But my eyes were not, in fact, deceiving me. In December 2009 hundreds of Canadian scientists really did choose to publicly align themselves with a left-leaning advocacy organization. They actually thought this was a smart strategy – that this is how you persuade a Tory national government to take action on climate change.

I mean, come on.

Here’s what happened: just prior to the Copenhagen climate summit, the Canadian wing of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) penned an open letter to our Prime Minister and other members of our national Parliament.

It urged them to commit Canada to a fair global greenhouse gas reduction treaty. It talked about our historical responsibility and declared that every year of delay would be more costly for future generations. It said Canada should be a global leader.

On the WWF website this letter is headlined Scientists Have Spoken. But none of the above-mentioned ideas have anything to do with science. They’re a reflection of people’s values – aka their personal political beliefs.

Apparently the cold winters here in the great white North have taken their toll. Or perhaps there’s something in our drinking water. Whatever the explanation, the leaders of no less than 12 bodies that are described by the WWF as scientific organizations were incapable of figuring out that scientists are respected by the public because they’re perceived as being above the fray.

It apparently occurred to none of these PhDs that the fastest way to squander your scientific authority is to stride noisily onto the political stage under a huge, flapping WWF banner. Here’s the yes-our-judgment-is-impaired list:

• Canadian Association of Physicists
• Canadian Society of Zoologists
• Canadian Society of Soil Science
• Society of Canadian Ornithologists
• Canadian Society of Plant Physiologists
• Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution
• Society of Canadian Limnologists
• Canadian Society for Ecological Economics
• Canadian Quaternary Association
• Canadian Botanical Conservation Network
• Entomological Society of Alberta
• Canadian Aquatic Resources Section of the American Fisheries Society

According to the WWF, 800 individuals also thought it was a smart idea to link their hard-won scientific credentials to this activist-organized-and-funded ad campaign. Among the signatories to this letter were:

• Gordon McBean, a University of Western Ontario professor who has served as a lead author and review editor for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
• Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria climate modeler and longtime IPCC participant who’s now a lead author for the edition of the climate bible currently underway (see p. 6 here)
• Ken Denman, an Environment Canada climate modeler who has twice been an IPCC coordinating lead author
• Barry Smit, a University of Guelph professor who served as an IPCC lead author for the 2007 report and is currently doing so again (p. 18)
• Danny Harvey, a University of Toronto professor who’s now an IPCC lead author (p. 24)

All of these people occupy respectable positions at reputable institutions. How does one attain those sorts of positions and yet be so clueless concerning the implications of certain kinds of behaviour?

Actions have consequences. Once you publicly align yourself with an activist organization your scientific judgment becomes forever suspect.

The public has no way of knowing, going forward, whether it’s your scientific expertise talking or whether you’re merely expressing personal beliefs regarding how ordinary people today should sacrifice for the sake of tomorrow’s hypothetical future generations.

.

On the right-hand side of this page, the WWF says it ran this ad in the national Globe and Mail newspaper as well as the Hill Times – a capital-city-based publication aimed at national Parliamentarians.

Please also note that the WWF describes these people as “Canada’s leading scientists” – in much the same way the IPCC claims it has recruited the world’s top experts. In both cases, no attempt is made to substantiate that claim. But it sounds good, doesn’t it?

If these really are Canada’s leading scientists, and if this appallingly poor judgment is typical, heaven help us.

.

.

Other IPCC bigwigs are similarly guilty. The IPCC claims to be policy-neutral, but these people rarely miss an opportunity to throw their weight behind specific policies to fight climate change. Emissions reduction is the big one.

As I’ve argued previously, this is undemocratic. It prevents the entire community from taking part in a debate about how best to respond. It falsely implies that it’s the role of scientists to not merely diagnose the problem, but to choose the precise nature of society’s response, as well.

Thomas Stocker is a climate modeler from Switzerland. Following 10 years of IPCC involvement, in 2008 he became the current co-chair of Working Group 1.

Each of the three IPCC working groups has two chairpersons – one from an affluent country and one from a developing nation. Informally, everyone understands that the former is the person in charge (partly because that individual’s government has committed to housing and funding the working group’s administrative activities until that edition of the climate bible is complete).

Because Stocker is head of the ‘science’ section of the climate bible and his co-chair is from China, his influence in the current IPCC configuration is difficult to overstate.

In 2009 Stocker gave a media interview in which he declared that “all societies on this planet” would have to adopt “a clear schedule of emission reductions.” Every sector of the economy, he said, should “contribute to the grand goal of de-carbonizing society” (my italics).

All societies on the planet. Does that include those who are barely feeding themselves? Really? This man expects people concerned about the stunted growth of the children in their arms today to get concerned about carbon emissions that might cause a problem 100 years from now?

How about those in the grip of civil war? Does he really suppose that people will meekly lay down the machetes with which they’ve been butchering each other and start worrying about carbon reduction instead? Could we switch to the grown-up channel, please?

In another interview that same year Stocker sounded for all the world like a politician when he opined that the upcoming UN climate summit:

…must clearly set down the reductions expected from industrialised countries, and at the same time define sanctions if these reduction targets are not met…then we need a clear plan for the way in which emissions allowances are traded.

Let us be clear about what’s going on here. This man has decided that humanity’s primary response to climate change should be emissions cuts. He’s also decided that penalties will be necessary for countries that don’t meet their targets. Moreover, he’s decided there should an emissions trading system.

What I want to know is this: Which part of his physics training equips him to make these policy decisions on behalf of the rest of us?

Jonathan Overpeck is also prominent in the IPCC. He holds a PhD in geological sciences and, during the preparation of the 2007 edition of the climate bible, served in five separate IPCC capacities – including leading an important chapter. (It is, no doubt, a total coincidence that one of the contributing authors for that same chapter is Overpeck’s wife, Julia Cole.)

Does Overpeck stick to the science, allowing the rest of us to come to our own conclusions? Nope. In 2009 he told a committee of the US Congress that two actions were necessary to avert a water crisis in the Lower Colorado River Basin. One was $200 million in new science funding to study the matter. The other was worldwide emissions cuts:

…global emissions of greenhouse gases, and especially carbon dioxide, must be reduced significantly. Reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to levels 80 percent below 1990 levels is a good target.

Reality check time. That combination of dates and numbers has nothing to do with geology. It is a political goal that has been promoted by political activists (see here, here, and here).

Secondly, how can this advice be considered remotely sensible? Does anyone seriously believe that browbeating millions of other human beings in other countries into radically altering the way they heat, cook, and get around is the best way to save a US river basin?

Does anyone seriously believe the rest of the world will – or should – care about that basin? A more extreme example of American self-absorption is surely difficult to imagine.

The extent to which Overpeck and his wife – who are both members of the University of Arizona’s geosciences faculty – now talk politics in their geology courses is suggested by a May 2010 class that examined “climate misunderstandings and communication.”

They invited Max Boykoff, an out-of-town guest speaker, to address the course they were jointly teaching. According to a university-issued press release, Boykoff had told journalism students the previous evening that news outlets should refrain from reporting the views of climate skeptics since this contributes to “illusory, misleading and counterproductive debates” that “poorly serve the collective good” (see more here).

The press release quoted Overpeck in this context, saying that “special interests are working overtime to confuse the public on the science.”

Politicians routinely denigrate their opponents by saying they represent special interests – but is that how scientists should talk? Religious zealots routinely speak of the truth that cannot be questioned – but is it appropriate for geologists to speak about the science in a similar manner?

Back when he was earning his PhD which textbook left Overpeck with the impression that geologists should care how many different perspectives the media presents on an issue? Would it be appropriate for journalists to tell him how to calibrate his microscope?

In the 21st century ordinary people are considered competent enough to choose their own leaders. They’re considered smart enough to determine the guilt or innocence of accused murderers. Yet certain ‘experts’ believe these same people can’t be trusted to sort wheat from chaff where climate change is concerned.

Apparently, the notion that the public should be shielded from particular climate perspectives now gets discussed in geology class.

One would think that if IPCC personnel really believed the planet was at risk of turning into a fireball they’d be more circumspect. One would expect them to stick carefully to their narrow scientific specialty so that no one would have any excuse to doubt their findings.

But these people don’t see themselves as mere scientists. They’re on a quest to save the planet. And the foolish, juvenile, highly political nonsense they spout is yet another reason why we shouldn’t take the IPCC seriously.

.

.

When he resigned from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), hurricane expert Chris Landsea did exactly this. That he was surrounded by people incapable of recognizing the wider implications of the situation he’d brought to their attention should give us all pause.

The moral failure was profound – and it didn’t end with the small group of scientists who were privy to the exchange of e-mails Landsea had had with the IPCC in November and December 2004. The following January Landsea went public in the form of an “open letter to the community” sent to 45 colleagues – one of whom then posted it on the Internet.

Landsea said his decision to leave the IPCC was spurred by the realization that the hurricane section of its upcoming report had “become politicized.” Via his open letter, he said, he wished to raise awareness about “what I view as a problem in the IPCC process.”

Kevin Trenberth, who is not a hurricane expert, had participated in a press conference in which the media and the public were led to believe that a link exists between global warming and more intense hurricanes. When Landsea protested to the IPCC that this was improper, especially given the fact that Trenberth was in charge of the hurricane section of the climate bible then being prepared, he was blown off. In his words:

It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming. Given Dr. Trenberth’s role as the IPCC’s [coordinating] Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity.

…I was disappointed when the IPCC leadership dismissed my concerns when I brought up the misrepresentation of climate science while invoking the authority of the IPCC. Specifically, the IPCC leadership said that Dr. Trenberth was speaking as an individual even though he was introduced in the press conference as an IPCC lead author; I was told that that the media was exaggerating or misrepresenting his words, even though the audio from the press conference and interview tells a different story…and that Dr. Trenberth was accurately reflecting conclusions from the [2001 Climate Bible], even though it is quite clear that [it] stated that there was no connection between global warming and hurricane activity. The IPCC leadership saw nothing to be concerned with in Dr. Trenberth’s unfounded pronouncements to the media…

Along with his open letter, Landsea attached the e-mails he’d sent on this matter – and the ones he’d received in response from IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri and Working Group 1 co-chair Susan Solomon. There was no need to take his word for it, a clear record of what had transpired was available.

News outlets should have run with this story. It should have become a full-fledged scandal. If an organization that everyone thinks is producing authoritative scientific reports has been compromised by those advancing a political agenda surely this is an important development. If the leadership of the IPCC is exhibiting a bunker mentality by refusing to even acknowledge there’s a problem, surely the public deserves to know.

The Washington Post story provided the basic details and even quoted Landsea at some length. But the journalist then trivialized the matter by characterizing it as a “spat between Landsea and Trenberth.”

For its part Science magazine (which is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science), devoted one-third of a single page in its 3-page News of the Week section to the matter (see pp.19-21 of this 115-page PDF).

In the judgment of the magazine’s staff, this story deserved to appear last – after articles that discussed the merger of two agricultural research bodies in the developing world, NASA budget cuts, funding for science education in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the announcement of an annual $1 million donation to the Arab Science and Technology Foundation.

On the page in which the story finally appeared, a controversy involving a biology lab at Boston University received top billing and twice as much space.

