July 16, 2012
IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk
By Joseph L. Bast
On June 27, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a
statement saying it had "complete[d] the process of implementation of a set
of recommendations issued in August 2010 by the InterAcademy Council (IAC),
the group created by the world's science academies to provide advice to
international bodies."
Hidden behind this seemingly routine update on bureaucratic processes is an
astonishing and entirely unreported story. The IPCC is the world's most
prominent source of alarmist predictions and claims about man-made global
warming. Its four reports (a fifth report is scheduled for release in various
parts in 2013 and 2014) are cited by the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) in the U.S. and by national academies of science around the world as
"proof" that the global warming of the past five or so decades was both
man-made and evidence of a mounting crisis.
If the IPCC's reports were flawed, as a many global warming "skeptics" have
long claimed, then the scientific footing of the man-made global warming
movement -- the environmental movement's "mother of all environmental scares"
-- is undermined. The Obama administration's war on coal may be unnecessary.
Billions of dollars in subsidies to solar and wind may have been wasted.
Trillions of dollars of personal income may have been squandered worldwide in
campaigns to "fix" a problem that didn't really exist.
The "recommendations" issued by the IAC were not minor adjustments to a
fundamentally sound scientific procedure. Here are some of the findings of
the IAC's 2010 report.
The IAC reported that IPCC lead authors fail to give "due consideration ...
to properly documented alternative views" (p. 20), fail to "provide detailed
written responses to the most significant review issues identified by the
Review Editors" (p. 21), and are not "consider[ing] review comments carefully
and document[ing] their responses" (p. 22). In plain English: the IPCC
reports are not peer-reviewed.
The IAC found that "the IPCC has no formal process or criteria for selecting
authors" and "the selection criteria seemed arbitrary to many respondents"
(p. 18). Government officials appoint scientists from their countries and "do
not always nominate the best scientists from among those who volunteer,
either because they do not know who these scientists are or because political
considerations are given more weight than scientific qualifications" (p. 18).
In other words: authors are selected from a "club" of scientists and
nonscientists who agree with the alarmist perspective favored by politicians.
The rewriting of the Summary for Policy Makers by politicians and
environmental activists -- a problem called out by global warming realists
for many years, but with little apparent notice by the media or policymakers
-- was plainly admitted, perhaps for the first time by an organization in the
"mainstream" of alarmist climate change thinking. "[M]any were concerned that
reinterpretations of the assessment's findings, suggested in the final
Plenary, might be politically motivated," the IAC auditors wrote. The
scientists they interviewed commonly found the Synthesis Report "too
political" (p. 25).
Really? Too political? We were told by everyone -- environmentalists,
reporters, politicians, even celebrities -- that the IPCC reports were
science, not politics. Now we are told that even the scientists involved in
writing the reports -- remember, they are all true believers in man-made
global warming themselves -- felt the summaries were "too political."
Here is how the IAC described how the IPCC arrives at the "consensus of
scientists":
Plenary sessions to approve a Summary for Policy Makers last for several days
and commonly end with an all-night meeting. Thus, the individuals with the
most endurance or the countries that have large delegations can end up having
the most influence on the report (p. 25).
How can such a process possibly be said to capture or represent the "true
consensus of scientists"?
Another problem documented by the IAC is the use of phony "confidence
intervals" and estimates of "certainty" in the Summary for Policy Makers (pp.
27-34). Those of us who study the IPCC reports knew this was make-believe
when we first saw it in 2007. Work by J. Scott Armstrong on the science of
forecasting makes it clear that scientists cannot simply gather around a
table and vote on how confident they are about some prediction, and then
affix a number to it such as "80% confident." Yet that is how the IPCC
proceeds.
The IAC authors say it is "not an appropriate way to characterize
uncertainty" (p. 34), a huge understatement. Unfortunately, the IAC authors
recommend an equally fraudulent substitute, called "level of understanding
scale," which is more mush-mouth for "consensus."
The IAC authors warn, also on page 34, that "conclusions will likely be
stated so vaguely as to make them impossible to refute, and therefore
statements of 'very high confidence' will have little substantive value."
Yes, but that doesn't keep the media and environmental activists from citing
them over and over again as "proof" that global warming is man-made and a
crisis...even if that's not really what the reports' authors are saying.
Finally, the IAC noted, "the lack of a conflict of interest and disclosure
policy for IPCC leaders and Lead Authors was a concern raised by a number of
individuals who were interviewed by the Committee or provided written input"
as well as "the practice of scientists responsible for writing IPCC
assessments reviewing their own work. The Committee did not investigate the
basis of these claims, which is beyond the mandate of this review" (p. 46).
Too bad, because these are both big issues in light of recent revelations
that a majority of the authors and contributors to some chapters of the IPCC
reports are environmental activists, not scientists at all. That's a
structural problem with the IPCC that could dwarf the big problems already
reported.
