U.N. climate report will shock the world – chairman
I hope so. The world should be shocked – shocked and appalled. The media hype for this propaganda is as much an insult to science as is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s history of pretending political snake-oil is science.
Politics first, science second
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These policymakers’ summaries have a troubled history. One was once altered at the last minute to change wording that had already been approved by scientists. The summary release format also makes it clear that climate is a political issue first and a science issue second.
Another U.S. official says next week’s summary will be an “iconic statement” rather than a sound science document. No surprise there. The policymakers’ summary of the last report in 2001 highlighted the greatest climate icon of all, the 1,000-year hockey-stick graph. There it sits on page 3, the first graph, allegedly proof that 1998 was the warmest year of the millennium.
Today, the IPCC says the 1,000-year graph, the focal point of the February, 2001, summary, was a very minor part of the climate-science effort. The hockey stick, they say, played no big scientific role. But it played a major political role as part of the IPCC’s campaign, which will be the sole purpose of next Friday’s over-hyped event.
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I do not think this is the sort of shock IPCC chairman Dr. Rajendra Kumar Pachauri has in mind, though. I think he means shocked as in, “Be afraid. Be very afraid. If we do not implement Kyoto, and more, we are doomed. This is your LAST WARNING:”
Scientists say rising greenhouses gases will make climate change unstoppable in a decade
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THE world has just 10 years to reverse surging greenhouse gas emissions or risk runaway climate change that could make many parts of the planet uninhabitable.
The stark warning comes from scientists who are working on the final draft of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
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That’s actually the good news, because if it is true we must focus on mitigation, not prevention. Achieving the targets Kyoto requires has proven impossible for the signatories, and now we’re told it is probably insufficient to the task. If bankrupting western economies won’t do it, what can they propose next?
If the catastrophe is a done deal, the question is how we cope with it. Instead, we will have renewed calls for implementing Kyoto; the only discernible effect of which would be to destroy the economic strength needed to mitigate the catastrophe. Honest assessment of whether anthropogenic global warming is a threat, and if it is what can be done about it, is not the purpose of the “scientists” working for the IPCC.
Dr. Pachauri has been refreshingly honest about the purpose of the IPCC, and about the utility of Kyoto. In a 2002 interview granted to the BBC he said:
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“If you go back to the record, I have been very critical of some elements of the oil industry.”
He defends the Kyoto Protocol – designed to reduce human influence on the global climate – as being better than nothing, and says the panel’s job is to provide compelling evidence for the need for countries to make new commitments to fight global warming.
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Dr. Pachauri has indeed been “very critical” of the oil industry.
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In 2001 he supported a consumer boycott of ExxonMobil for its stance on global warming, saying it was “a good way to put economic pressure on the US.”
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So the Kyoto protocol is “better than nothing” in aiding the IPPC’s goal of providing “compelling evidence for the need for countries to make new commitments to fight global warming.” I.e., The IPCC assumes global warming is both caused by humans and correctable by humans. It further assumes that the Kyoto protocols are an important aid to this mission whether or not the signatories live up to their commitments, or even if Kyoto requires wasting so much treasure as to render us unable to respond to global warming problems if we have to.
Assuming a theory is correct, boycotting contrary ideas and claiming your job is to provide compelling evidence for some policy or other is not science. This latest IPCC report is one of a series of political statements and should be treated as such.
Some other TOC references to the politics of global warming can be found at the following links:
Thursday, April 13, 2006
The heat goes on
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Anthropomorphic leftwing insults
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Hokey Stuck
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Climate Chumps
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Sellers remorse?
In the interest of unfairness, we’ll give the final word to Al Gore:
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Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.
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Emphasis mine. This is Clinton-speak for lying about it.
Update: 4:32PM
Enron’s Green-Fingered Successors
Global warming as corporate welfare, why some megacorps like the hockey stick and the UAW does not.
Climate change a ‘questionable truth’
Policy. Politics. Science?
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