Science‘s account of the Landsea affair began with this line: “An ugly spat has broken out among contributors to the world’s leading scientific report on climate change.” The next paragraph characterized the matter as a tussle. That story included a new quote from Pachauri, reiterating that IPCC authors are “free to express their views on any subject.”

What’s astonishing is that no one – not the three journalists involved, nor anyone else at Science, connected the dots despite the damning nature of the remarks that appeared at the end of the story. We’re told that Trenberth

…defended his view that changing sea conditions could be contributing to greater hurricane intensity.

That position is “plausible,” says hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But hurricane activity varies so much from decade to decade that “not a single person in my field thinks you can see the signal.” [bold added]

If not a single hurricane expert thinks there’s a link between hurricanes and global warming, how can it possibly be OK for an IPCC senior author who is not a hurricane expert to make statements to the contrary at a press conference? This is not a question of two competing schools of thought amongst people with roughly equal credentials. This is a case in which someone with no expertise was promulgating his personal opinion directly to the media and enhancing that opinion by pointing to his IPCC affiliation.

How could the IPCC permit that person to remain in charge of the hurricane section in the gold standard Climate Bible? Did these people not understand that this made them appear blinkered and unprofessional? Did their mothers never tell them that respect must be earned?

The media coverage of the Landsea affair was entirely inadequate, but this story did get reported. Large numbers of people connected to the IPCC became aware of these events. Yet no open letters, signed by concerned scientists, protested Trenberth’s behavior – or Pachauri’s pathetic response. Nor were there any mass resignations from the IPCC. To my knowledge there were no other resignations, period.

This tells us something important about the judgment of the scientific community that expects us to trust that exact same judgment on the question of whether global warming is the fault of human beings.

And it says something about the decision, two years later, to award the IPCC a Nobel Peace Prize. Apparently, that prize is now given to moral midgets.

.

.

In late 2004 he was once again invited to contribute a brief section on hurricanes for what would eventually become the 2007 edition. The person then in charge of the relevant Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chapter was Kevin Trenberth – who is described in a recent interview as a “climate modeler and IPCC insider.”

Both Landsea and Trenberth are meteorologists. But Landsea’s entire career has focused on hurricanes. Trenberth’s has not.

A few weeks after Landsea received his third IPCC invitation he was surprised to hear that Trenberth intended to participate in a press conference that would claim that experts believe global warming will continue to spur “more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity.”

Landsea sent an e-mail addressed jointly to Trenberth and a second colleague, Linda Mearns (who chose not to participate in the subsequent press conference, perhaps due to Landsea’s concerns). Pointedly, Landsea observed that neither they – nor the three other people scheduled to participate in the press conference – had ever published a research paper on the relationship between hurricanes and climate change. The implication was clear: how could these people claim expertise in that field?

Speaking as the bona fide expert, Landsea’s e-mail provided a brief overview of the topic. It began with this declaration:

There are no known scientific studies that show a conclusive physical link between global warming and hurricane frequency and intensity.

Despite Landsea’s efforts to discourage him, Trenberth went ahead with the press conference. 2004 had been a busy hurricane season in the US and the media was happy to report that people claiming to be experts saw a global warming connection.

A Reuters news story, for example, declared that the “four hurricanes that bashed Florida and the Caribbean within a five-week period over the summer…are only the beginning.” The journalist seemed not to notice that the first person quoted in her story – Paul Epstein – is, in fact, a medical doctor – not someone whose professional life has been devoted to the study of hurricanes.

(As for the suggestion that 2004 was only the beginning, after hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, the number of strong hurricanes making landfall in the US promptly plunged. Since then people have begun talking about the unusual “hurricane drought.”)

Following the press conference, Landsea protested Trenberth’s actions in an e-mail addressed to 15 senior colleagues and IPCC personnel. Among them was IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri. Landsea provided a hyperlink to an online recording of the entire press conference. In his view, the media hadn’t exaggerated. Rather, the news stories were consistent with what Trenberth had actually said.

So where, asked Landsea, are the peer-reviewed publications

that substantiate these pronouncements? What studies are being alluded to that have shown a connection between observed warming trends on the earth and long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity? As far as I know there are none.

Landsea said he was gravely concerned that since Trenberth had already “come to the conclusion that global warming has altered hurricane activity,” and since Trenberth would be overseeing the hurricane section in the Climate Bible, “it may not be possible for the IPCC process to proceed objectively.”

Landsea then made a perfectly reasonable request:

I would like assurance that what will be included in the IPCC report will reflect the best available information and the consensus within the scientific community most expert on the specific topic. [italics added]

Landsea’s e-mail was dated November 5th, 2004. It would be a full two weeks before he received a reply from Pachauri, who explained that travel to Korea and Australia had prevented him from responding sooner.

Rather than acknowledging that Trenberth’s behavior had placed the IPCC in an awkward position, Pachauri was dismissive:

I need hardly mention that the IPCC cannot possibly take a position on this, because individual scientists can do what they wish in their own rights, as long as they are not saying anything on behalf of the IPCC. I may also mention that often the media does exaggerate what scientists may put forward on a balanced and objective basis.

Pachauri – whose first priority should surely be the safeguarding of the IPCC’s reputation – had clearly not bothered to listen to the recording of the press conference. Had he done so he would have discovered that Trenberth was introduced as a senior author of the IPCC’s upcoming report. He would have heard Trenberth himself say:

I was a lead author on the 2001 IPCC report…and in fact I was involved in developing some of the information that is in that report dealing with hurricanes.

What Pachauri would not have heard was a disclaimer making it clear that Trenberth and his colleagues were speaking as private individuals – and that their opinions should in no way be confused with those of the IPCC. It would have taken only 10 seconds to utter such a disclaimer, but that didn’t happen.

As the press release issued at the time makes clear, both Trenberth and another speaker were deliberately identified by their IPCC roles. They weren’t just anyone making claims about hurricanes and global warming – they were UN-recognized experts.

Most of the above is common knowledge. I’ve read several accounts of Landsea’s eventual resignation from the IPCC and was therefore aware of the broad brushstrokes of these events. What I’d not heard before is that the other speaker overtly linked to the IPCC in that press release was James J. McCarthy.

He was described in the release as “a biological oceanographer at Harvard University and lead author of the climate change impacts portion” of the IPCC’s 2001 report. What that description glosses over is that this marine biologist was actually a senior IPCC official between 1997 and 2001. Indeed, he served as co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group 2 for the 2001 Climate Bible.

So it wasn’t just Trenberth who was blurring the lines between personal opinions and official IPCC views on that occasion. McCarthy was, in fact, the much bigger IPCC fish.

What else have I discovered about McCarthy? During 2009 he was the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This is impressive, to be sure. But since that title changes hands every year, there are now rather a lot of people who can lay claim to this honour.

What I find particularly interesting is that while serving as AAAS president McCarthy simultaneously donned another mantle of responsibility. In May of 2009 he became chairman of the board of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

Politically, I’m an independent. I’ve never belonged to any political party and have, over the years, voted across the spectrum. So I’m not grinding any axe when I point out the obvious: the UCS is an unabashedly left-wing organization. Notice the word union in its name. Notice the word concerned – which smarmily suggests that non-members are callous and uncaring.

The UCS opposes the scientific consensus that genetically modified foods are safe – not on scientific grounds, but on philosophical ones. It shouts about political interference with science when its own pet causes are affected, but remains blind, deaf, and dumb when the pendulum swings in the other direction.

But let us return to McCarthy and his career.

• Between 1997 and 2001 he co-chairs an IPCC working group.

• In 2004 he participates in a press conference that implies there’s a link between global warming and more intense hurricanes – even though he has no expertise in that field, and even though no peer-reviewed scientific literature exists to support his position.

• In 2009 he serves as president of a prestigious scientific body.

• Then he becomes chairman of an organization that uses the prestige and authority of science to advance a left-wing, activist agenda.

Let me just repeat those two last points: At the same time that he was leading the American Association for the Advancement of Science, McCarthy became the head of a notoriously activist body.

Wow. When I began researching the global warming debate two years ago I had no idea how far my opinion of scientists was going to plummet.

.

.

The link is to a website called DemocracyNow! which claims to provide its audience with “access to people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S.corporate-sponsored media…”

Except that in this case, the self-proclaimed independent  voice appears to have behaved exactly like the rest of the media – which is to say it swallowed a fishy story hook, line, and sinker.

Ocean Experts Warn of Unprecedented Mass Extinction of Marine Life blared DemocracyNow! How is that different from

• the BBC’s headline: World’s oceans in ‘shocking’ decline
• or the UK Telegraph‘s: World’s oceans move into ‘extinction phase’
• or CNN’s: Marine life facing mass extinction, report says?

CNN told us that the people who’d arrived at these conclusions were a “panel of experts” and “a distinguished group of marine scientists.” Lower in the story it said the panel “consisted of 27 marine experts from 18 organizations” [bold added]

The Telegraph, too, described those involved as “an international panel of marine experts” before twice describing these people as scientists.

According to the BBC, the report was written by an “expert panel of scientists” including “coral reef ecologists, toxicologists, and fisheries scientists.”

All three mainstream media outlets mentioned in passing that the report was co-produced with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). But none of them pointed out that this is an activist organization.

It didn’t take blogger Ben Pile long to discover that the report that had generated these headlines was actually written in three days by, in his words, “a little conference of self-selecting individuals, clearly given to a particular agenda.”

Among the 27 people the media said were scientists and marine experts is a UK Member of Parliament who has a degree in philosophy. Another is the executive director of the Global Campaign for Climate Action.

When Pile dug a little deeper, he discovered that 5 of the 27 are, in fact, employees of the IUCN. Two others work for another activist outfit, the Pew Environment Group.

Someone else is from the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. Another is with the JM Kaplan Fund – a philanthropic organization that gives money to good causes.

Out of these 27 people, therefore, it appears that 14 possess no relevant scientific training whatsoever, are professional activists – or both.

Which leaves 13 others. Two of them have ties to Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund - Alex Rogers and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (about whom I’ve blogged recently).

Two more - Philip Chris Reid and Daniel Pauly – have their own WWF links. Still another has been associated with the IUCN since 2005.

At best, then, only eight of these 27 people (less than one third) even has a chance of being considered a disinterested party whose warnings we might want to pay attention to.

Surely it matters that the media was hoodwinked by a group of activists – that it failed to look critically at who wrote this report before issuing big scary headlines.

Surely we should care that people who describe themselves as “a select group of world science leaders” on oceanic matters (see page 4 of this PDF) include several individuals who aren’t even close.

When I chimed in on the social network, however, the response was disappointing. I provided a link to one of Pile’s blog posts along with the comment:

Unfortunately, the press didn’t check the facts. Many of those supposed “leading oceanic scientists” are actually green activists with no expertise in the field whatsoever.

I received this reply:

We definitely need to never, ever err on the side of caution.

Oh, brother. Perhaps the person involved was tired or rushed and I probably shouldn’t read too much into a casual comment.

But before one can err on the side of caution one surely needs accurate information. About the state of the oceans. And about whether the people who’ve written reports on that topic are credible.