So on June 27, nearly two years after these bombshells fell (without so much
as a raised eyebrow by the mainstream media in the U.S. -- go ahead and try
Googling it), the IPCC admits that it was all true and promises to do better
for its next report. Nothing to see here...keep on moving.
Well I say, hold on, there! The news release means that the IAC report was
right. That, in turn, means that the first four IPCC reports were, in fact,
unreliable. Not just "possibly flawed" or "could have been improved," but
likely to be wrong and even fraudulent.
It means that all of the "endorsements" of the climate consensus made by the
world's national academies of science -- which invariably refer to the
reports of the IPCC as their scientific basis -- were based on false or
unreliable data and therefore should be disregarded or revised. It means that
the EPA's "endangerment finding" -- its claim that carbon dioxide is a
pollutant and threat to human health -- was wrong and should be overturned.
And what of the next IPCC report, due out in 2013 and 2014? The near-final
drafts of that report have been circulating for months already. They were
written by scientists chosen by politicians rather than on the basis of
merit; many of them were reviewing their own work and were free to ignore the
questions and comments of people with whom they disagree. Instead of
"confidence," we will get "level of understanding scales" that are just as
meaningless.
And on this basis we should transform the world's economy to run on breezes
and sunbeams?
In 2010, we learned that much of what we thought we knew about global warming
was compromised and probably false. On June 27, the culprits confessed and
promised to do better. But where do we go to get our money back?
Joseph L. Bast (jbast@heartland.org [1]) is president of The Heartland
Institute and an editor of Climate Change Reconsidered, a series of reports
published by The Heartland Institute for the Nongovernmental International
Panel on Climate Change.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/... [2] at July
16, 2012 - 08:51:58 AM CDT
Monday, July 16, 2012
More on the Global Warming Hoax
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Botched Environmental Forecasts
Eight Botched Environmental Forecasts
Published December 30, 2010
| FoxNews.com
As is no longer unusual, the Environmentalists are being proved to not know what they are talking about.
Twentieth Century Fox
The Statue of Liberty, depicted frozen solid in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow." Many weather forecasters and scientists wonder whether a coming period of "global cooling" may be on the way.
A new year is around the corner, and some climate scientists and environmental activists say that means we're one step closer to a climate Armageddon. But are we really?
Predicting the weather -- especially a decade or more in advance -- is unbelievably challenging. What's the track record of those most worried about global warming? Decades ago, what did prominent scientists think the environment would be like in 2010? FoxNews.com has compiled eight of the most egregiously mistaken predictions, and asked the predictors to reflect on what really happened.
1. Within a few years "children just aren't going to know what snow is." Snowfall will be "a very rare and exciting event." Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, interviewed by the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.
Ten years later, in December 2009, London was hit by the heaviest snowfall seen in 20 years. And just last week, a snowstorm forced Heathrow airport to shut down, stranding thousands of Christmas travelers.
A spokesman for the government-funded British Council, where Viner now works as the lead climate change expert, told FoxNews.com that climate science had improved since the prediction was made.
"Over the past decade, climate science has moved on considerably and there is now more understanding about the impact climate change will have on weather patterns in the coming years," British Council spokesman Mark Herbert said. "However, Dr Viner believes that his general predictions are still relevant."
Herbert also pointed to another prediction from Viner in the same article, in which Viner predicted that "heavy snow would return occasionally" and that it would "probably cause chaos in 20 years time." Other scientists said "a few years" was simply too short a time frame for kids to forget what snow was.
"I'd say at some point, say 50 years from now, it might be right. If he said a few years, that was an unwise prediction," said Michael Oppenheimer, director of Princeton University's Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy.
Of course, Oppenheimer himself is known for controversial global warming scenarios.
2. "[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots…[By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers." Michael Oppenheimer, published in "Dead Heat," St. Martin's Press, 1990.
Oppenheimer told FoxNews.com that he was trying to illustrate one possible outcome of failing to curb emissions, not making a specific prediction. He added that the gist of his story had in fact come true, even if the events had not occurred in the U.S.
"On the whole I would stand by these predictions -- not predictions, sorry, scenarios -- as having at least in a general way actually come true," he said. "There's been extensive drought, devastating drought, in significant parts of the world. The fraction of the world that's in drought has increased over that period."
That may be in doubt, however. Data from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center shows that precipitation -- rain and snow -- has increased slightly over the century.
3. "Arctic specialist Bernt Balchen says a general warming trend over the North Pole is melting the polar ice cap and may produce an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the year 2000." Christian Science Monitor, June 8, 1972.
Ice coverage has fallen, though as of last month, the Arctic Ocean had 3.82 million square miles of ice cover -- an area larger than the continental United States -- according to The National Snow and Ice Data Center.
