The AGW Scam and the IPCC
I am somewhat passionate about weather and climate, and came to the whole AGW thing as a greenie who thought humans were having a negative impact on the Earth’s climate - and I still think humans are having some impact via deforestation, land use changes, and pollution - but anyway, it seemed like a good idea to have a better look at the science, because some of stuff in the media started sounding so extreme that I knew it was bovine excreta!
Having spent a lot of time in the past few years reading scientific papers and reports, I have come to the conclusion that climate science has been hijacked by a small group of prominent greenie zealots who have managed to hoodwink the majority of the climate science community with a curious mix of poor science combined with a well-oiled publicity machine and backing from powerful lobby groups.
Part of what I have learned is that the science aspect of the IPCC is controlled by a minority ‘elite’ of climate scientists who appear to simply ignore any science that does not fit their preconceptions. The primary authors in many sections either wrote or co-authored many of the papers that are featured prominently in the same science section - this is how Michael Mann managed to get his flawed hockey stick to feature so strongly in an earlier IPCC report - and nothing has changed since, so primary chapter authors are still able to rubber stamp their own or their immediate colleagues work for inclusion, and improve their profile and citation rates in the process.
In any other field, basic ground rules are built in to limit the potential for damage that could be done if personal agendas and preconceptions were otherwise allowed to supplant the scientific method, and this type of incestuousness in preparing scientific reports would be considered as very bad practice if not outright fraud, but hey … welcome to the Brave New World where executing the agenda is all important … this is not ordinary science, this is climate science!
Everyone who contributed to IPCC reports, whether as an author or as a reviewer, was bound by non-disclosure agreements that did not permit them to comment in public on the contents until after the release of the science documents, which was done many months after the (political) Summary for Policymakers had been and gone from the media spotlight, giving the IPCC time to tweak the science content to match the (political) Summary document.
The so-called consensus of 2500 IPCC scientists is an outright lie.
The real core of the scientific consensus is the group of a few dozen climate scientists and their co-authors who also tightly controlled the science content to suit their agendas. The total number of scientists involved as authors contributing papers and reviewers was as matter of hundreds not thousands - and the majority of both authors and reviewers were for the most part ignored or treated like nuisances.
The vast majority of those claimed as ‘2500 IPCC scientists’ were not scientists at all, but were either volunteers from various backgrounds (anyone whether scientifically trained or not could volunteer to be an IPCC reviewer) or were political appointees and their advisors who had a degree of editorial control over the content requiring many rewrites of specific wording to suit the agendas of various governments, agencies, and NGO’s.
Many other scientists who are far too busy in their own areas to have time to examine the science are oblivious to the incestuous nature of the IPCC and have since jumped on board the ‘consensus’ bandwagon, the prevailing wisdom being “if it passed the review process it must be OK”. Many are also completely unaware of the fact that there is no independent examination of the methodologies and data, no quality control, and no accountability measures.
Further, there is a huge gravy train of taxpayers funds for ‘true believers’ that in many cases suddenly dries up if one bucks the ‘consensus’, thus placing great pressure on scientists to conform to the agenda.
The partial release of the reviewers comments is most enlightening - these comments were only grudgingly released after months of intense pressure for disclosure and mounting numbers of FOI requests that eventually forced the the IPCC to comply with it’s own guidelines that state quite clearly that all reviewers comments are to be made publicly available at minimal cost.
The initial ‘public’ release (in clear contravention of IPCC guidelines) was as a single printed copy on paper placed in a private US university where one had to actually get to the uni and make arrangements to view specific requested documents, or to somehow arrange for specific pages to be copied at an exorbitant rate to be posted by snail mail (quite difficult to ask for specific pages if you do not know what is in them), and with a strict limit on the number of pages one could copy either way.
Further pressure and FOI requests eventually saw the IPCC cave in and post an electronic copy on the internet, however you can only access it by first agreeing to some fancy lawyer lingo that amounts to an agreement not to disclose the contents - see for yourself - the comments portal is here.
The comments are worth a read - many of the reviewers criticisms were simply fobbed off with one liners that contain no answers to specific issues raised, and for the most part no credible explanation as to why the criticism is being ignored, showing just how blatant the control of content by the ‘elite’ really is.