It seems to me this is a small example of what has been going on for decades with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Slick press packages are issued about reports supposedly written by experts. Rather than examining matters with a careful and critical eye, the media instead provides a free PR service to activists posing as scientists.

And lots of ordinary people with busy lives have become so used to hearing environmental horror stories there’s actually no room in their brain for a different kind of narrative.

.

Read Ben Pile’s blog posts here and here.

.

NB  – The group claims 27 individuals were involved, but only 26 names appear on the participant list that begins on page 10 of their summary report.

.

.

Gee, it must have been some other Rajendra Pachauri who, during an interview with Yale University’s Environment 360 magazine a few months prior, made remarks such as these:

• “…a price on carbon is absolutely essential.”
• “…we need to bring down emissions very rapidly.”

The interview demonstrates perfectly the kid gloves with which the IPCC has been treated by the media. This wasn’t a situation in which the head of one of the world’s most influential bodies was carefully assessed by the editor and senior editor of a prestigious environmental publication.

Rather, Pachauri received rock star treatment. He was told by those interviewing him: “welcome back to New Haven. We are absolutely delighted and honored to have you as our guest” (my italics).

During that interview, Pachauri was repeatedly invited to talk about things that have nothing to do with science. He was asked for his reaction to a recent statement by the US president. He was asked what rich countries should do to help poor ones. He was invited to imagine he had ‘benign dictatorial powers’ and queried as to “what concrete steps” he would take immediately.

Repeatedly, Pachauri obliged. The leader of what is supposed to be a policy-neutral body participated in an extended discussion that wasn’t merely about policy – it strayed well into politics itself.

Pachauri could have explained that it would be inappropriate for him to express an opinion on such matters. He could have said he has a duty, as the IPCC’s chairman, to preserve its integrity and impartiality – that the IPCC must not only be neutral, it must be seen to be neutral. But he did not.

On other occasions, Pachauri has said that ordinary people should fight climate change by skipping meat one day a week. He has declared that the brakes must be put on what he perceives to be wasteful Western lifestyles.

In the words of the UK’s Guardian newspaper:

Hotel guests should have their electricity monitored; hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying; and iced water in restaurants should be curtailed…Rajendra Pachauri…warned that western society must undergo a radical value shift if the worst effects of climate change were to be avoided. A new value system…was now urgently required, he said. [bold added]

Radical value shift. New value system. Are these appropriate topics of conversation for the head of a scientific body? Since when did it become the purview of scientific organizations to tell the public what its values should be?

When did scientists become the new priesthood? (Normally the only people who presume to tell others what they should eat are medical professionals and spiritual leaders.)

Nor has Pachauri limited himself to scolding the little people. In January 2009 he declared that the emissions targets of incoming President Obama “need to be strengthened.” In October of that year a news article was accorded the headline: Obama ‘ought to do a lot more’ on climate: Pachauri.

I’ve previously discussed the views of the late Edward Goldsmith, the founder and editor of The Ecologist magazine who is considered the ‘Godfather of Green.’ To be fair, Pachauri doesn’t share Goldsmith’s open disdain for democracy.

During an interview in late 2007, Pachauri declared that:

…any democracy is 10 times better than what you have in China.

This is an important point – and a heartening one. Pachauri is also less hostile to technology.

But in other respects, his views are identical to Goldsmith’s. Both men think humanity’s survival depends on living “in harmony with nature.” (How does one live in harmony with quicksand or rattlesnakes?) Both believe the proper role of government is not to represent the aspirations of the public, but to discourage the public from making certain choices.

In the 1970s Goldsmith thought the building of new roads should be banned outright. These days Pachauri thinks governments should impose taxes and tolls that make it prohibitively expensive for people to drive cars.

According to Pachauri, a “rapid transformation of the economic system” is required. Affluent countries, he says, “have to start changing direction. They can’t continue to consume at this level.”

And then there’s this beauty:

We have been so drunk with this desire to produce and consume more and more whatever the cost to the environment that we’re on a totally unsustainable path. I am not going to rest easy until I have articulated in every possible forum the need to bring about major structural changes in economic growth and development. That’s the real issue. Climate change is just a part of it. [bold added]

Pardon me? Climate change is just a part of what? Let’s read those sentences again. According to Pachauri the real issue is bringing about major structural changes in economic growth and development. Responding to climate change is merely one aspect of that larger goal.

I swear, I’m not making this up. The above quote may be found in an outrageously sycophantic 5,000-word profile of Pachauri that appeared in Nature.

According to Gabrielle Walker, the author of that profile, during normal conversation Pachauri constantly refers to ‘the cause.’ Despite her PhD in chemistry, Walker seems not the least bit perturbed that Pachauri has an agenda.

Apparently it is now acceptable to acknowledge that the fight against climate change is merely a means to an end. It’s OK to admit – to a premier scientific journal, no less – that bringing about major structural changes in the world’s economy is the real goal.

Pachauri has been head of the IPCC since 2002. This means that a supposedly neutral body, entrusted with evaluating scientific evidence in an objective and even-handed manner, has been run for the past decade by a man who makes no secret of the fact that he is committed to a cause.

Pachauri’s ambition is far bigger than merely saving the world from climate change. He’s aiming for a new global economic order.

OMG

.

.

Historical documents such as these are important because they demonstrate that environmental scaremongering is nothing new. Indeed, it has been going on for four frakking decades.

In the early ’70s the public was being told:

Radical change is both necessary and inevitable because the present increases in human numbers and per capita consumption…are undermining the very foundations of survival. [bold added, italics in the original]

Then, as now, drastic measures had to be taken. Then as now, too many humans were having too many babies who would place too much strain on the environment. Citing Population Council data, the Blueprint said:

…the world’s population will stabilise at nearly 15.5 billion…about a century hence… [around 2070]

Almost half a century has passed since then. The radical change that was said to be so necessary was not undertaken (the book proposed everything from a ban on road building to the invention of “a new philosophy of life”).

So how accurate was that population prognostication? Recently the United Nations issued a press release that contains a rather different prediction:

The current world population of close to 7 billion is projected to reach 10.1 billion in the next ninety years… [around 2100]

Forty years ago the drama queens thought planet Earth would be home to 15.5 billion people by 2070. Yet now the UN thinks it will be home to only 10.1 billion by 2100. This is no small discrepancy.

It’s important to appreciate that one of the reasons people paid attention to the Blueprint at the time was because it had been endorsed by men of science.

The names of “34 distinguished biologists, ecologists, doctors and economists” (as the back cover described them) appeared at the beginning, beneath a statement that said these men fully supported the book’s analysis of the situation as well as “the solutions proposed.”

It now appears that those distinguished men of science were clueless about the future. Which is lesson one.

Lesson two is that, much like some of today’s men of science, they were apparently poorly socialized and utterly tone-deaf. How could such smart people have had no qualms about associating themselves with individuals articulating such noxious views of the human race?

According to the Blueprint there’s only one difference between humanity and a bull in a china shop – the bull (exactly opposite to the way in which that simile has always been understood) would apparently be smart enough to learn to care about whether the teacups remained intact. (Yeah, right.)

We humans, on the other hand, are apparently so full of barbaric malice that we delight in destroying the environment around us, as quickly as possible, and for no good reason.

In other words, these distinguished minds publicly aligned themselves with a report that declared humans to be dumber than cows:

Industrial man in the world today is like a bull in a china shop, with the single difference that a bull with half the information about the properties of china as we have about those of ecosystems would probably try and adapt it behaviour to its environment rather than the reverse. By contrast, Homo sapiens industrialis is determined that the china shop should adapt to him, and has therefore set himself the goal of reducing it to rubble in the shortest possible time.

Self-appointed busybodies, making ridiculous arguments, pretending they know what the future holds, and at no risk of being held accountable when their predictions turn out to be well wide of the mark. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Just a little something to keep in mind the next time you hear phrases such as ’scientists predict’ or ‘scientists believe.’

.

.

.

Thomas Stocker is a climate modeler. He also, we are told, holds “one of the world’s most prestigious scientific jobs, co-chairing a working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” (IPCC).

In Switzerland, where he resides, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation refers to Stocker as “the guardian of our climate.” Based on comments he made this week to Canada’s Vancouver Sun newspaper he certainly can’t be regarded as a guardian of humanity.

Recently, the IPCC adopted new guidelines which say its personnel are supposed to be circumspect in their public comments:

When speaking on behalf of the IPCC, individuals should take care…not to express views beyond the scope of the IPCC reports, or to advocate specific policies. [bold added, see p. 7; backup link here]

But it seems Stocker didn’t get the memo. Instead he told a reporter that he thinks tripling – or even quadrupling – the price of gasoline could help save the planet. According to the newspaper, Stocker believes that:

Much higher pump prices would help people realize there are “much smarter ways to go from point A to point B” than climbing into “three tonnes of steel and rubber” that spew greenhouse gases…

Neither Stocker, nor the journalist who wrote the story, appears to be the least bit interested in what effect that sort of price increase might have on human beings.

So here’s a bit of a reality check. First, Switzerland is a T – I – N – Y nation. It’s population is less than 8 million and the entire country comprises less than 40,000 square kilometers.

You could fit 227 Switzerlands within Canada’s vast land mass. Moreover, Switzerland’s population density is 54 times higher than ours.

So Stocker, who gave a talk here, thinks he’s entitled to advise us Canadians that there are “smarter ways to go from point A to point B,” does he?

Perhaps before he returns home he’d care to spend some time on our prairies. Our province of Saskatchewan, for example, has two urban centers – Regina and Saskatoon. As Google maps will confirm, getting from one to the other involves a three-hour drive of some 260 kilometers (160 miles).

In comparison, from the University of Bern, where Stocker teaches, the same amount of driving will get you well inside France, Germany, or Italy.

Since the average human walking speed is 5 kilometers (3 miles) per hour and Stocker apparently prefers that mode of transportation I’m sure he’ll enjoy the 52-hour stroll between Regina and Saskatoon.

Perhaps we should warn him, though, that June is blackfly season in Canada. If he’d prefer to complete his stroll next month, that will be mosquito season.

On the other hand, if he can’t fit us in until January, as an official government website warns immigrants, normal daytime temperatures are in the -5  to -15C range (23 to 5F). Overnight I’m sure the thermometer will drop to  -25C (-13F) just to make Stocker feel welcome.

During his trek Stocker will no doubt encounter a few wheat farmers. Perhaps he can explain to these people – whose tractors are powered by gasoline – why quadrupling the price of that fuel is such a splendid idea.

No doubt he’ll also make the acquaintance of a few truck drivers. I’m sure they, too, are dying to hear the professor explain how their livelihoods will continue to be viable should the price of gasoline skyrocket.

When Stocker meets those who raise cattle, hogs, and bison for a living I’m confident he’ll have no trouble convincing them that a sharp increase in the price of everything that gets transported anywhere (including their livestock) is just what the planet needs.

We should never forget that a great deal of blood was spilled in the 20th century by people who were prepared to sacrifice their fellow human beings in the pursuit of  a larger goal (let’s start with Mao and Stalin).

So what I want to know is this: how much harm is Stocker prepared to inflict on Canadians in pursuit of his larger goal – that of saving the planet?

Where does he draw the line? How many casualties are, in his view, acceptable? Really, I want to know.

