Climate Corruption

[Kilbourne]

The IPCC has been thoroughly reviewed now and each and every error analyzed.

Lynn, you can’t possibly believe that.

 

[moster]

You have two sides leaning to their extremes - the truth lies some where in the middle - they both have their ownBeats by Dre solo hd agendas with neither hitting the mark 100 percen

 

[Kilbourne]

Let’s first assume he made honest mistakes in defending the glaciergate mistake. He also is NOT a glaciologist. And he simply came into the IPCC group after the other chair was forced out, and I’m sure did not know all the ins and outs of IPCC operations.

Dr P was appointed honcho of the IPCC ins April of 2002. Yet in 2008 he told the North Carolina legistlature:

…we carry out an assessment of climate change based on peer-reviewed literature, so everything that we look at and take into account in our assessments has to carry the credibility of peer-reviewed publications, we don’t settle for anything less than that.[bold added–from Laframboise, p. 39}

So it appears that 6 years after his appointment, he still didn’t know how his organization operated and was seriously misrepresenting its scientific credentials.
[/quote]

 

[Kilbourne]

There is more to the problem than just the % of peer-reviewed material used in its reports. As noted before, it is also that the IPCC doesn’t do its own due diligence. It just accepts them at face value. This is a very dangerous practice, given what we know of the limitations of peer-review. Look what happened with Mann’s Hockey Stick.

Also the IPCC’s own “peer-review process” is deeply flawed. In normal peer-review independent and anonymous reviewers issue comments to the author who then has to respond to them. In the IPCC process, reviewers are known to the drafters of the reports being reviewed, and the authors themselves choose what comments to incorporated or ignore. They can actually summarily reject reviewers comments! This actually stands peer-review on its head. And up until recently, the recorded interaction between authors and reviewers was not available to the public.

 

[Kilbourne]

And there’s more troubling aspects of the IPCC process illustrated by the following:

1. Significant alterations to the 1995 AR were made after the text had been approved by the contributing scientists.
2. In 2007, before the 4th AR was published and the underlying chapters completed, the IPCC started releasing excerpts from its summary and synthesis reports. How is that even possible? Then there is pressure exerted on authors to conform their work to the summaries. This practice appears to built into standard procedure. Columnist Melanie Philips wrote this concerning this corrupt practice: “But here’s the really wicked thing. It appears that the IPCC intends to make the scientists falsify the science.” she quotes an appendix on the actual IPCC procedures:

The content of the authored chapters is the responsiblity of the Lead Authors, subject to the Working Group or Panel acceptance. Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes0 made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter [BF added]

www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1457

 

[lynnvinc]

Dr P was appointed honcho of the IPCC ins April of 2002. Yet in 2008 he told the North Carolina legistlature:

Quote:
…we carry out an assessment of climate change based on peer-reviewed literature, so everything that we look at and take into account in our assessments has to carry the credibility of peer-reviewed publications, we don’t settle for anything less than that.[bold added–from Laframboise, p. 39}

So it appears that 6 years after his appointment, he still didn’t know how his organization operated and was seriously misrepresenting its scientific credentials.

One needs to read the reports – the WGI Science chapters – before they can figure out what these are based on. And they most certainly are based on peer-reviewed studies. If you look at the very tiny proportion of non-peer-reviewed studies, you will see that they too are of high quality, and many of them (such as books or other synthesis reports ) based largely on peer-reviewed studies, or actual data reports generated by scientists.

And as I mentioned it is scientists themselves who are inspecting what to include, so de facto there is another layer of pee-review.

Donna here is the one making a false claim. Where do you find these people?
[/quote]

 

[Kilbourne]

1. And then there’s problem of the summaries making claims not supported by the underlying reports, flawed as they may be.

So we have plenty justification for doubting the scientific claims of the IPCC based on how it goes about its business.

 

[lynnvinc]

Quote:
The IPCC has been thoroughly reviewed now and each and every error analyzed.

Lynn, you can’t possibly believe that.

What would lead one to think it has not been reviewed after the hullabaloo that was raised?