4. "Using computer models, researchers concluded that global warming would raise average annual temperatures nationwide two degrees by 2010." Associated Press, May 15, 1989.
Status of prediction: According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1989. And U.S. temperature has increased even less over the same period.
The group that did the study, Atmospheric and Environmental Research Inc., said it could not comment in time for this story due to the holidays.
But Oppenheimer said that the difference between an increase of nearly one degree and an increase of two degrees was "definitely within the margin of error... I would think the scientists themselves would be happy with that prediction."
Many scientists, especially in the 1970s, made an error in the other direction by predicting global freezing:
5. "By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half." Life magazine, January 1970.
Life Magazine also noted that some people disagree, "but scientists have solid experimental and historical evidence to support each of the following predictions."
Air quality has actually improved since 1970. Studies find that sunlight reaching the Earth fell by somewhere between 3 and 5 percent over the period in question.
6. "If present trends continue, the world will be ... eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age." Kenneth E.F. Watt, in "Earth Day," 1970.
According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1970.
How could scientists have made such off-base claims? Dr. Paul Ehrlich, author of "The Population Bomb" and president of Stanford University's Center for Conservation Biology, told FoxNews.com that ideas about climate science changed a great deal in the the '70s and '80s.
"Present trends didn't continue," Ehrlich said of Watt's prediction. "There was considerable debate in the climatological community in the '60s about whether there would be cooling or warming … Discoveries in the '70s and '80s showed that the warming was going to be the overwhelming force."
Ehrlich told FoxNews.com that the consequences of future warming could be dire.
The proverbial excrement is "a lot closer to the fan than it was in 1968," he said. "And every single colleague I have agrees with that."
He added, "Scientists don't live by the opinion of Rush Limbaugh and Palin and George W. They live by the support of their colleagues, and I've had full support of my colleagues continuously."
But Ehrlich admits that several of his own past environmental predictions have not come true:
7. "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people ... If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute For Biology, September 1971.
Ehrlich's prediction was taken seriously when he made it, and New Scientist magazine underscored his speech in an editorial titled "In Praise of Prophets."
"When you predict the future, you get things wrong," Ehrlich admitted, but "how wrong is another question. I would have lost if I had had taken the bet. However, if you look closely at England, what can I tell you? They're having all kinds of problems, just like everybody else."
8. "In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish." Ehrlich, speech during Earth Day, 1970
"Certainly the first part of that was very largely true -- only off in time," Ehrlich told FoxNews.com. "The second part is, well -- the fish haven't washed up, but there are very large dead zones around the world, and they frequently produce considerable stench."
"Again, not totally accurate, but I never claimed to predict the future with full accuracy," he said
Monday, October 11, 2010
the depravity of the environmental movement
The Foundation
"[T]here is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust." --James MadisonCulture
"Leading environmental organizations in Britain, with the backing of numerous major corporations, recruited British screenwriter Richard Curtis to produce a video for the '10:10' campaign, which seeks to cut carbon emissions by 10 percent every year for 10 years. The video begins in a classroom, where a mild-mannered teacher tells her middle-school students about the 10:10 effort. She then asks the class if they'd like to sign up. Most do, but two kids abstain. The teacher tells them, 'That's absolutely fine, your own choice.' Then, she reaches for a device on her desk with a red button on it. She pushes the button, and the kids who refused to sign up for the green crusade are blown up, their blood and viscera spraying across the classroom, staining the school uniforms of their conformist and compliant classmates. The same 'joke' plays out several more times in different settings (an office, soccer practice, etc.). Each time someone resists the idea of getting with the program, the response is swift, bloody execution. The video's defenders argue it's all a big joke, lighten up. For the layman, the obvious response is, 'That's not true.' Blowing up kids isn't funny. But that misses the point. This isn't a joke for the benefit of you and me. No, this is a knee-slapper for those already committed to the cause. The subtext is, 'Wouldn't it be awesome if we could just get rid of these tiresome, inconvenient people?' That's why they're blown up without anyone trying to change their minds. That's the joke: 'Enough with these idiots already.' How else to explain the fact that this thing went through the entire pre-production and filming process, was undoubtedly screened by any number of people, most likely including sponsors and PR people, and none of them said, 'Are you nuts? We can't go public with this.' That's the outrage here: not that they thought normal people would find it funny, but that the producers and sponsors clearly did think it was funny. ... In fairness, a host of leading environmentalists have condemned this snuff film as an idiotic disaster. I'm fine with taking most of them at their word, but I suspect that at least some object to the film because it was bad PR, not because they actually found it offensive." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
It isn't that all environmentalists are so absurdly malevolent but it should strike all who possess a conscience that this video and the mindset behind it that caused its production is illness personified. It is unfortunate but still true that the socialist progressive mindset has taken over the environmental movement spreading its illness to all too many within.