.

* h/t to Hilary Ostrov, who comments on Stocker’s recent visit to Canada here

.

.

click for full article

According to a newspaper columnist, people like me should have my opinions “forcibly tattooed” on my body. I should be forced to buy low-lying property, and be lashed to a pole near an Australian beach in the year 2040. If the sea level has risen beyond the height of my mouth, he has already anticipated my “painful, thrashing death.” [backup link here]

Had these opinions not been published in The Sidney Morning Herald, a mainstream newspaper, I’d be less concerned. But they were. Which got me to wondering: Just when did it become acceptable to pen violent fantasies about people with whom you disagree? When did it become OK to talk – luridly and out loud – about their death?

How do the views in that column differ from those expressed in the 10:10 campaign’s No Pressure video released last October? In that instance, innocent people – including school children – were violently murdered after demonstrating insufficient enthusiasm for reducing their carbon footprint. High-profile organizations such as the UK postal service and Sony had partnered with the group that produced the video.

click for the Royal Mail's 10:10 webpage

Now it’s being suggested in a major newspaper that violent retribution is an appropriate response to those who oppose a carbon tax. Never mind that there are several perfectly sensible reasons for Australians to be hostile toward such a measure:

• The Australian Prime Minister explicitly promised not to introduce a carbon tax prior to last summer’s election. She therefore has no mandate to do so now.
• There is no evidence such a tax will effect the climate in any manner whatsoever.

• There is good reason to believe such a tax will lead to job losses in the manufacturing sector as well as the coal industry.
• There are no guarantees that measures taken to insulate the poorest members of society from this tax won’t be withdrawn later. This is an era of budget cuts, after all.

• Smart people can be found on all sides of the climate change debate. Which means the science is far from settled.
• The world has been taking climate change advice from an organization that has systematically misled us about who writes its reports and what evidence those reports rely on. This organization is riven with conflict-of-interest, doesn’t follow its own rules, and is comprised of activists and activist scientists who can’t be counted on to provide an objective, disinterested opinion (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

In columnist Richard Glover’s macabre imagination “climate-deniers” are oh-so-frustrating. He goes on to admit that certain green activists are as well. In his words, some of them are zealots who bully people. But notice that he doesn’t suggest forcibly tattooing any of them. Nor does he suggest that painful, thrashing death would be a just reward if their opinions turn out to be mistaken.

Like many others who advance the climate change party line, Glover waxes poetic about children, grandchildren, and setting a good example.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think setting a good example starts with civilized, respectful debate that doesn’t involve wishing death on your opponents.

Call me silly, but I think a vibrant intellectual environment is as important as a healthy natural one.

If we leave behind a planet on which obscure tropical toads have been saved yet free speech and intellectual freedom have gone extinct our grandchildren won’t thank us.

.

Steve Milloy, over at JunkScience.com, is offering $500 to the winner in a denier-tattoo contest

.

For those new to this blog, I personally don’t deny that climate changes. The climate system is dynamic. Like everything else on this planet, it is constantly in a state of flux. Nor do I dispute the possibility that human activity might effect climate (in my view these effects are more likely to be regional rather than global in nature).

I do, however, remain unconvinced that there is compelling evidence to conclude that human activity is responsible for triggering dangerous climate change. I am especially concerned that the United Nations process that investigates such matters falls well short of its advertising.

.

While the rest of us approach challenges with determination, optimism, and faith in ourselves as problem solvers, drama queens see only worst-case scenarios. They exaggerate. They emotionalize.

If Suzuki had restricted himself to teaching kids about nature that would be one thing. But instead he has spent decades peddling political opinions about how society should be structured. He has advanced philosophical opinions about how everyone should live.

Year after year, in book after book and newspaper column after column, Suzuki has repeated the same message: Either we follow his personal road map to salvation or all will be lost.

Back in 1990 – 21 years ago – Suzuki’s It’s a Matter of Survival appeared on bookstore shelves. In dramatic fashion it declared:

More than any other time in history, the 1990s will be a turning point for human civilization. (p. 1)

That’s quite a statement. I mean, the turning-point-for-human-civilization competition includes events such as the Fall of the Roman Empire and the Magna Carta. It’s likely that some of Suzuki’s readers were veterans of World War II. Did he really mean to imply to those people that the sacrifices their generation made to save the world from Hitler didn’t measure up to the really critical stuff he was certain was about to transpire during the 1990s?

Two days ago a column by Suzuki was published by a Canadian news service (backup link here). It begins:

Humanity is facing a challenge unlike any we’ve ever had to confront. We are in an unprecedented period of change.

Been there, heard that before.

When Suzuki declared 20 years ago that it was “crystal clear that the planet is losing a battle with the deadliest predator in the history of life on Earth,” he wasn’t talking about vicious grizzly bears or rapacious dinosaurs. He was talking about your grandma, your church minister, and your darling baby son.

Nor has he altered his tune since then. According to his column published two days ago:

…as comic strip character Pogo said in the ’70s (appropriately, on a poster created for Earth Day):  “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Apparently, we humans are despicable creatures who should constantly be apologizing for our very existence. In Suzuki’s 1990 opinion:

 …there are too many of us; we consume too much; we pollute too much; and we are blinded by our complacent acceptance of a dangerously outmoded system of beliefs and values.

Research groups such as the Worldwatch Institute…tell us that we have fewer than 10 years to turn things around or “civilization as we know it will cease to exist.” (p. 3)

Speaking of being crystal clear, let’s try this one: a geneticist such as Suzuki has no more right to dictate how society should respond to environmental challenges than does the CEO of Walmart. It is the business of the wider community to debate these matters, to decide what priority should be given to environmental issues versus health care, education, and dozens of other concerns.

In democracies, multiple points-of-view must be taken into account. Give-and-take amongst competing interests is required. Yet somehow the host of a television program decided it was his job to chart our course.

Suzuki has spent decades typecasting humanity as shortsighted, dangerous, and suicidal. He says we’re stubborn, blind, incapable of grasping the significance of our actions, and in denial. According to him, if we don’t set aside our own piecemeal understanding and embrace his overarching worldview we’ll all be very, very sorry.

Well, I have a message for Dr. Suzuki: I don’t like being insulted. Nor do I like being threatened. That’s the sort of behaviour one finds in abusive relationships – the kind women are rightly advised to flee.

Suzuki may well be sincere in his belief that “we are the last generation on Earth that can save the planet.”

Drama queens enjoy the limelight. They like to feel important. David Suzuki is a drama queen.

.

.

see Hilary Ostrov’s recent post re: documents that have disappeared from the Suzuki Foundation website

.

.

The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial. The term was first recorded in the 1930s.There is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant and that the actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and as a warning. [bold added]

Earlier this week a show trial took place in Sweden. As described by Andy Revkin of the New York Times, this was an event “in which planet Earth [was] the plaintiff, humanity the defendant and a panel of Nobel Prize winners the jury.”

Like every good show trial, there was no pretense of neutrality during these proceedings. There was no possibility that the accused might be acquitted. This was an exercise, first and foremost, in political theatre.

The prosecutor was a gent named Will Steffen, who heads a climate change institute at the Australian National University. That institute’s website features a personal welcome from Steffen which begins with these words:

Climate change is rapidly becoming the defining challenge for humanity in the 21st century. Dealing with climate change demands new types of knowledge…

According to Steffen, the Swedish show trial “is a bold step.” But please notice that the web page devoted to this monstrous bit of drama quotes only Steffen the Prosecutor. There isn’t the slightest indication of who the defense lawyer is, never mind an equal-time quote from that individual.

Please also note that this same web page includes another quote from the Symposium Chair, Johan Rockström, who appears to have played the role of chief justice. He says:

We know the earth’s resilience and resource base cannot be stretched infinitely….“business as usual” is not an option anymore…it is time for the leaders of the world to act…

Rockström’s online bio tells us that, in 2010,  he “was ranked the 2nd most influential person on environmental issues in Sweden.”  Yeah, that’s who I’d choose to preside over a trial in which justice was supposed to be blind.

The show trial’s web page further tells us:

The court verdict will contribute to the Stockholm Memorandum to be signed by Nobel Laureates on 18 May. The Memorandum will be handed over in person to the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability appointed by the UN Secretary General in preparation for the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro (Rio +20) and for the ongoing climate negotiations. [bold added]

In other words, this really is all about politics. They’re in-your-face-blatant about it. The prestige of these Nobel laureates is being used to add luster to a UN panel, a UN conference, and UN climate talks.

I know we’re meant to be impressed by this group of elite scientists, politicians, and, cough, thinkers. But perhaps someone could explain why these busybodies consider it their business to convict humankind wholesale.

Perhaps they could also explain why they invariably express more concern for the well-being of hypothetical future generations than for the toddlers who are dying of malaria right now. (According to the World Health Organization, an African child succumbs to that awful disease every 45 seconds.)

A few more details about this event are worth noting. Number one: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is the premiere host. It seem that, rather than championing logic and reason, science academies are now in the business of orchestrating political theatre.

Number two: the Swedish Postcode Lottery is this event’s core sponsor. That organization is supposed to raise money for charity. Apparently show trials that declare humans a plague on the planet are now charitable causes.

Are there no children’s hospitals in Sweden that could have used this funding?

.

It makes no sense to me that people who claim to sincerely believe we face a planetary emergency, and who believe we have mere years to recognize and respond to this emergency, would behave so recklessly. Why gamble with your reputation in this manner? Why offer your critics such an easy target? What could you possibly be gaining that would make these relationships worth it?

I’m beginning to suspect that there actually is no rational explanation – at least not one in which the IPCC comes out looking remotely like a responsible adult. Instead, I’m now leaning toward a banal and profoundly depressing answer. It boils down to this: large segments of the scientific community have taken leave of their senses.

I have been led to this conclusion after considering the case of an astrophysicist named Michael Oppenheimer. At first glance this gentleman could hardly seem more eminent. He is director of a program in science, technology and environmental policy at Princeton University. He is a professor in the atmospheric sciences department as well as at an institute for international studies.

Prior to these appointments, however, Oppenheimer spent more than two decades as the chief scientist for the activist Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). That organization is so wealthy its list of staff experts includes more than 100 names. Among them are seven attorneys, eight economists, and a vice-president of corporate sponsorships.

Groups like the EDF lobby ferociously to advance their particular perspective. They also hire people who provide their activist agenda with a veneer of scientific respectability. Even now, Oppenheimer continues to advise the EDF. This means that his professional life has been spent in an activist milieu.

Yet the IPCC has not kept him at a distance. Instead, as his online biography points out, Oppenheimer is “a long-time participant.” He was a lead author for the 2007 edition of the climate bible, is serving as an even more senior author for the upcoming edition, and has also helped write “a special report on climate extremes and disasters.”

In an effort to make sense of how this can possibly be the case, I found myself considering a few other factoids. Perhaps the big reason why the IPCC does not view Oppenheimer as irredeemably tainted is because the scientific profession itself seems to have lost its bearings on such matters.

