A man with no honour - by Richard... Tuesday, January 19, 2010

A man with no honour - by Richard... Tuesday, January 19, 2010

The Indian Economic Times is reporting that the British government is to carry out due diligence on Dr Pachauri's pet institute, TERI, following "a local newspaper's relentless campaign against the organization and its director general."

This is from the Department for International Development which has issued a statement declaring, "As is routine, DFID is undertaking a full Institutional Assessment of TERI as part of our due diligence process." But, as the Economic Times somewhat ironically notes, "A newspaper's persistence seems to have triggered the routine".

It would, of course, have been slightly more appropriate had DFID carried out its "due diligence" before its secretary of state Douglas Alexander had announced a present of £10 million from us, the British taxpayers, having noted the organisation's consistent refusal to publish any meaningful financial details in its annual reports, the latest example being a model of obfuscation.

With Pachauri's London operation, TERI Europe, having blatantly doctored its own accounts, and its director and company secretary having admitted to "anomalies", promising to submit "revised" accounts to the Charity Commission, alarm bells should be ringing in the DFID headquarters, with serious questions being asked as to whether any UK funds should be given to this organisation.

More to the point, as WUWT notes, we have in Dr Pachauri a man who seems incapable of distinguishing between his public office and his business enterprises, demonstrably using the one to benefit the other.

This is a man, moreover, who seems to lack any sense of personal responsibility. He has been quick to take all the plaudits for the Nobel prize awarded to the IPCC, in his acceptance speechdeclaring:

Will those responsible for decisions in the field of climate change at the global level listen to the voice of science and knowledge, which is loud and clear? If they do so at Bali and beyond, then all my colleagues in the IPCC and those thousands toiling for the cause of science would feel doubly honoured at the privilege I am receiving today on their behalf.

But, when confronted with the false claim about melting glaciers in his 2007 fourth assessment report, he first tried to dismiss criticisms as "voodoo science". Now, faced with overwhelming evidence that the report is wrong, he tries to walk away from the controversy, saying he has "absolutely no responsibility." Amazingly, he asserts: "It's the work of independent authors ... they're responsible."

Happy to take the "honour" on their behalf, his responsibility apparently ceases the moment his colleagues' work is questioned. This is a man with no honour.

PACHAURI THREAD

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A change of pace - by Richard...

I've been neglecting DOTR far too long – so tonight's piece is a review of Gen Richards' speech delivered yesterday: 

If one equips more for the type of conflict we are actually having to fight, while significantly reducing investment in higher-end war-fighting capability, suddenly one can buy an impressive amount of "kit". So says General Sir David Richards, speaking to the IISS yesterday. He adds: "One can buy a lot of UAVs or Tucano aircraft for the cost of a few JSF and heavy tanks."

If I had a mind, I could link to all the pieces written on DOTR, which said the same thing, going back many years – but try this, written in March 2007 and then again in April 2009 - when we specifically mentioned Tucanos, for the umpteenth time.

More on Defence of the Realm for those that are interested.

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Nice work if you can get it - by Richard... Monday, January 18, 2010

Delingpole sums it up rather neatly:

So, to recap: in the course of a garbled phone conversation a scientist accidentally invents a problem that doesn't exist. This gets reported as if gospel in an influential Warmist science magazine and repeated by a Warmist NGO, before being lent the full authority of the IPCC's fourth assessment report which, as we know, can't be wrong because it is vetted by around 2,500 scientists. Then, on the back of this untrue story, the scientist gets a cushy job at the institution whose director is also in charge of the IPCC.

What we don't know yet is how much more cash Pachauri is conning out of gullible sponsors, for his latest money-making venture.

Either way, Roger Pielke Jr thinks it stinks. 

PACHAURI THREAD

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Robbing us blind - by Richard...

Some people confessed to dipping into their own – or their children's – savings to make sure they could afford to pay their bills, says The Daily Telegraph, while some said they had cut back on spending in other areas, sacrificing gym memberships or holidays. Over half said they were wearing more clothes to keep heating bills to a minimum.

And the greenies – to say nothing of our governments in London and Brussels – want us to pay even more.

CLIMATE CHANGE – NEW THREAD

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Pachauri: there's money in them glaciers - by Richard...

Syed Hasnain (pictured), the scientist at the centre of the growing controversy over melting Himalayan glaciers (not), is now working for Dr R K Pachauri's TERI as head of the institute glaciology team, funded by a generous grant from a US charity, researching the effects of the retreat.

Highlighted in The Sunday Times yesterday, Dr Hasnain was the scientist responsible for claiming that the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035. This was picked up by the New Scientist and then by a 2005 WWF report, and subsequently published as a definitive claim in the IPCC's 2007 fourth assessment report, masterminded by Dr R K Pachauri. 

But, while Dr Hasnain, who was then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, has admitted that the New Scientist report was based on "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research, he is now a direct beneficiary of that speculation.

Using Dr Hasnain's claim that the Himalaya glaciers "will vanish within forty years as a result of global warming…resulting in widespread water shortages," Pachauri's "alarmism" was bolstered by the WWF report which stated:

As apocalyptic as it may sound, it needs to be underlined that glaciers need to be studied for a variety of purposes including hazard assessment, effects on hydrology, sea level rise and to track climatic variations. There are several problems associated with retreating glaciers that need to be understood in order to proceed to the next stage of quantifying research and mitigating disaster.

With the case for more research thus established, Pachauri's institute, TERI, approached the wealthy Carnegie Corporation of New York through a consortium led by the Global Centre for funding to carry out precisely the work to which his own "independent" report had drawn attention.

In November 2008, they were successful, being awarded a $500,000 grant for "research, analysis and training on water-related security and humanitarian challenges to South Asia posed by melting Himalaya glaciers." This helped Dr Pachauri set up the TERI Glaciology team, putting at its head now professor Syed Iqbal Hasnain.

The Global Center is an Icelandic-based private institute with links to the office of the president of Iceland, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson. Its aim is to establish "a major research and training program involving scientists from South Asia, Europe and the Americas," of which Dr Pauchari's TERI India is a central part.

Thus, this month, on 15 January, Iceland president Grímsson and Dr Pachauri, together with a team from Ohio State University, launched their collaborative programme, declaring that TERI and the Carnegie Corporation of New York had "joined hands" to work in the fields of glaciology and soil science.

The purpose of the joint effort, they said, was "to improve understanding of the effects of climate change on the Himalaya and the manifold consequences that follow for the possibilities of water management and food production on the plains below."

The research fund is also to be topped up from the $108,000 proceeds of the Nehru Prizeawarded to Grímsson this month.

Nevertheless, Dr Hasnain does not seem always to be upholding his earlier "speculation". He was "on message" in November 2008 but, on the first day of the two-day conclave on "Indian Himalayan glaciers, change and livelihoods" in October 2009, he told his audience that scientists projected "a 43 percent decrease in glacial area on average by the year 2070 and 75 percent decrease by the end of 21st century at the current warming rate" – a very far cry from disappearance in 2035.

However, with the addition of EU funding, Dr Hasnain can afford to be more candid. He has been able to set up a major research facility at Latey Bunga, Mukteshwar, withseveral outstations in what is now a well-resourced operation.

Meanwhile, Dr Pachauri, head of the parent research institute, TERI, and a "full-time salaried employee", is seeking to disown his own 2007 report. Despite having dismissed criticism of it by the Indian government as "voodoo science", he told an Indian news agency today that he washed his hands of the controversy saying he has "absolutely no responsibility".

Still, with $500,000 in the bank, and EU money flowing into the coffers, the report has served its purpose and he can afford now to walk away from it.

PACHAURI THREAD