Here are some reviews and assessments of the errors, plus some assessments of the “climategate” false allegations:

• Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. 2010. Assessing an IPCC Assessment: An Analysis of Statement on Projected Regional Impacts in the 2007 Report. The Hague: Bilthoven. pbl.nl/sites/default/files/cms/publicaties/500216002.pdf, which found: “Overall the summary conclusions are considered well founded and none were found to contain any significant errors” (but did suggest improvements for future reports so that the non-signficant errors it evaluated would not be made again).
• Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, EPA’s Denial of Petitions for Reconsideration, Volume 2: Issues Raised by Petitioners on EPA’s Use of IPCC, epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/petitions/volume2.html
• Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, EPA’s Denial of Petitions for Reconsideration, Volume 1: Climate Science and Data Issues Raised by Petitioners, epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/petitions/volume1.html
• IPCC errors: facts and spin, realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/ipcc-errors-facts-and-spin/

You can believe what you want to about climate scientists, the IPCC, and our moral responsibility re AGW. It’s a free country. As for me and my house we will serve the Lord by mitigating AGW, among other things.

 

[Kilbourne]

One needs to read the reports – the WGI Science chapters – before they can figure out what these are based on. And they most certainly are based on peer-reviewed studies. If you look at the very tiny proportion of non-peer-reviewed studies, you will see that they too are of high quality, and many of them (such as books or other synthesis reports ) based largely on peer-reviewed studies, or actual data reports generated by scientists.

And as I mentioned it is scientists themselves who are inspecting what to include, so de facto there is another layer of pee-review.

Donna here is the one making a false claim. Where do you find these people?

Hi Lynn,

Are you denying Dr. P said those words? checkitout: docs.google.com/file/d/0BwKfjKsXaxaGNTcyODQ3ZGUtNGRmNS00MjI0LTlhNzctMjFjMjNiMDEyY2Rh/edit?hl=en&pli=1

Let’s admit that Dr. P exaggerated the extent to which the IPCC uses peer-reviewed lit. 70%, while pretty good, is not 100%. And if it ain’t 100% he shouldn’t say so. It undermines his credibility.

 

[lynnvinc]

Hi Lynn,

Are you denying Dr. P said those words? checkitout: docs.google.com/file/d/0BwKfjKsXaxaGNTcyODQ3ZGUtNGRmNS00MjI0LTlhNzctMjFjMjNiMDEyY2Rh/edit?hl=en&pli=1

Let’s admit that Dr. P exaggerated the extent to which the IPCC uses peer-reviewed lit. 70%, while pretty good, is not 100%. And if it ain’t 100% he shouldn’t say so. It undermines his credibility.

Don’t have time to read thru 12 pp of something. But I’m pretty sure if Dr. Pachauri said some mistaken thing, he probably believed it, and only later found out it was a mistake. To imput evil motives to people is really going beyond our Christian pale.

Now I do know that someone, perhaps the man who made the glacier mistake, said he wanted to impress people with the dire problem and its urgency. But that does not mean he knew the 2035 date was wrong, and purposely lied, only that he really did think the situation up extreme urgency…threatening his own people, BTW.

Now to be fair, the matter is of utmost urgency, since we are approaching tipping points into serious problems that could go for 1000s of years, and it will take decades for us to shift to a lower GHG-intensive lifestyle and economy. I and my husband have already done so, but it’s taken us 20 years to get there. So while the glaciers may not all melt by 2035, within that time frame we could push the system into (or near to) climate hysteresis (like the PETM or end-Permian in which a large portion of life on earth died) or even runaway warming (in such all life will die…over the centuries and millennia our AGW takes to fully play out).

Why do people who (I’m assuming) are not evil genocidal death-purveyors want to risk this, especially when the solutions could help them save money and strengthen our economy, and also solve many other environmental problems. Why do people insist on following a lose-lose-lose-BIG-LOSE situation over a win-win-win-win-win situation? It’s just way beyond my imagination. WHY???

 

[Kilbourne]

Why do people who (I’m assuming) are not evil genocidal death-purveyors want to risk this, especially when the solutions could help them save money and strengthen our economy, and also solve many other environmental problems. Why do people insist on following a lose-lose-lose-BIG-LOSE situation over a win-win-win-win-win situation? It’s just way beyond my imagination. WHY???

