Pachauri admits the IPCC just guesses the numbers

Such is the pressure finally beginning to bear on the IPCC that Pachauri has been forced into the ridiculous position of trying to rescue credibility by contradicting most of their past PR campaign. He’s taken the extraordinary step of admitting they don’t have hard numbers, hey, but it’s all OK because the IPCC is really a government agency to make policy, not to write scientific reports “that don’t see the light of day”.

So he’s admitting that the IPCC was all about policy prescriptions all along? And the science was just fudged-up window dressing to provide an excuse? Well, who would have guessed.

Hidden beside Pachauri’s declaration that he’s happy about the IAC report, he let slip a corker of a line:

Times of India asks: Anything in the UN probe report you completely or partly disagree with?

They have talked about quantifying uncertainties. To some extent, we are doing that, though not perfectly. But the issue is that in some cases, you really don’t have a quantitative base by which you can attach a probability or a level of uncertainty that defines things in quantitative terms. And there, let’s not take away the importance of expert judgment. And that is something the report has missed or at least not pointed out.

So if you can’t quantify uncertainties (like is climate sensitivity say 0.5 degrees or 6.5 degrees, and with what probabilities) just go with your best guess, call it expert opinion (especially if you only pick and pay the “right” experts) and say that there is a 90% certainty, even if there are no numbers you can add up to get that.

Then after all these years of saying the IPCC is a scientific body, now that they’re exposed as being unscientific, suddenly the excuse is that really they’re policy driven. Watch how far away from science Pachauri is trying to position the IPCC:

Times of India: Stifling politics out of science, does that make it devoid of its real social purpose?

Let’s face it, we are an intergovernmental body and our strength and acceptability of what we produce is largely because we are owned by governments.
(And here was me thinking their strength was their “2500 scientists” and their rigorous review?)

If that was not the case, then we would be like any other scientific body that maybe producing first-rate reports but don’t see the light of the day because they don’t matter in policy-making. Now clearly, if it’s an inter-governmental body and we want governments’ ownership of what we produce, obviously they will give us guidance of what direction to follow, what are the questions they want answered. Unfortunately, people have completely missed the original resolution by which IPCC was set up. It clearly says that our assessment should include realistic response strategies. If that is not an assessment of policies, then what does it represent? And I am afraid, we have been, in my view, defensive in coming out with a whole range of policies and I am not saying we prescribe policy A or B or C but on the basis of science, we are looking at realistic response strategies.

But that is exactly what this committee has recommended that we get out of — policy prescriptions. It is for this reason that I brought out that this what is written in the IPCC mandate. This is a misperception on the part of some people in the scientific community. And I hope I can correct it.

The IPCC can’t be both the last word on impartially declaring the science AND the last word declaring the policy. Either the search for truth runs this agency or the need to push policy does, they can’t answer to both without a conflict.
He’s declaring that their first priority is NOT to figure out exactly what drives our climate.

Read more: I am happy that truth has come out: Pachauri – India – The Times of India

Thanks to Benny Piezer and to Robin G.

7 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

100 comments to Pachauri admits the IPCC just guesses the numbers

  • #
    Baa Humbug

    Good little post Jo.
    Of course, we sceptics knew all this long ago.
    I wonder if anybody is listening. (Probably not. Too much money and resources already sunk into this scam.)

    10

  • #
    pattoh

    Yep…a Nobel Peace Prize winning political spin doctor

    10

  • #
    Tel

    So round West Australia people sign off on their shotgun blasts?

    Better not start doing that near Melbourne or someone will call it art and talent scouts will start following you around.

    Guess I shouldn’t laugh too loud, here in New South Wales we dream about having road signs… hey, we dream about some day getting some roads!

    10

  • #

    They’re saying there’s a lot of uncertainty, but they are still sure. Kinda like saying the well is poisoned but the water is still safe to drink.