stupidity never ends
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The following information was released by the European Union:
At the end of difficult negotiations during the 37th session of the Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the 190 contracting states of the International Aviation Body were able to strike the first global governmental deal to commit the aviation sector to reduce greenhouse emissions from international aviation from 2020. Europe played an instrumental role in securing this agreement and has taken the lead by including aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), which will start in 2012. European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas, responsible for Transport and EU Commissioner Connie Hedegaard responsible for Climate Action, welcomed the breakthrough, which came after almost a decade of deadlock at ICAO on how to address emissions from international aviation. They underlined that aviation is the first sector to commit itself to such emissions reductions and that the agreement will cover over 90% of worldwide air traffic.
EU Vice President Siim Kallas, Responsible for Transport said: This deal is very significant because at a global level, governments and the aviation industry, have for the first time agreed to cap greenhouse emissions from 2020. It is the first time any transport sector has been able to reach this kind of global deal. This is a real breakthrough. There is a lot more work to be done, but this is a deal which is very good news for the aviation sector, good news for the environment and good for a more sustainable future."
EU Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard said "ICAO has taken a step in the right direction. The Resolution adopted expressly recognises that aircraft emissions must be stabilised and that also big developing countries have a role to play in this regard. The goal is not as ambitious as Europe thinks it should be, but at the same time ICAO has recognised that some States may take more ambitious actions prior to 2020. Critically, the deal is a good basis for proceeding swiftly with the inclusion of aviation in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme from 2012 as foreseen by the EU legislation in force."
The agreement at ICAO is composed of a number of important elements, which form part of a comprehensive package:
Global Goal: ICAO has agreed on a global medium-term collective goal of capping emissions from international aviation as of 2020, whilst recognising that States or regions such as the EU can act sooner and be more ambitious. In addition, aviation should become more fuel efficient at a rate of 2 % per year.
Action Plans: States will notify to ICAO the different measures that they are taking to meet the agreed goal by submitting Action Plans. States with less that 1 % of international aviation activities are not expected to submit plans unless they choose to do so voluntarily.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Czech president attacks Al Gore's climate campaign
"I don't think that there is any global warming," said the 67-year-old liberal, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. "I don't see the statistical data for that."
Referring to the former US vice president, who attended Davos this year, he added: "I'm very sorry that some people like Al Gore are not ready to listen to the competing theories. I do listen to them.
"Environmentalism and the global warming alarmism is challenging our freedom. Al Gore is an important person in this movement."
Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, he said that he was more worried about the reaction to the perceived dangers than the consequences.
"I'm afraid that the current crisis will be misused for radically constraining the functioning of the markets and market economy all around the world," he said. "I'm more afraid of the consequences of the crisis than the crisis itself."
Klaus makes no secret of his climate change scepticism -- he is also a fierce critic of the European Union -- and has branded the world's top panel of climate experts, the UN's IPCC, a smug monopoly.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Oil & Technology that Environmentalists Don't Want You to Know About
Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: Far-left environmentalists claim that the World Oil reserves are running out. However, reported new discoveries, advanced technology and untapped oil reserves (save the caribou program) prove they are again expressing fiction. In a left leaning biased New York Times article the truth "gushes out. the article, Oil Innovations Pump New Life Into Old Wells , revealed that "engineers here started injecting high-pressured steam to pump out more oil. The field, whose production had slumped to 10,000 barrels a day in the 1960s, now has a daily output of 85,000 barrels. In Indonesia, Chevron has applied the same technology to the giant Duri oil field, discovered in 1941, boosting production there to more than 200,000 barrels a day, up from 65,000 barrels in the mid-1980s. ... Within the last decade, technology advances have made it possible to unlock more oil from old fields, and, at the same time, higher oil prices have made it economical for companies to go after reserves that are harder to reach. With plenty of oil still left in familiar locations, forecasts that the world’s reserves are drying out have given way to predictions that more oil can be found than ever before." And this technology can be applied to American oil fileds when the extraction of oil slows down in the Arab oil fields (figure at right).A BusineesWeek article in 2005 (Is There Plenty Of Oil?) reported:
"The four giant oil fields ... located under thousands of feet of water off the coast of Louisiana, are just beginning to pump their first barrels. At their peak rates later in the decade, they'll produce some 500,000 bbl. per day, an amount akin to floating a small Middle Eastern country such as Syria or Yemen into the Gulf of Mexico. "Add them together, and it's a massive step change," says David Eyton, BP's vice-president for deepwater in the Gulf. "The investment we're making will more than offset declines we're seeing in Alaska and the Continental Shelf."And we have not even detailed the oil fields where the left-wing don't want us to drill. Well excuse us and get out of the way!
New Life for Old Oil Fields