Oppenheimer’s Princeton bio further tells us that he:

…has been a member of several panels of the National Academy of Sciences and is now a member of the National Academies’ Board on Energy and Environmental Studies. He is also…a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

When the public hears the term “scientist” we think of someone who is above the fray – who’s disinterested and dispassionate and who goes wherever the scientific results happen to lead. This implied neutrality is what invests scientists with authority in public debates.

But in the 1970s a new kind of scientist began to emerge – the activist scientist. Nowadays, these people often occupy impressive positions at universities. They are often employed by respectable government agencies. All of that disguises the fact that they hold strong activist worldviews.

It appears that the activist scientists who emerged in the 1970s have been working their way into high-status, leadership positions. The scientific establishment, rather than keeping its distance from those whose careers have been associated with activism, now appears to be celebrating such people.

Perhaps the IPCC doesn’t regard Oppenheimer as damaged goods because the National Academy of Sciences doesn’t. Neither does the American Association for the Advancement of Science. (Nor, it should be observed, does Princeton.)

But this has consequences. The public has been told IPCC reports represent the considered opinion of the world’s top experts. But what happens when the public discovers that many of those involved are actually brazen activists? What happens when it discovers that the world’s most illustrious science bodies have themselves stopped drawing a line in the sand between activists and those who strive to pursue science in a genuinely neutral and unbiased fashion?

What will the long term damage be to science itself?

It seems to me that if scientists want us to trust their expert opinions they need to behave in a trustworthy manner. If they want us to be impressed by their high standards, they actually need to enforce these standards. The judgment of science bodies must not only be sound it must appear to be so.

When people with overt activist agendas get appointed to National Academy of Sciences panels, it’s time to start taking the findings of those panels with several grains of salt. When activist careers are rewarded with American Association for the Advancement of Science honours, those honours become devalued. What once was gold turns to clay.

Seen from this perspective, the close ties between activists and the IPCC are actually a symptom of a much broader malaise. That malaise threatens the future of science itself.

.

After serving as a contributing author to the 2007 climate bible, Hoegh-Guldberg received a big promotion. In the upcoming edition, currently underway and expected to be completed in 2013, he is now a coordinating lead author – the most senior of the IPCC’s three author designations (click the image for the source document, see page 19).

In 2007, Hoegh-Guldberg testified as an expert witness before an Australian tribunal. His written submission ran to 57 pages – the last 15 of which are comprised of his CV. Pages 53 and 54 are of particular interest since they list his 10 major research reports. Four of these were published by Greenpeace and a fifth was published by the World Wildlife Fund. (Four others were written for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.)

This means that Hoegh-Guldberg has been cashing paycheques from activist organizations for the past 17 years.

In 1994, five years after completing his doctorate, he wrote a report for Greenpeace about coral bleaching in French Polynesia. Ka-ching! That appears to have been cheque number one.

In 1996 he wrote a follow-up study. Ka-ching! Cheque number two. By 1999 he and Greenpeace had expanded their scope. They weren’t just talking about a particular corner of the world anymore – they’d gone global. This new study was titled Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the world’s coral reefs. Ka-ching! Cheque number three. A year later Hoegh-Guldberg authored still another Greenpeace report, Coral Bleaching: Pacific in Peril. (The full 72-page PDF is here.) Ka-ching!

Fast forward a few years and Hoegh-Guldberg has a new patron – the World Wildlife Fund. The 2004 report he wrote at its behest was titled: Implications of climate change for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. According to the WWF press release that introduced it to the world, this report not only examined things that live in the water it apparently performed some fancy atmospheric science calculations that spewed forth a magical number:

Only if global average temperature change is kept to below two degrees Celsius can the Reef have any chance of recovering from the predicted damage. [italics and bold added]

Let’s keep in mind that this was published a full three years before the IPCC’s 2007 climate bible. Clearly, neither the “world-renowned reef expert” nor the WWF felt the need to wait around for that body to decide whether a clear connection between human actions and global warming could even be established. They already knew the answer. In any event, ka-ching! Cheque number five.

In 2009 Hoegh-Guldberg was the lead author of a second WWF report. This one was titled: The Coral Triangle and Climate Change: Ecosystems, People, and Societies at Risk. That entire 229-page document is available here in PDF format. The Preface contains no shortage of drama queen language:

The world is currently facing the greatest challenge of all time…Humanity is at the crossroads. The message is quite simple and the choice stark: act now or face an uncertain, potentially catastrophic future…World leaders can change the history of the planet and directly influence the survival of millions upon millions of people…Basically, the future is looking very gloomy unless we act immediately and decisively.

Ka-ching! Cheque number six.

Hoegh-Guldberg is entitled to work for whomever he pleases. But someone who has spent the past 17 years taking cash from two of the world’s most influential activist organizations is thoroughly tainted. By no stretch of the imagination can he be considered a disinterested party who will carefully weigh the pros and cons and then write a scrupulously objective section of the IPCC report.

If his findings were purely a matter of science the 2000 Pacific in Peril document would not tell us, on page six, that it:

…was reviewed by and received crucial input from B Hare (Greenpeace International)… [bold added]

Remember Bill Hare? He’s the Greenpeace legend who’s also one of the IPCC’s most senior personnel. He, too, is currently hard at work preparing the upcoming edition of the climate bible. This time he’s serving as a lead author (see page 8).

So there you have it, ladies and gentleman. These are the kinds of “experts” the IPCC continues to recruit.

.

UPDATE April 22nd, 2011: No less than nine chapters of the 2007 edition of the climate bible  based their conclusions partly on Hoegh-Guldberg’s work. All these chapters were part of the Working Group 2 report: Chapter 1, Chapter 4, Chapter 6, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, and Chapter 17.

.

.

On the one hand Worldwatch was declaring, back in 1988, that:

Most scientists agree that a global warming is under way, caused by the accumulation of “greenhouse gases” due primarily to fossil fuel use…

On the other hand, in 2009 it was implying that Hansen’s 1988 testimony before Congress was daring. If most scientists already agreed with him how could that have been the case? One or the other of these statements has to be wrong.

In any event, I pointed out that Hansen has been handsomely rewarded for his views. Between 2001 and 2010 he pocketed $683,000 in assorted prize money. That’s on top of the salary he receives from his NASA day job.

I speculated that, since Hansen has held a senior position there for years, he must be well compensated. Thanks to reader GR, we now know that this is the case. This website reveals that Hansen’s 2008 annual rate of pay was $152,220.

Who said selling doom and gloom isn’t lucrative?

*

Environmentalist David Suzuki made some distressing remarks in an interview recently:

My wife and I huddle at night and weep for our helplessness. We are losing big-time and I’m enough of a scientist to see we are heading right down the tube. Judging by the past twenty years, we are going backward.

A thoughtful response appears at ClimateQuotes.com. The writer, a young man with a young family, has a message for Suzuki:

You’ve overestimated the dangers which lie before us, and you’ve underestimated our capabilities. Please, don’t assume you are one of the enlightened few that could have saved me and my generation…

Like this writer, I’m also puzzled. Why does Suzuki have so little faith? Why does he assume that future generations won’t be able to take care of themselves?

*

One of the ugliest books about the climate debate is Ross Gelbspan’s 1997 The Heat is On. It’s an early example of the kind of simple-minded, comic book “journalism” that paints activist climate scientists as saints and skeptical scientists as industry stooges.

So it was with some interest that I read yesterday about a Greenpeace student training program. The application deadline is May 16th, and interested parties are advised:

You will receive training by some of the best professional activists in the environmental movement…

If one clicks on the More about trainers link one discovers that, among these professional activist trainers, is…come on down…Mr. Ross Gelbspan.

Indeed.

.

h/t Tom Nelson

.

In one instance, he wrote an enthusiastic foreword to the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2009 report prior to delivering the keynote address at an event celebrating the release of that publication. This means that the IPCC, a body we’re told exists to provide an objective view of climate science, is now inextricably associated with an overtly activist screed.

What does this publication say, exactly? The first lines appearing on the Acknowledgments page are these:

In the 20 years since the historic testimony by Goddard Institute scientist James Hansen, the science of climate change has come a long way…Hansen’s work and courage has been a major inspiration in compiling this twenty-sixth edition of State of the World.  [bold added; p. vii]

When Frontline interviewed Timothy Wirth, the man who orchestrated Hansen’s 1988 Congressional testimony, he described the sequence of events this way:

We knew there was this scientist at NASA, you know, who had really identified the human impact before anybody else had done so and was very certain about it. So we called him up and asked him if he would testify. [bold added]

One scientist. Who felt certain about his own theories. That’s what triggered the global warming frenzy. Hansen’s testimony transformed him into a media darling, a scientific superstar. So where, precisely, does courage come into it?

Hansen has hardly been toiling away in obscurity – or poverty. For decades he has been a senior, presumably well-paid, employee at NASA. In 2001 he was the recipient of a $250,000 Heinz Award. In 2007 Time magazine designated him a Hero of the Environment. That same year he pocketed one-third of a $1 million Dan David Prize. In 2008, the American Association for the Advancement of Science presented him with its Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award. In 2010 he landed a $100,000 Sophie Prize.

Hansen is the promoter of theories about our climate that, with the passage of time, may or may not be borne out. Rather than being persecuted for these theories, he has been fêted and financially rewarded. His prize money alone amounts to $683,000.

It ‘s not clear what part of this story the Worldwatch folks find so inspiring. What’s unmistakable is that they’re the sort of drama queens who believe we’re on the verge of an apocalypse. Here are some tidbits from the earliest pages of the book (bold added by me):

It is New Year’s Day, 2101. Somehow, humanity survived the worst of global warming…What did humanity do…to snatch a threatened world from the jaws of climate change catastrophe? (p. 3)

[This book] provides hope amidst the grim certainty that we are living in the early years of a vast unplanned change in the planet’s climate. (p. 3)

…we are privileged to live in a brief window of time when human beings can act decisively to stop the warming before its impacts become impossible to reverse or to tolerate. (p. 3)

It is now virtually certain that children born today will find their lives preoccupied with a host of hardships created by an inexorably warming world. (p. 5)

This would all be more stirring if it weren’t for a rather inconvenient fact. Over the past few hundred years there has been a parade of people who were all convinced the world had reached a tipping point and that they, too, were the anointed generation called upon to transform society and save us from disaster (see Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist and Dan Gardner’s Future Babble).

What cure do the Worldwatch folks propose for the disease they believe afflicts us? Small, pinched lives in which travel to foreign countries is no longer an opportunity enjoyed by the masses. Worldwatch, you see, has determined that travel isn’t a necessity. Moreover, these people think they’re entitled to decide what makes the rest of us happy:

Lifestyle changes will be needed, some of which seem unattractive today. But in the end, the things we may need to learn to live without – oversized cars and houses, status-based consumption, easy and cheap world travel, meat with every meal, disposable everything – are not necessities or in most cases what makes people happy. (p. 10)

They also appear to have a dubious fixation with bigger government and more taxation:

…it is not hard to imagine the climate problem driving a political evolution toward global governance over the long term…New institutions and new funds will be needed… (p. 10)

When these sentiments are added to their certainty that:

The global economy fundamentally drives climate change, and economic strategies will need to be revised if the climate is ever to be stabilized… (p. 12)

and their declaration that “an accurate examination of climate change” must include an “analysis of gender relations” (p.61) we end up with a full slate of readily-identifiable left-wing hobby horses.