This is off topic, but I think you deserve a response. I have become convinced that human emissions will not cause catastrophic global warming. Of course I have uncertainty about this, and I have come to terms with the so-called uncertainty principle, which I reject. Here is why: there are risks and costs associated with acting in accordance with the uncertainty principle which also have to be considered. When I do so, all doubts are resolved in favor of doing nothing drastic about cutting humanity’s CO2 emissions, except maybe “no-regrets” kinds of things we would do anyway, like conservation and tree planting.

 

[Kilbourne]

Here are some reviews and assessments of the errors, plus some assessments of the “climategate” false allegations:
Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. 2010. Assessing an IPCC Assessment: An Analysis of Statement on Projected Regional Impacts in the 2007 Report. The Hague: Bilthoven. pbl.nl/sites/default/file…/500216002.pdf, which found: “Overall the summary conclusions are considered well founded and none were found to contain any significant errors” (but did suggest improvements for future reports so that the non-signficant errors it evaluated would not be made again).
Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, EPA’s Denial of Petitions for Reconsideration, Volume 2: Issues Raised by Petitioners on EPA’s Use of IPCC, epa.gov/climatechange/endange…s/volume2.html
Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, EPA’s Denial of Petitions for Reconsideration, Volume 1: Climate Science and Data Issues Raised by Petitioners, epa.gov/climatechange/endange…s/volume1.html
IPCC errors: facts and spin, realclimate.org/index.php…acts-and-spin/

Hi Lynn,

Thanks for the above cites. The realclimate one let me to the review comments and responses. One very interesting one by a guy named Richard Courtney, who made a comment about the draft’s uncritical and faith-based trust in peer-review. He cited Mann’s “discredited” study getting through peer-review as an example. The comment was “rejected because inaccurate.” The author added that Mann’s study still stands after some changes, which I know is not true. Dr. Wegman and the separate National Academy of Science committee (friendly to Mann) both agreed that Mann’s methodology was fatally flawed in MBH98.

Mann’s failings and bad behavior are well-documented, and to have them not acknowledged during the review process speaks volumes.

 

[Kilbourne]

The EPA’s Denial of Petitions is also illustrative because of items like this:

Comment (2-31):
Peabody Energy claims that the IPCC’s peer review process is less robust and credible than the processes employed by scientific journals because IPCC lead and contributing authors are the ones who decide whether to accept or reject critical reviews. The petitioner argues that the IPCC’s process is flawed because there is no neutral scientist, who was not involved in the writing, to ensure that the reviews are judged objectively.

Response (2-31):
First, we note that the petitioner provides no new information to substantiate their allegation, and that Peabody Energy’s argument regarding the rigor of the IPCC’s peer review does not accurately describe the actual review process used by the IPCC. As described above in Subsection 2.2.2 (Background) of this volume, lead and contributing authors are indeed tasked with initially responding to comments; however, independent and objective review editors (i.e., editors not involved in the writing of the chapter) are assigned to each chapter to ensure that each comment is addressed properly and accurately. Furthermore, the contributing authors are not allowed to simply reject critical reviews without documenting their rationale. The IPCC carefully documented all comments received on the first and second order drafts of each chapter of each working group. These comments and responses are, and have always been, publically available (IPCC, 2006a for Working Group I and IPCC, 2005 for Working Group II).

First off, while it may be true that comments and responses for AR4 were “public”, they weren’t put online until something like 2007. And what about the the comments and responses for the earlier assessment reports? May have been public but definitely not accessible.

Secondly, the EPA in this instance and others that I read is simply parroting the IPCC’s own description of its processes while ignoring what its own participants are telling them is actually going on.

Anway, 'snot surprising the Obama adminstration, populated as it is with activists, defended the IPCC.