    10

  • #
    Lawrie

    Some advice please. If a company decides to pursue a course of action based on a premise that a government agency says is right, i.e. AGW, but there is sufficient public discourse to create doubt about the veracity of the claim, can the directors be held accountable for future losses.

    An example. During the sixties various governments allocated water for irrigation from acquifers and streams. Subsequently it was found that the resource had been over allocated but in the meantime farmers working on government advice installed much irrigation infrastructure. Now the allocations have been reduced, in some cases by 80%. The government has been obliged to pay partial compensation depending on individual usage rates. It is unlikely some farmers will receive full compensation however it does serve as a precedent.

    If company A spends money to meet a government requirement based on information that is suspected of being faulty then surely that company has a right to sue for compensation when the information is proved to be faulty. More importantly shareholders should be able to sue directors for failing due diligence research. Any comments?

    [Lawrie – that’s a very interesting angle to pursue. Governments will be seen as negligent in hindsight when people realize that the evidence was already available to toss out the scare before they sold us to the Gravy Train of Bureaucrats and Bankers. — JN]

    10

  • #
    hoi polloi

    Smart graphic Jo.

    10

  • #
    Paul Z.

    Jo, love your artwork! It’s brilliant. You should publish a book of your cartoons at some point.

    10

  • #
    cohenite

    It is a good graphic, and as Tel has noted, reflects a fine Australian tradition and attitude towards pomposity and rules.

    10

  • #
    Michael Larkin

    Pachauri: Foot, mouth, insertion. He rarely seems to engage his brain in synchrony with his tongue. I suspect he can’t work out what logically follows from what spews forth. He’s just admitted what IPCC critics have been saying for years, and imagines that somehow, that is a defence – of something, but I can’t quite work out what.

    He seems to have neither conscience nor the capacity to self-reflect, and to possess the hide of an elephant. My vote is for keeping him on as captain, because that’ll probably ensure the Titanic of CAGW will sink as quickly as possible. People will be laughing so hard at him that they won’t be able to take the IPCC seriously any longer.

    10

  • #
    DougS

    So Pachauri has finally admitted what sceptics have been accusing the IPCC of all along – hey, we’re paid by governments to reach certain conclusions, the science is irrelevant!

    It’s a pity they couldn’t have been honest about it and not sought to subvert the scientific method in their attempt to justify the outcome they’d already decided on.

    10

  • #
    DougS

    Did I write ‘pity’ – I should have said ‘absolute tragedy’!

    10

  • #
    Joe Lalonde

    Governments have quoted many times on using IPCC as the basis of policy changes. This has helped fire up the Carbon Trading markets to exist.
    How many “Green” changes have occurred from these false idols?
    How much actual good science is being surpressed to fuel the IPCC to be in this power control over scientists?

    10

  • #
  • #
    Stephen Brown

    From the NS article referenced above …
    “This error, swiftly dubbed “glaciergate” after it was exposed in New Scientist, became damaging primarily because IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri defended it for several weeks rather than swiftly admitting the mistake.”
    Really?

    10

  • #
    Tim

    The brief must have been: Find something identifiable, taxable and tradeable…but make it sound like real science, OK?

    10

  • #
    Robin Guenier

    Having come across this interview yesterday, I thought it might be interesting to look for examples in the IPCC report. I started with WG1 but I got no further than the SPM. There I found, not just an example, but also something remarkable that I’d posted about on Climate Audit over two years ago and all but forgotten.

    First, go to the SPM here. Then go to page 10 where, in the pink box, you’ll find the oft quoted “very likely due to” claim. At the end of the box, there’s a reference to “discernable human influences” and an injunction to “see Table SPM.2”. OK, let’s do that – it’s on page 8. Look at Column 2. And immediately you see something interesting: it’s headed “Likelihood of human contribution …”. What? Only “contribution”? That’s vastly different from “due to”: many sceptics (including me) accept that humans may have contributed to recent warming.