The attention of these people isn’t focused on fixing one particular problem. Instead, they’re eager to redesign the economy, to re-jig the world’s political system, and to tell us how much meat we’re allowed to consume.

But instead of doing the hard work of selling each of those measures to the public on its own merits, the Worldwatch Institute is trying to sneak them in through the back door – by presenting them as necessary responses to human-caused climate change.

The problem with this argument is that lefty eco activists were pushing those same solutions long before global warming became the cause du jour. A while ago I wrote a blog post titled Global Disaster Is So 1976. I pointed out that people were talking about worldwide catastrophe back then, too. I noted that the answers being proposed included lifestyle changes such as eating less meat.

The bottom line? Rajendra Pachauri, as chairman of what is supposed to be a respectable science body, has – with deliberation and forethought – publicly linked that body to left-wing political analysis and activism.

In doing so he has single-handedly made it impossible for anyone who cares about scientific integrity, scholarly impartiality, or old-fashioned propriety to take the IPCC seriously.

.

• provides “rigorous and balanced scientific information to decision makers”
• writes reports that are “objective and complete”
• is “policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive”

But claiming to be objective is one thing – actually behaving that way is other. If the above statements were true those who participate in the IPCC – and especially those who lead it – wouldn’t dream of associating with activist groups. This is because activists are neither objective nor neutral. They’ve already decided that climate change is caused by humans, that it is dangerous, and that we should be moving Heaven and Earth to do something about it.

A judge in a murder trial cannot pal around with the prosecutorial team during lunch hour and still expect us to believe he’s a neutral party. Yet that is precisely how the IPCC behaves. Moreover, this improper behaviour starts with the person who has been its chairman since 2002.

I’ve blogged previously about the fact that, in 2007, Rajendra Pachauri authored a foreword to a Greenpeace publication in which his IPCC affiliation was made explicit. This was no isolated incident. The following year he wrote another foreword to another Greenpeace document (complete 212-page PDF here). News outlets made a point of mentioning Pachauri’s involvement, and quoted him with respect to the quality of the Greenpeace document (see here, here and here) in the following manner:

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. Climate Panel which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with ex-U.S. Vice President Al Gore, called Monday’s study “comprehensive and rigorous.”

What no journalist covering that event seems to have grasped is that, by involving himself in this matter, Pachauri compromised the integrity of the scientific body he leads. If the head of the IPCC is prepared to vouch for the comprehensive and rigorous nature of Greenpeace publications, his standards would seem to be alarmingly low. The next time he uses similar language to describe IPCC documents we need to remember that comprehensive and rigorous may simply be code for: I personally agree with what this report says.

Some of the publications with which Pachauri has chosen to associate the IPCC’s good name are eyebrow-raising. One is a 2008 report titled Eating Our Future. Published by the World Society for the Protection of Animals, it boasts on its front cover that Pachauri, in his capacity as IPCC chair, has written the foreword (7-page PDF here, complete 32-page PDF here).

On page five, this organization reveals a desire to meddle in the affairs of both individuals and businesses:

…consumers who eat large amounts of meat and other animal products [eggs, butter, cheese] should eat less of those products. The animal products that consumers buy should be sourced locally and reared in humane and environmentally and socially responsible ways.

…the current acceleration in meat and milk production cannot be allowed to continue unchecked.

In his foreword, Pachauri says governments should:

…place a price on carbon, which would then be added to the cost of meat…

Got that? The head of the IPCC thinks food should cost more. He believes certain trends “should be arrested” and that consumers everywhere should “rethink their diets.” He also supports regulations that would ensure that a greater proportion of our food is “produced within a small radius from the point of consumption.”

These ideas may sound attractive to left-wing activists eager to reshape the world, but they are wholly out-of-bounds for the chairman of a body that claims to be balanced, rigorous, scientific – and policy neutral.

Another recent Pachauri foreword appears in a report published by the New Economics Foundation. According to that organization’s website, it too has grandiose plans to redesign society:

Our aim is a new economy based on social justice, environmental sustainability and collective well-being.

The 2007 report, titled Up in smoke? Asia and the Pacific The threat from climate change to human development and the environment, is a joint project involving, among others, Greenpeace contingents from four countries, Friends of the Earth contingents from three countries, and World Wildlife Fund contingents from two (7-page PDF here, complete 96-page PDF here).

In his foreword, Pachauri acknowledges that he earlier:

…had the privilege of writing the foreword for the first Up in smoke report published in 2004 by a group of NGOs focusing on climate change and development.

He says he hopes the current publication (which, let’s be honest, was authored by activist groups advancing a particular worldview), will be read carefully by policymakers (aka governments) in order to gain insight into “the steps required to tackle” climate change. Need I add that, on the front cover of this publication, we’re informed that the foreword has been written by none other than the chairman of the IPCC?

Then there’s the document released by a group called RespondingToClimate Change.org (RTCC). It isn’t clear who these people are, exactly. A Mapping Climate Change Action page on their website says “the organizations taking part in RTCC” include 49 businesses, 20 governments and 13 NGOs.

In any event, the RTCC document for which Pachauri has written a foreword is titled Responding to Climate Change 2010. It appears to have been assembled prior to the Copenhagen climate summit that took place in December 2009. In the text of his foreword we see a prime example of Pachauri the activist rather than Pachauri the chairman-concerned-about-safeguarding-the-reputation-of-the-influential-body-for-which-he-is-the-public face. He writes:

It is now abundantly clear that climate change is unequivocal and, over the last five decades, it is human actions that have been dominant in determining the pace and nature of climate change across the globe.

Groan. If the chair of the IPCC himself cannot be counted on to represent the findings of its reports accurately, all is surely lost. In 2007, having observed a gentle, gradual increase in recorded temperatures since 1850 (the end of the Little Ice Age), the IPCC concluded that warming was, indeed unequivocal.

It did not, however, state that it is a known, established, and uncontestable fact that humans are to blame. Rather, in the opinion of IPCC authors, most of the warming during the last 50 years was very likely (90% likely) due to human activities (see here). As atmospheric scientist John Christy has observed:

I do not know of any context in which a 10% probability of being incorrect would be considered a “fact”.

Claims as to how much of the change is due to humans are found only in model assumptions and simulations … not in direct observation. [3-page PDF here, complete 60-page PDF here]

This is not a trivial distinction. The chairman of the IPCC is telling the world it’s abundantly clear that humans are responsible for the past 50 years of climate change. But his own organization’s report does not say that.

The final phrasing of IPCC summary documents is agonized over. All those in attendance must agree to the exact wording. Nothing is included (or excluded) by accident.

In this foreword, set down in black and white by Pachauri, we don’t see anything like the aloof, dispassionate demeanour the term “scientist” traditionally evokes.  We see someone advancing an activist agenda, pushing the envelope, exaggerating the findings of the very body whose integrity he is supposed to ensure.

In his private life, Pachauri is entitled to his personal political views. But no one in their right mind should trust the scientific judgment of a scientific body when its chairman indiscriminately lends that body’s good name to publications involving Greenpeace, animals rights activists, Friends of the Earth, and the World Wildlife Fund

.

My next blog post will examine Pachauri’s relationship to yet another activist organization, the Worldwatch Institute.

.

Suppose that, in the interim, it becomes clear the arbiter is actually pals with the red team. More than once he’s seen fraternizing with them in a pub. Enroute to deliver his ruling, he catches a ride with them.

Suppose he prefaces his verdict by insisting his deliberations have been rigorous and balanced, that the highest standards have been adhered to. Suppose he ends by declaring that the red team’s claim is stronger. “Sorry blue team,” he says solicitously. “Better luck next year.”

One need not be a member of – or sympathizer with – the blue team to suspect it never had a hope of winning the argument. No matter how forcefully the arbiter insists his decision was impartial, his behaviour suggests otherwise.

Which is all a long way of saying that actions speak louder than words. And that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.

Al Gore says that climate change amounts to a planetary emergency. If there’s the slightest chance he’s correct, those who are tasked with evaluating the pro and con scientific evidence have been entrusted with one of the world’s most important jobs.

We have every right to expect these people – these arbiters of scientific truth – to behave in an upright and impartial manner. It isn’t good enough for them to claim they’re rigorous and balanced. They must conduct themselves as though this were the case. Their behaviour must be beyond reproach. They must give us no reason to suspect they are anything less than scrupulously evenhanded.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), I’m sorry to say, fails this simple test. Its personnel do not remain aloof. They do not treat their assignment with the care and reverence it deserves. Instead they pal around with the red team (environmental activists). Even worse, they invite members of the red team into the deliberation chamber.

In recent weeks I’ve written about Richard Moss, the senior IPCC official who’s also a Vice President of the activist World Wildlife Fund. I’ve written about Bill Hare, the Greenpeace “legend” who was one of only 40 people who helped write the influential IPCC Synthesis Report. Last fall, I pointed out that five of 10 lead authors of an IPCC chapter that examined the species extinction question have links to the WWF – as do three more of that chapter’s contributing authors.

Tomorrow I’ll turn my attention to IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri. As a report about the IPCC observed last year, Pachauri is “the leader and the face” of the IPCC.

Leaders set the example. Their behaviour signals to everyone else what sort of conduct is expected. If the IPCC were serious about impartiality, if it were an organization worthy of the public’s trust, how would Pachauri behave? Would he be down at the pub, fraternizing with the red team?

.

.

Reason.com has a distressing story about a professor at risk of losing his job because his research findings are politically incorrect. On Monday, April 4th, a hearing begins that will decide his fate.

Epidemiologist James Enstrom has worked at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for 34 years. In 2005, he published a study that found no relationship between fine particulate air pollution and premature death.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is in charge of air quality in that state. In an astonishing turn of events it chose to ignore Enstrom’s published-in-the-peer-reviewed-literature findings. Instead, CARB had its employees prepare an internal document that reached the opposite conclusion.

The lead author of the internal document was Hien Tran. When he was hired, Tran said he had a PhD in statistics from the University of California, Davis. On that internal research document (shown in the video above), Tran’s name is followed by the claim that he holds a PhD.

But this man never actually finished his doctorate. Instead, he apparently purchased one for $1,000 from an unaccredited, online diploma mill (full details are included in this 12-page disciplinary letter).

As if all of this weren’t scandalous enough, chairwoman Mary Nichols chose not to inform other members of the CARB board about Tran’s deception before they voted to implement stringent new air quality rules based on the research he had led.

In April 2009 Tran was demoted – and suspended for two months. But he wasn’t fired. Despite her atrocious behaviour, Nichols also continues to serve as chair of CARB.

Enstrom, on the other hand, was told last year that he was out of a job (he has been fighting for it ever since). One of his unpardonable sins was to point out that the law says scientists on a CARB advisory panel are supposed to be limited to three-year terms. Yet according to this (lawsuit) press release the majority have served for more than a decade. The above video claims UCLA professor John Froines served for 26 years and only lost his position after Enstrom began challenging CARB.

Since Froines is an influential person in the academic department that has decided Enstrom’s services are no longer required, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce what has gone on here. Academic freedom sounds great in theory. In practice, some academics are more protected than others.