 

[lynnvinc]

This is off topic, but I think you deserve a response. I have become convinced that human emissions will not cause catastrophic global warming. Of course I have uncertainty about this, and I have come to terms with the so-called uncertainty principle, which I reject. Here is why: there are risks and costs associated with acting in accordance with the uncertainty principle which also have to be considered. When I do so, all doubts are resolved in favor of doing nothing drastic about cutting humanity’s CO2 emissions, except maybe “no-regrets” kinds of things we would do anyway, like conservation and tree planting.

That’s really great. That’s all I’ve every asked of anyone. And that all we’ve ever pursued – no-regrets, cost-effective, money saving measures, and we’ve been able to reduce our GHG emissions by 60-70% below our 1990 emission levels, while enhancing and increasing our living standards some.

My husband, who grew up in poverty and who does believe AGW is real, but not our extreme business since we don’t have kids, did not want to sacrifice in any way. And that turned out to be for the very best, because I WAS willing to sacrifice, downsize our lifestyle, become like Poor Clares, etc. – which was also my call to a simple and holy life, not just a call to do the EC (environmentally correct) thing. I suppose had I grown up a Catholic, I may have become a nun.

So here we are saving money hand over fist, $1000s over the past 22 years, and that’s not counting our other environmental measure of always living within 1 to 2 miles of work, which we’ve done since the oil crunch in the 70s, when I became aware of entropy and peak oil. The fact that we were not blessed with children does not stop me from doing right by the children of the world.

So since a country like America could reduce its GHG emissions by even 75% or more without reducing productivity or lifestyle just through energy/resource efficiency/conservation, reduce-reuse-recycle, plus a modicum of alt energy – see rmi.org and natcap.org – why hasn’t that happened? It’s not bec Americans are money-saving-conscious. They are not, and “there is no such thing as an economically rational man.” To me it seems it is because we are spend-thrifts, uneconomical, and profligate in the extreme.

And to boot we have this pathological fear of economic collapse if we do the environmentally correct thing. I’m developing this theory as I write – heart of hearts I think we understand the world to be corrupt and evil, and if we want to get our share of the pie, we also have to do bad. Maybe that’s buried deep within our subconsciousness. The idea that saving the earth would also make us rich (by preventing us from wasting our money) is totally illogical in that world-view. It just doesn’t compute.

When I hear that people are against Cap&Trade and Fee&Dividend or removing the subsidies and tax-breaks from fossil fuels because they fear their energy costs will be going up, I think, they’ve missed to whole idea. The idea is that since they are NOT implementing the off-the-shelf and in-our-knowledge measures that reduce their energy/resource consumption without lowering their living standards, then perhaps raising the costs of being profligate a tad (not nearly as much as the natural market does) that will jump-start people to get onto the road of becoming more efficient/conservative. The point is they are not going to do this even if it means they will burn up the world and go to hell. For the American people, that is their extreme (perhaps unconscious) stand. Bec (I’m trying to figure this out here) in their deepest knowledge and awareness and subconscious they believe only evil will triumph and they want to be on that triumphant bandwagon. They totally disbelieve the Bible, no matter how firmly they clutch it, esp what Jesus said about “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all things will be added unto you.”

I too disbelieved it, quite frankly, until I found out over the past 22 years that it is completely true.

If AGW is a hoax – and I firmly believe it is not a hoax, but a real threat, and we are in the beginning stages of reaping negative consequences in the more intense and often more frequent heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires, disease spread, tornados/hurricanes, etc, with much worse to expect in the future for 100s, if not 1000s of years – then it would be the most beneficial hoax ever (if people would believe it and act to mitigate it), greatly helping our economy and solving many other environmental problems – local pollution, acid rain, ocean acidification, etc – and conflicts over oil and other resources.