    It gets worse (or better perhaps). Column 2. reviews seven phenomena, for which human contribution is assessed: for two, it’s “Likely” (= >66% probability, according to the IPCC’s Guidance Notes) and, for seven, “More likely than not” (a phrase not found in the Guidance Notes but presumably meaning 50 to 66% probability). (Note: none is assessed as “very likely”.) That can only mean that around 40% of the scientists who wrote this (i.e. some of the famous 2,500) think it’s unlikely that humans even contributed to the observed phenomena. Amazing!

    But even that’s not the end of it. For four of the listed phenomena, there’s a reference (f) to a footnote that says “Attribution for these phenomena based on expert judgement rather than formal attribution studies”. In other words, even these vague attributions are based, as Jo points out, on little more than guesswork.

    Those bullet holes are well deserved.

    10

  • #
    Treeman

    Jo

    UN IPCC policies are embedded in Federal, State and Local government regulations across Australia. UN IPCC dogma has been adopted by bureaucrats and would be legislators as gospel for at least a decade. Rajendra Pachauri’s credibility is shot to pieces (his puerile attempt at writing fiction was the last straw) That politicians in this country give any credence whatsoever to climate alarmism defies logic. One could be forgiven for thinking that apologists for Carbon Trading are in la la land and that tradeoffs by Gillard for Green support are nothing more desperate attempt to curry favour with the unthinking minority of swingers and donkeys that was too gutless to throw Labor out. Austin Williams nails the Carbonistas in no uncertain terms. What a travesty it would be if three independents holding the balance of power in Australia were swayed by cooked numbers that people masquerading as scientists have used to scare the more gullible in our midst. I’m ashamed to be Australian when so many have been deceived by so few.

    10

  • #
    Tel

    Pachauri: Foot, mouth, insertion. He rarely seems to engage his brain in synchrony with his tongue. I suspect he can’t work out what logically follows from what spews forth. He’s just admitted what IPCC critics have been saying for years, and imagines that somehow, that is a defence – of something, but I can’t quite work out what.

    The thing is, Pachauri doesn’t have to care anymore, the Tata group of companies are going from strength to strength. Tata motors is exporting globally. India is starting to flood the Australian market in steel products (e.g. kitchenware and office furniture, cars and commercial vehicle coming soon). The job’s done now. Everything after this is fun and giggles.

    Pachauri could probably get a plumb railway job from his old Engineering buddies, after all Indian industry owes him a lot. As Treeman points out, it will be another decade before Western politicians officially accept that they have been had… where will our industry be in a decade?

    10

  • #
    Scott

    In other words “We must be more careful about just making things up. And if we get caught again, let’s use personal opinion of selected authority to support our agenda.”

    10

  • #
    observa

    It was all about the irrefutable ‘concensus’ science of global warming until that wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny anymore so now it’s all about sustainability, and moving right along nothing to see here folks, an IPCC for nature.
    Science is such messy, yukky stuff so it’s all about fluffy kittens now folks. However if you’ve been paying attention that’s you down the bottom of their grand pyramid scheme with a couple of free draught stoppers and short showers for sustenance while they enjoy their sustainability and all that lovely Global Gruesome Greasum at the commanding heights. That’s the pointy bit with appropriate offsets naturally.

    10

  • #
    Treeman

    Donna Laframboise finds that Un IPCC plagiarised our own Anthony McMichael’s work in its first report. It looks worse and worse for the IPCC by the day. If Australia wasn’t so far behind the play we would not be so hung up about things that don’t matter any more.

    10

  • #
    Adolf Balik

    Oh, dear! Look at the end of the Pachauri’s interview: “Ethics!”

    That means to make green-carbonarism an official religion. Ethics = sacral values!

    10

  • #

    Let’s face it, we are an intergovernmental body and our strength and acceptability of what we produce is largely because we are owned by governments.

    Translation: We are the government, what we say is so is so BECAUSE we, as government, say it. Government power (force and fraud) is the final arbiter of truth and if you disagree, it doesn’t matter, we can force you to act the way we say you must act. Then, if we change what we say, we can force you to act that way too.