Just to recap, though: the person who lied about having a PhD didn’t lose his job. The woman who failed to tell her fellow board members that the internal research was conducted by someone with a fake PhD didn’t lose her job. The person who was supposed to serve for three years but served for 26 has finally been asked to move along.

But the gent who’s in real trouble is the one with the genuine PhD, who published in the actual peer-reviewed literature, and who drew attention to the fact that a body that imposes regulations on other people was disregarding those that govern its own conduct. Of all the people is this saga, that is the person whose livelihood now hangs by a thread.

When Mom said life isn’t fair, she wasn’t joking.

.

She made that declaration on the 19th of August. But by the 16th of September she was already backtracking:

“I just think the rule in, rule out games are a little bit silly. These are complex questions of public policy,” Ms Gillard said when asked if she would exclude a carbon tax as part of the talks. [bold added]

The most likely reason for her change of heart is that she leads a minority government that depends on the support of a handful of Green Party members of Parliament for its survival. Last month, therefore, Gillard announced that she is “determined to price carbon” and that this will become the law of the land beginning July 2012. In the words of The Australian newspaper (backup link here):

Australia will have a carbon tax for three to five years before a full emissions trading scheme is introduced.

The same news article discusses the role of the Greens with respect to this development:

Greens deputy leader Christine Milne said the deal would not have occurred without the party’s input. “It’s happening because we have shared power in Australia,” she said.

“Majority governments would not have delivered this outcome. It is because the Greens are in balance of power working with the other parties to deliver not only the aspiration but the process to achieve it.” [bold added]

In recent weeks, outraged Australians have been organizing protest rallies. Plenty of discussion about these activities may be found on a number of blogs, including Australian Climate Madness, and those authored by Andrew Bolt and Jennifer Marohasy.

Yesterday Jo Nova reprinted on her blog the text of a speech delivered by a gent named David Evans to a protest last week. Evans’ story is a fascinating one. He holds six university degrees and spent the better part of a decade working for the Australian Greenhouse Office modeling carbon emissions. He describes himself this way:

I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic.

Let us all keep in mind that by stepping out of the lab and onto the stage at a political rally Evans must now be regarded as an activist scientist. I’m not keen on this phenomenon. Anything any scientist – on any side of any debate – utters at a political rally must be taken with a grain of salt. It should not be automatically trusted, but approached with a measure of skepticism.

That being said, if climate change is a matter to be decided by expert opinion, we have a right to hear from experts who hold a variety of perspectives. It is then our job to draw our own conclusions regarding the strength of the various arguments that have been presented.

I urge you to click over to the full text of Evans’ speech here. It isn’t long.

Some of the language strikes me as counterproductive (one can disagree without labeling other people liars and cheats). But Evans’ essential point is that while the dangerous-global-warming-hypothesis has been proved wrong, powerful vested interests seem incapable of admitting it.

This is the sort of informed dissent we’re all entitled to hear.

.

UPDATE: I’ve heard Australian geologist Bob Carter speak twice. I think he’s a good man, a smart guy, and an exceptional scientific communicator. Within an hour of posting the above, I stumbled across this recent article by him. I also highly recommend his book: Climate: The Counter-Consensus.

.

In his opening essay Steven Shapin, a historian and science sociologist, observes that:

…the credibility of scientific claims is never a matter of pure evidence or pure logic (that is, it always involves rhetoric and persuasion and is, in this sense, rightly called political).

In other words, as I’ve argued elsewhere, science is done by human beings who make judgment calls. When we accept that certain scientific facts are true, we’re placing our trust in the judgment of other people. This is why it matters whether scientists who insist the planet is imperiled behave professionally or not. It provides an important clue as to how wise it is to trust them.

Shapin argues that scientists, because they are funded with tax dollars, must be accountable to the public:

…if we exempt the scientific community from normal patterns of accountablity, we compromise democracy through a tyranny of the experts, and ultimately create the conditions in which the scientific community comes to be resented and mistrusted.

It Shapin’s view, Greenberg was the rarest sort of science journalist because he wasn’t merely a cheerleader:

…while the traditon of science journalism was to see its role as a cheering section, Greenberg reckoned that the proper place of science in a democratic polity could only be served if science was, and was seen to be, called to account in the same way as other recipients of public largesse. No one has ever performed that function as well as Dan Greenberg, and depressingly few science journalists have even tried. [bold added]

In the final pages of the book, Greenberg recalls that his work was not well received by scientists or the scientific press. He recounts how, back in 1967, just prior to its publication, a physicist who’d read an advance copy asked to meet with him:

Informing me that he had been commissioned as a reviewer by Scientific American, Victor Weisskopf, a revered figure of the physics establishment, asked me to meet him in Cambridge…When I arrived, he waved a sheaf of proofs and, with the assertivness of a prof turning back a deficient term paper, declared that changes would be necessary. If not carried out, he intimated, his Scientific American review would reflect that failure. Had he found errors? I asked. No, he acknowledged. Rather he wanted the work “toned down” because “it makes us look bad.” Science is a politically delicate enterprise, he explained, and might be harmed by the book’s description of its inner workings. At that time, with six or seven years of experience in reporting on the scientific community, I was familiar with what I faced: the belief that anything but reverence for science and its practitioners constituted hostility. The conversation essentially ended there. [bold added, page 301]

Forty-four years later, little seems to have changed. Anyone who expresses concern over the behaviour (not to mention the judgment and conclusions) of climate scientists now gets dismissed as anti-science. Activist scientist Joe Romm, for example, makes a habit of this. And Chris Mooney – a journalist who’s supposed to be helping scientists hone their communication skills -  isn’t much much better. (See also here, here, and here.)

Earth to scientists (and their cheerleaders): these are childish arguments. They are also ineffective. You’re supposed to be some of our finest minds. Isn’t it time to try a different approach?

.

Activists are therefore the furthest thing from neutral parties. They have a right to participate in discussions about climate change, but we all need to understand that when they do so they are advancing an agenda.

Since agendas and science don’t mix, environmentalists should keep their distance from activities that are supposed to be scientific. Their mere presence undermines the integrity of the research. It casts a shadow over the data and calls into question the conclusions.

But activists have not kept their distance from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) even though this body claims to be a scientific organization. Nor has the IPCC taken steps to safeguard its reputation by keeping a strict separation between itself and green groups.

This is perhaps best illustrated by a Greenpeace climate change publication that appeared in early 2007. The foreword to this document, which focused on New Zealand, was written by none other than Rajendra Pachauri. At the end of his remarks, beside his photograph, he is identified not as a private individual expressing private opinions but as the chairman of the IPCC.

I’ve mentioned previously that the fact that Richard Klein worked as a Greenpeace campaigner at age 23 was no impediment to the IPCC appointing him a lead author at age 25. I’ve also drawn attention to the fact that some of those who’ve served as IPCC expert reviewers are actually Greenpeace employees.

But the cozy relationship doesn’t end there. Bill Hare has been a Greenpeace spokesperson since 1992. By 2000 he was climate policy director for Greenpeace International. According to various Greenpeace blog posts he is “a legend” in that organization, served as its chief climate negotiator in 2007, and remains a chief policy advisor. Yet none of this has prevented him from being nominated – and chosen – to fill senior IPCC roles.

In 2000 policy director Hare served as an expert reviewer for an influential IPCC emissions scenarios document. When the 2007 edition of the climate bible was released, we learned that he’d served as a lead author, that he’d been an expert reviewer for 2 out of 3 sections of the report (see here and here), and that he was one of a select group of only 40 people who comprised the “core writing team” for the important Synthesis Report.

Hare has once again been appointed a lead author for the upcoming version of the climate bible, expected to be released in 2013 (see p. 8 of this 27-page PDF).

It’s worth noting that the IPCC is less-than-candid about his Greenpeace ties. The 2007 climate bible says he’s affiliated with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. When the IPCC announced, last June, the list of authors for the version of the climate bible currently in progress the Potsdam Institute was once again used as cover. Since Hare is, in fact, a visiting researcher at the institute the IPCC hasn’t lied.

But imagine you’re an accident victim on the side of the road. You’re told not to worry, that the person who’s going to remain with you until the ambulance arrives is trained in first aid. What you aren’t told is that they’re also a vampire and that the blood seeping from your leg will be difficult for them to resist.

In 2009 EcoEquity, an activist think tank, observed that both Hare and a person named Malte have both “long been key members of the Greenpeace International climate team.” Indeed, Malte Meinshausen‘s Greenpeace ties stretch back to June 2001 when he and Hare co-authored a Greenpeace analysis related to the Kyoto Protocol. Throughout 2002 and 2003 Meinshausen’s name, often accompanied by a Greenpeace e-mail address, appeared on a number of Greenpeace statements and press releases (see here, here, and here).

But these facts did not prevent him from being recruited as a contributing author to not one, not two, but three chapters of the 2007 climate bible. Like Klein, above, Meinshausen’s participation is yet more proof that some IPCC authors are anything but world-class experts at the height of their careers. Meinshausen only received his doctorate in 2005.

A number of passages in the 2007 climate bible blandly cite research papers authored by Hare and Meinshausen as though it’s immaterial that they are Greenpeace personnel (see here and here, for example). Indeed, the IPCC goes so far as to reprint a graph that first appeared in a paper for which these two men are the sole authors.

And people wonder why the IPCC’s reputation has sunk so low.

.

click to enlarge - see end of this post for a link to the original

Steven Goddard over at his RealScience blog recently dug up a news clipping from 1983. That’s 27 years ago – and a full five years prior to the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

These days we’re advised that the reason we should believe climate change is a serious problem is because IPCC reports say so. We’re told that, after careful examination of the evidence, in 2007 thousands of the world’s smartest scientists concluded that recent warming (during the last third of the past 150 years) is very likely the result of human activities.

However this article – distributed by the reputable New York Times news service – demonstrates that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had already made up its mind a quarter-century before that. Back in 1983 newspaper readers were advised that global warming wasn’t a trivial matter, that “major changes” were inevitable, and that some of these changes would be evident as early as 1990.

This jibes with a remark meteorologist Richard Somerville made to a committee of the US Congress last week [41-page PDF here]. Even though the IPCC – which Somerville has participated in – only announced its finding in 2007, Somerville declared on page 25 of his written testimony: “We scientists have been aware of [the urgent, human-caused global warming problem] for more than 30 years.” As proof, he cites a research paper from 1978.

Back in 1983, the journalist who wrote the article for the New York Times observed:

…private scientists have made similar predictions for years…

But 30 years prior to the IPCC’s 2007 findings, the evidence that global warming was the fault of humans was surely rather scant. I mean, the IPCC took two decades and conducted four full assessments before arriving at its current milquetoast conclusion. Nevertheless, scientists in the 1970s and 1980s were prepared to frighten the public with dramatic statements. How do we know the scientists of our era are any different?

Then there’s this sentence from the 1983 news story, which makes me feel like I’m reading a contemporary news article:

…the report was reviewed by about 100 scientists before publication and most of the criticism was that the projections of the amount of warming were “too conservative.”

As the head of the United Nations Environmental Programme observed last year, IPCC reports have frequently been criticized (by activists and activist scientists) as being too conservative. Here’s an example from December 2008 that says the IPCC’s sea level rise numbers are too conservative. Here’s another from December 2009.