 

[Kilbourne]

WRT the Melanie Phillips article, I did locate the source here: epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/rtc_volume_1_app_a.pdf

It is part of the PRINCIPLES GOVERNING IPCC WORK
Approved at the Fourteenth Session (Vienna, 1-3 October 1998) on 1 October 1998, amended at the 21st Session (Vienna, 3 and 6-7 November 2003) and at the 25th Session (Mauritius, 26-28 April 2006)

It says:

Reports to be accepted by the Working Groups, and reports prepared by the Task Force on National Greenhouse
Gas Inventories will undergo expert and government/expert reviews. The purpose of these reviews is to ensure
that the Reports present a comprehensive, objective, and balanced view of the areas they cover. While the large
volume and technical detail of this material places practical limitations upon the extent to which changes to these
Reports will normally be made at Sessions of Working Groups or the Panel, “acceptance” signifies the view of
the Working Group or the Panel that this purpose has been achieved. The content of the authored chapters is the
responsibility of the Lead Authors, subject to Working Group or Panel acceptance. Changes (other than
grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those
necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter. These changes
shall be identified by the Lead Authors in writing and made available to the Panel at the time it is asked to accept
the Summary for Policymakers, in case of reports prepared by the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas
Inventories by the end of the session of the Panel which adopts/accepts the report.

Someone, please 'splain why the Summary is written before the underlying report.

 

[kama3]

Meanwhile, in the real world: climate over the last 30 years followed Hansen’s 1981 prediction.

climatecrocks.com/2012/04/09/what-we-knew-in-81/

 

[lynnvinc]

WRT the Melanie Phillips article, I did locate the source here: epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/rtc_volume_1_app_a.pdf

It is part of the PRINCIPLES GOVERNING IPCC WORK
Approved at the Fourteenth Session (Vienna, 1-3 October 1998) on 1 October 1998, amended at the 21st Session (Vienna, 3 and 6-7 November 2003) and at the 25th Session (Mauritius, 26-28 April 2006)

It says:

Someone, please 'splain why the Summary is written before the underlying report.

I didn’t know that it was, but I can guess it is because the authors are pretty familiar with the science – which is why they were selected in the first place – and had probably already been reading quite a few of the sources they eventually include in the chapters, so it is very easy to write the summary, and a lot more difficult, tedious, and time-consuming to write the chapters.

I know I sometimes have to write an abstract before I write or finish a paper I’m writing – like when there is a call for papers on a specific topic. Since I know what will be going into the paper, it is not a big deal.

Another reason might be that they have actually written the rough draft of the chapters, but the production of a finished product after that usually takes much more time and effort than writing the rough draft. It’s often when I’ve written a rough draft that I write the abstract, then go on to the really tough work of revising and rewriting the finished product.

Hope that helps your query about how these things work.

The other issue you raise is that the summaries are more extreme than the chapters themselves. Quite frankly I didn’t have much time to read the summaries in the last report, as I have been doing with earlier reports (in which the summaries came across as weak pablum, not at all reflecting the seriousness of the situation) – I understand there was a lot of negative political pressure from the U.S. and Arab countries to water down the earlier IPCC reports.

Perhaps everyone got sick of that and just decided to get right with the magnitude of the problem, risk, and threats – esp since policy-makers and the public who would be reading these reports would be more interested in avoiding the FALSE NEGATIVE of failing to address a serious threat, than the FALSE POSITIVE of making a false claim – which is the standard of science and of the scientific studies on which the IPCC reports are based. The idea is that human welfare and lives are more important than the reputations of scientists.

 

[lynnvinc]

It seems there is a lot of obsessing over IPCC’s AR4. These reports are somewhat outdated by the time they come out, and I’m just waiting for the next report.

The science is building fast. Perhaps a few of newer studies rachet down some IPCC claims, but what I’ve observed over the past 20 or so years is that the newer studies on the whole indicate “it is worse than we thought.” At least that’s how my knowledge of the issue has been changing since the late 80s, early 90s – from a view of relatively slowly encroaching, linear model of harms, mainly in poor countries, to one of a more non-linear situation of greater and greater harms over time to nearly the whole world, if not all of life eventually at risk of perishing.

It’s also important for people to be reading newer studies, along with IPCC’s reports. And if one is suspicious of the summaries, one can read the actual chapters.

 

[lynnvinc]

Here’s some good news for a change. There are some Himalayan glaciers that are actually gaining ice – due to increased precipitation and cooling summers in that area: e360.yale.edu/digest/glaciers_in_asian_range_are_gaining_ice_study_says/3421/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YaleEnvironment360+%28Yale+Environment+360%29