Meanwhile ... - by Helen... Friday, February 12, 2010

Meanwhile ... - by Helen... Friday, February 12, 2010

Over on Your Freedom and Ours postings are continuing on many matters, quite a few to do with the European Union. Thus we have a posting on the Greek bail-out, fishing discards and theSecond Reading of Lord Willoughby de Broke's Constitutional Reform Bill. Enjoy.

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The denier - by Richard...

Journalist Sandra León asks Pachauri about the errors in the IPCC's AR4, specially in the Synthesis Report, and the use of WWF and Greenpeace reports. She asks him specifically about the doubling of the Netherlands area under sea level and the claim that by 2020 crop production in North Africa will be down by 50 percent. Pachauri responds as follows:

Well. There are no errors. There is one error which we have acknowledged which was in respect of melting of the Himalayan glaciers.

Let me emphasise that the others are not errors and it is perfectly valid to use non-peer reviewed literature provided we look at the source of information that is contained in that non peer-reviewed literature and make sure that it's authentic.

You must realise that there are some parts of the world where you really don't have published research material. And therefore it's been the practice of the IPCC to use non peer-reviewed literature. With, of course, a lot of caveats and careful authentication of the source of that information. 

And, what you're pointing out is really not correct. We have investigated these so-called errors. They're not errors and we are absolutely certain that what we have said over that can be substantiated on the basis of scientific information. 

Except for the case that I mentioned, the Himalayan glaciers where it was said the glaciers would melt, would vanish by 2035 and that error we have acknowledged and have put a note on the IPCC website which I would request you to look at carefully.

This man is riding for a fall. 

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

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Radio 5 Live - by Richard... Thursday, February 11, 2010

The BEEB on Climategate. Go 11 minutes 40 seconds in the piece.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

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The times they are a changing - by Richard...

The resignation of Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature, from the Muir Russell/CRU inquiry – after he had been outed for offering favourable comments about the researchers' actions – has elicited interesting comments from Channel 4 News:

The revelation, it says, is evidence of the well-organised and highly-motivated campaign by climate change sceptics that has already used the emails leaked from University of East Anglia to make allegations about the validity of climate change science.

The report continues: "They have also been swift to attack errors in the influential United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) report on the science of climate change, published in 2007."

Now let's see. The IPCC report was published in 2007 ... and it is now 2010. That's "swift"? Actually, it is a measure of the remarkable hype that attended the launch of AR4 and all the hullabaloo of the Nobel peace prize, that it took so long.

History will record, I suspect, that "Climategate" was the turning point, opening the flood gates and changing media sentiment to the extent that journalists were prepared to listen to the "sceptic" arguments.

As a sign of the times, we see this from Denise Robertson, columnist at the Western Mail, a provincial Welsh newspaper.

Under the heading "Climate shift on climate shift itself", she tells us that "for years we’ve been hectored by the climate-change 'experts'. I had an open mind on the subject but now I feel myself moving into the sceptic camp."

My conversion, she says, "is a result of all the mistakes, untruths, exaggerations and suppression of data on the part of the warming lobby. If they’re so sure of their case, I reason, why do they need to fiddle?"

Meanwhile, she adds, the government is pouring millions into mysterious "studies" like "Climate change impacts on Chinese agriculture" or how to help the Indian insurance industry profit from carbon credits. That's your money and mine. (Shades of Booker there?)

"We need an honest debate about this issue," Robertson concludes. And when you get that from a provincial paper, things are changing.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD