truth. Tim Ball writes about the IPCC process, and how, by basing its process in speculation, it came to an erroneous conclusion:

Structure of the IPCC begins with Working Group I outlining an unproven speculation that academics call a hypothesis, which is defined as, “a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.” In this case they proposed that CO2 is a gas that causes global temperature to rise and it will continue to increase in volume in the atmosphere because human activity, particularly energy production, will continue to expand.

As evidence accumulated it showed the hypothesis was not proven. Indeed, nobody has produced a record that shows a CO2 increase preceding a temperature increase.

Despite this, Working Group II assumes global warming is occurring and speculates on the impact it will have. It is a meaningless exercise and the area where much of the incorrect information was used and many of the non peer-reviewed articles are cited.

Working Group III take the speculations of Group II and propose strategies for offsetting them to achieve the goals of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This is stated in the introduction of the 2007 Report as, “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” So they come full circle as they claim to have proved scientifically what was necessary to achieve their original goal. The hypothesis was not proved, nonetheless, the speculation of impact ensued and totally inappropriate recommendations presented. Policy based on speculation that is a product of speculation is frighteningly normal in this Age of Speculation.


The IPCC wasn't always devoted to this Chicken Little game. As little as ten years ago, the IPCC promoted science and reason above issue advocacy. From the 2001 IPCC report on Climate Change:

"The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible."

This, to us, is the much more reasonable position for a scientific organization to take.

But it doesn't get you Nobel prizes.

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