The final review comments from the chapter authors are still not available, and it seems that more pressure and FOI requests will be needed to lever these out of the IPCC for public scrutiny (even though they are supposed be available under IPCC rules) - if they have nothing to hide, why do they expend so much time and energy trying to keep the comments hidden?
One does not have to dig too deeply into the IPCC and the science documents to realize that everything I wrote above is true - but do not just take my word for it - talk is cheap - you will not know if you do not spend enough time looking for yourself!
Just thought I’d help the cause, and post the gobbledegook that the IPCC calls legal speak…
I especially like this bit “in conjunction with coordinating lead authors and lead authors.” LOL! Coordinating lead authors and lead authors… er, wouldn’t it have been suffice to say “coordinating lead authors”? Some legal team they’ve got - and don’t forget, it’s OUR money Ralph!!!
Cheers, Dave.
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In accordance with IPCC procedures, past practice has been to distribute copies of review comments and corresponding author responses on request after completion of reports. Given the increased level of interest in the Fourth Assessment Report, and to avoid potential misunderstandings or miscommunication on how review comments were dealt with, Working Group I is now taking the additional step of making the drafts of our report, and the comments and responses on those drafts, available directly.
The following web page provides links to: the first draft chapters of the WG I report; review comments on the first drafts and corresponding author responses; the second draft chapters; and expert/ government review comments on the second drafts and author responses. In addition links are provided to the draft Technical Summary (TS) and Summary for Policymakers (SPM) distributed with the second draft chapters; the corresponding expert/ government review comments and author responses; the final distributed TS and SPM; and government comments on the final distributed draft SPM. Note that government comments on the final distributed draft SPM were dealt with through the line by line approval process of the Tenth Working Group I Session that finalized the SPM in conjunction with coordinating lead authors and lead authors.
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Hi Dave and Carl,
There are probably lead authors and co-ordinating lead authors Dave, some who are prepared to pull together the stuff into a cohesive whole and some who want to be left out of that process. The distinction may not be important to you, but I expect it is to them.
As to the overall premise of secrecy = conspiracy, I think you need to take a closer look at what the “extreme right” is doing with the findings of guys like Steve Macyntire and climate audit.
In the exclusive binary world of “Joe Average” any argument at all that allows JA to ignore environmental issues and demonize environmental causes puts more power (and it is considerable power) into the hands of those who are raping the world’s resources and turning much of the world into toxic wasteland.
If we could rely on good science to prevail, we would have better astrophysics, better nutritional science, better and cleaner energy supplies, better and cleaner manufacturing processes, better biological science… etcetera and so-on and so-forth. (talk about extraneous, added, additional redundancy) in short, we would have a better, healthier, cleaner, more sustainable, and more enlightened existence.
The fact is, we can’t rely on good science to prevail. We have never, in all of human history, been able to rely on such a notion.
Humans are political creatures with political agendas, and while any individual may opt out of the political processes, demonizing politics is like demonizing oxygen (or CO2 for that matter….:)).
Politics is an ever present influence that has primal roots in the human herding instinct. Its not going anywhere. The political process always has been and always will be corruptible by power.
There are currently two sources of political power, one is corporate/industrial, the other is popular, but it takes a large sway in popular opinion to have any real influence on corporate/industrial power. When industry is behaving badly, it requires an enormous popular movement to have an impact. It is corporate/industrial greed which is turning our planet into a toxic trash-heap, and this is fueled by consumer greed and popular ignorance.
If you want to really make a difference, you need first to make a political difference. In such a case, you need to be careful who you are ultimately backing.
By all means do the homework and get good science out there and accessible to everyone. It will produce improvement eventually, as the hysteria evaporates in the light of reality. Be careful, however, when you play the political “conspiracy” card, that you are not ultimately feeding a cause which you ultimately despise, and thwarting a cause which you ultimately support.
The Truth may or may not be out there, however in the real human existence, truth is actually subjective, and ultimate power lies in seducing the will of the masses.
Its not nice, its not pretty, its not even ethical, but it is more true than The Truth.