The title of this blog post asks Was the fix in before the IPCC existed? In order to make that determination, I think we need to consider the following:

• some scientists, including some connected to influential government bodies such as the EPA, have long believed that human-produced carbon dioxide emissions will lead to dangerous global warming
• these beliefs extend back to at least the 1970s (see here as well)
• how can we be sure that that such matters were examined in a genuinely objective manner by the IPCC?
• how do we know the IPCC wasn’t dominated, from the very start, by people already committed to this point-of-view?
• what concrete steps did the IPCC take to acknowledge – and guard against – this pre-existing point-of-view?
• does anyone really believe that a scientist employed by the EPA would reach a conclusion that conflicts with what seems to have been the EPA’s global warming position since 1983?

.

see the 1983 news clipping here

another version appears here

.

This gentleman has 30 years of research experience. His expertise is in “arctic tundra and north temperate forest ecology and biogeochemistry.” He is currently the director of a field station near the Great Lakes Basin “which hosts researchers from around the world.” He is also a professor at the University of Michigan.

All of this is, indeed, worthy of respect. Moreover one of the concerns raised by Nadelhoffer in his presentation does sound disturbing. In his words:

Lake Superior is warming at an alarming rate; Average water temperature increased by 4.5 °F from 1979 to 2006, or approximately 0.2 °F per year during this 28-year interval (Austin & Coleman, 2007)…Given the huge volume of water in this lake, the energy required to raise temperatures this quickly is stunning. [bold added]

But notice his use of theatrical language – alarming and stunning. Notice, also, that he cites only one research paper rather than a number of studies that all found the same thing. I get nervous when people base dramatic claims on a single piece of research.

The abstract of the paper in question is here. The first line of it reads::

Lake Superior summer (July–September) surface water temperatures have increased approximately 2.5°C over the interval 1979–2006, equivalent to a rate of (11 ± 6) × 10⁻²°C yr⁻¹, significantly in excess of regional atmospheric warming. [bold added]

I’m not a scientist, but I think it matters that this paper addresses only summer temperatures rather than year-round ones. I also think it matters that the paper deals with surface temperatures. By mentioning “the huge volume of water” in Lake Superior Nadelhoffer has left the impression that the entire lake has warmed by that amount. But this paper does not make that claim.

I would never have thought to check the above reference had it not been for the fact that Nadelhoffer makes numerous other statements that seem questionable to me. For example, he declares:

We know the climate is changing. It is real, it is happening…

So? Twenty thousand years ago 97% of Canada was covered by ice. That ice melted and shrank all on its own. The Egyptian pharaohs, remember, only came into the picture 5,000 years ago, while the Romans ruled 2,000 years ago. The mere fact that the climate is changing doesn’t mean squat.

Now here’s where the tundra specialist reaches well beyond his expertise and becomes a political advocate:

…the science has become essentially irrefutable on this point – rising concentrations of greenhouse gases…in the atmosphere, resulting from fossil fuel combustion and other human activities, are the primary drivers of these recent changes in the climate system. There are no other viable, science-based explanations for the effects we are seeing…we cannot ignore what the science is telling us about these changes any longer. This sentiment is supported by nearly 149 (as of March 5) scientists from Michigan who have signed a letter appended to my testimony. [bold added]

So in one breath he says the science is irrefutable. In the next he says human-produced greenhouse gases are at fault because we can’t think of any other explanation. And then he announces that we shouldn’t ignore what the science is telling us.

I’m sorry, but the logic here is rather strained. Just because we puny humans – who’ve only been studying this 4.5-billion-year-old planet in a systematic way for a few hundred years – haven’t found another explanation does not mean the answer is obvious or that the case is closed. The notion that 149 other Michigan scientists support this feeble sort of reasoning does not inspire confidence in the intellectual depth of this particular American state.

Nadelhoffer then talks about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC). He tells the committee that the IPCC’s 2007 report:

…involved over 500 expert lead authors (including 5 from Michigan) and more than 2000 reviewers (myself included).

As readers of this blog know, it turns out that some IPCC lead authors aren’t experts at all (see here and here). Moreover, it doesn’t matter how many reviewers there were. What’s important is whether or not anyone took their remarks seriously.

As an InterAcademy Council report on the IPCC observed last August, there’s nothing in IPCC procedures that prevents authors from ignoring comments submitted by reviewers. The embarrassing Himalayan glacier error could have been avoided had the IPCC merely paid attention to the reviewers who did, in fact, point it out.

Nadelhoffer continues by declaring that the climate needs to be stabilized. Tell that to the ice sheets that used to blanket Canada. In a presentation 14 double-spaced pages in length this ecologist has a great deal to say about something else that is, frankly, well beyond his purvue (bold added by me):

Congress, likewise, should support efforts to limit human-caused climate change, namely fossil fuel emissions…

…limiting and eventually reducing greenhouse gas emissions…

…if we continue on our current emissions path.

…unless we act to stabilize and reduce GHG emissions.

…we must start now to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions…

…if we do not act to mitigate and reduce emissions.

…strong federal policies to reduce fossil fuel emissions.

…regulatory policies to limit harmful greenhouse gas emissions…

It is the proper role of a scientist to observe, record, and interpret data. It is not the role of any scientist in any field to to promote one solution above all others. Scientists worthy of the name do not behave as if there were only one response to a problem.

What are our full range of options? What are the strengths and shortcomings of each? What tradeoffs seem reasonable? How should we prioritize present challenges versus theoretical harm in the theoretical future? All of these questions should be part of a collective conversation in which the entire electorate has a voice. It is not the role of scientists to decide amongst themselves how we should all proceed.

I’m afraid that Nadelhoffer pushed me right over the edge when, toward the end of his presentation, he said:

As a scientist I cannot ignore what solid and rigorous research is telling me every day…Science is not a partisan endeavor.

Actually, sir, the scientific method is not partisan. But human beings frequently are. And those who dress-up their personal worldview as non-partisan science deserve to be scorned.

.

hearing main page

Nadelhoffer’s written testimony [backup link]

.

.

IPCC AR5 authors – click to enlarge

The American wing of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has a page on its website about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That page contains an image which, while on the small side, is interesting nonetheless [backup link here].

This is a formal photograph of what appear to be 20 of the IPCC’s most senior personnel. Apparently taken in conjunction with the Nobel Peace Prize celebrations, the accompanying caption reads:

The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize recognized climate change as one of the great destabilizing forces of our era. Dr. Richard Moss (second row center) is WWF’s lead on climate change and a long-term member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the prize with Gore. [bold added]

Moss’ WWF bio says he’s been involved with the IPCC since 1993. A press release says he became a WWF Vice President in 2007. It furthers says:

Moss joins WWF from the United Nations Foundation where he was the Senior Director for Climate Change and Energy. Since 1993, he has played many roles in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and is a key part of the team that was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize… [bold added]

Ah, yes, the United Nations Foundation. That’s the charity headed by media mogul Ted Turner, the compassionate soul who recently declared that China’s brutal and coercive one-child policies should be exported to other countries to help curb global population growth. According to its website, the purpose of the UN Foundation is to support “UN causes.”

All of this raises some puzzling questions:

1. How can Moss – who has cashed paycheques from a charity dedicated to advancing the UN’s agenda and from an activist group whose fundraising prospects are connected to the public’s sense of alarm – be regarded as a dispassionate and neutral scientist?
2. Although some of Moss’ work is cited by the 2007 climate bible, he doesn’t appear to have been a member of any of the author teams for any of the 44 chapters of that report. So why was he considered a key part of the team that was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize? Why does he appear in that photograph?
3. Why did a VP of the WWF attend an IPCC workshop in Berlin last November? Why was Moss’ WWF affiliation not declared in that context? Why does the workshop documentation instead say he’s affiliated with the Joint Global Change Research Institute?
4. Now comes the million dollar question: What is a VP of the WWF doing serving as a Review Editor for Working Group 2, Chapter 15 of the latest edition of the climate bible – the one that is being written as we speak? [see page 13 of this 27-page PDF]
5. When the IPCC announced the list of people participating in the AR5 (Assessment Report 5) last June why did it not reveal that the WWF is Moss’ employer? Why did the IPCC tell us, instead, that he’s affiliated with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory?

.

BONUS READING: I find Moss’ testimony (12-page PDF) to a US Senate committee in November 2007 troubling. It suggests that senior scientists see their government positions, their academic positions, IPCC activities, employment with the United Nations, and employment with activist groups as being all interconnected and pretty much equivalent.

To me, this suggests that activist scientists are far from rare. It appears that activism has become the new normal.

.

A week ago Jonathan Jones, a physics professor at Oxford University, submitted a remarkable comment over at the Bishop Hill blog. He’s hero #1 of this post, and I’ve taken the liberty of reprinting the bulk of his remarks further down.

But first, a bit of background. Over the past week there has been a great deal of discussion in the climate blogosphere about the “hide the decline” controversy (see Judith Curry’s blog, which started it all, beginning here).

Hide the decline is a phrase that surfaced in one of the better known Climategate e-mails. It refers to the decision by prominent climate scientists to slice off the final section of a temperature graph that had been constructed from tree ring proxy data and to paste in thermometer readings instead.

The tree ring data showed the line on the graph pointing downward. The pasted-in thermometer readings showed the line on the graph pointing upward (hence hide the decline). Even though this substitution altered the graph significantly, the scientists who implemented the cut-and-paste didn’t alert people to the fact that they had done so. Readers of the 2001 and 2007 editions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, for example, were not advised that this change had been made.

In the words of Steven Mosher and Thomas Fuller in Climategate: The CRUtape Letters:

A picture is worth a thousand words. And in their publications to policy makers [the climate scientists] published a misleading graphic and excused this by providing references to papers that tried to explain the issue. No one but the most careful readers…would catch this trick, for it would require the kind of familiarity with the underlying data that only a scientist current in the field would catch. (pp. 153-154)

Physics professor Richard Muller of the University of California Berkeley is hero #2 of this blog post. He explains these matters in the excellent 5-minute YouTube clip that appears above. (It’s excerpted from a 52-minute presentation here). Muller show us what the two graphs, based on the two different data sources, look like. They are dramatically different.

In Muller’s words, the cut-and-paste scientists deceived the public – and other scientists. Adding insult to injury, when outsiders asked to see the data that had been sliced off, these scientists refused to disclose it. Eventually, however, it did become available. Muller is adamant that the cut-and-paste maneuver was inappropriate. As he says in the video:

The justification would not have survived peer review in any journal that I’m willing to publish in. But they had it well hidden…And what is the result in my mind? Quite frankly, as a scientist, I now have a list of people whose papers I won’t read anymore. You’re not allowed to do this in science. This is not up to our standards. I get infuriated with colleagues of mine who say, “Well, you know, it’s a human field. You make mistakes.” And then I show them this and they say “Ah, no, that’s not acceptable.” [bold added]

Below, hero #1 Jonathan Jones does a decent job of explaining why other scientists have been so hesitant to condemn these climate scientists. His second and third paragraphs also go some way to restoring my faith, since I am one individual who presently feels horribly let down by the scientific community: