CLIMATE CONFERENCE FACES BRUSH WITH REALITY: “In case you missed it – and judging by the complete lack of coverage on the cable news networks you may very well have – there was yet another climate conference held this week in Bonn, Germany. But rather than the usual singing in the round of Bob Dylan tunes and boisterous plans to alter the world, there was a decidedly depressed tone to the discussions. It’s not that they’ve suddenly begun to question their previously held beliefs concerning anthropogenic global warming, (AGW) but rather a grim realization that most of the nations involved are a bit too busy making sure their economies don’t collapse to dump a significant portion of their GDP into carbon emission control. . . . The other problem causing the talks to essentially fall apart until their next meeting in December was the lack of buy-in by both China and some developing countries. Even if China participates, they are insisting on a ‘trust me’ approach where no outside verification of compliance would be allowed.” Yeah, that’ll work.
Related: Climate change panel in hot water again over ‘biased’ energy report.
The world’s foremost authority on climate change used a Greenpeace campaigner to help write one of its key reports, which critics say made misleading claims about renewable energy, The Independent has learnt.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up by the UN in 1988 to advise governments on the science behind global warming, issued a report last month suggesting renewable sources could provide 77 per cent of the world’s energy supply by 2050. But in supporting documents released this week, it emerged that the claim was based on a real-terms decline in worldwide energy consumption over the next 40 years – and that the lead author of the section concerned was an employee of Greenpeace. Not only that, but the modelling scenario used was the most optimistic of the 164 investigated by the IPCC.
Critics said the decision to highlight the 77 per cent figure showed a bias within the IPCC against promoting potentially carbon-neutral energies such as nuclear fuel. One climate change sceptic said it showed the body was not truly independent and relied too heavily on green groups for its evidence.
Also: Changing Tides: Research Center Under Fire for ‘Adjusted’ Sea-Level Data.
And: Rex Murphy: Climate Scientists Make A Mockery Of The Peer-Review Process. “Much of what the world bizarrely allows to be called climate ‘science’ is a closet-game, an in-group referring to and reinforcing its own members. The insiders keep out those seen as interlopers and critics, vilify dissenters and labour to maintain a proprietary hold on the entire vast subject. It has been described very precisely as a ‘climate-assessment oligarchy.’ Less examined, or certainly less known to the general public, is how this in-group loops around itself. How the outside advocates buttress the inside scientists, and even — this is particularly noxious — how the outside advocates, the non-scientists, themselves become inside authorities. . . . A report on renewables, by the Renewable Energy Council of Europe, and Greenpeace, peer-reviewed by the man who wrote it. . . . Kind people may put this down to pure sloppiness on the part of the IPCC. Coming after its disastrous handling of the Himalayan glacier melt, however, it looks to me more like deliberate mischief. The IPCC cannot be that stupid by chance.”
You know, I’m entirely ready to believe that CO2 emissions are having an effect on the climate. But the scientists involved aren’t acting as if they’re confident in letting the data speak for themselves, which is a big deal since they’re asking us to make enormous economic sacrifices based on what they’ve predicted. If, say, pharmaceutical companies were caught doing the same kinds of things, the politicians and the news media would be after their scalps.
Meanwhile, for the political leaders, well, I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis. Until they start foregoing private jets and beachside mansions, it’s going to be hard for me to take their calls for sacrifice on my part seriously.