    This is the full flowering of their war against reality. The more they lose the war, the more they will hold to the notion that raw power trumps natural law. See the 20th century and the hundreds of millions who died as a consequence of the wars against reality for instructive detail.

    10

  • #
    Brian G Valentine

    Nice graphic, the only appropriate symbol I can think of for the IPCC is a sewer, with various branches feeding a main sewer line.

    Taxpayers are the sewerage treatment plant

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    They don’t respond to sound science and strong argument. With Pachauri and his minions, if shame had a numeric scale it would have gone negative. All the governments in nations that are the backbone of civilization and its ability to survive as we know it seem to be in bed with this idea. The contempt of their own people doesn’t move anyone in government (assuming those few places where there is significant contempt).

    The snake has too many heads to cut them all off. This can only be because they’re right. False causes simply don’t go on for so long and gain so much strength. Science must be wrong. There are just plain too many people. But let’s stop beating around the bush year after year. Do it directly and get it over. The way to get rid of the excess is just a simple get-it-over-with chamber; painless and easy; step in and poof, you’re gone.

    I’m willing to get in line for my turn. But being just a peon in this world I know my place is at the end of the line, head bowed reverently in deference to the enlightened. Those better than I am deserve the positions of honor in this parade. So I’ll quietly get in line behind all the IPCC and the UN. I’ll let all the presidents, prime ministers, legislators, EPA wonks, environmentalists, ministers of climate change and all the thousands of experts so much more enlightened than I am, go first in their rightful place. And then, having fulfilled my duty to be subservient to those superior to me, I will step into the chamber.

    Problem solved! See how simple it is?

    Oh! Did I mention that my company, ZERO RESIDUE, INC. holds patents on the necessary Poof Technology (TM) (copyright 2010, ZERO RESIDUE, INC., all rights reserved) and I’ll sell the chambers at a good price.

    I should get rich fast. But I’m having a little trouble figuring out how I’ll enjoy my money.

    10

  • #

    the weird part is that this guy even looks like a snake oil salesman.

    10

  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    Roy Hogue: I should get rich fast. But I’m having a little trouble figuring out how I’ll enjoy my money.

    You may get rich fast, as in accumulating a lot of money (aka. government printed IOU’s). However, the process of eliminating all those uncooperative people who create all the things that you can trade money for is a negative sum game. It is rather like eating the goose that lays the golden eggs or becoming the snake that eats itself for dinner. The process starts out looking good on paper, if you ignore context, but ends badly BECAUSE you ignored context.

    It is the act of producing wealth that gives value to money even the government printed IOU kind. Not the other way around. Nearly every civilization, if not all of them, that has collapsed, collapsed because that simple fact was forgotten. So even the bizzaro world you projected, in your over the top sarcastic post, is self defeating.

    Our challenge is to figure out how not to be a victim of whatever bizzaro world “they” attempt to force upon us. Ultimately its either “them” or us. It cannot be both and can all too easily be neither.

    10

  • #
    899

    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

    H.L. Menchen

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Lionell,

    I love ya! Honestly, I do! And I know all these things. But try a sense of humor once in a while.

    In the meantime, permit me a little mockery to make a point.

    Poof Technology was no harder to come up with and develop than carbon credits or for that matter, global warming itself. It means about as much too! But I get to blow off a little steam.

    10

  • #
    Gail C.

    If the UN has any brains at all they will get rid of the patchy clown and muzzle him real quick.

    10

  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    Treeman: #17

    What a travesty it would be if three independents holding the balance of power in Australia were swayed by cooked numbers that people masquerading as scientists have used to scare the more gullible in our midst.

    Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so few, to so many.

    10

  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    Tel: #18

    Pachauri doesn’t have to care anymore, the Tata group of companies are going from strength to strength.

    He has never had to worry since he was appointed head of TERI (Tata Environmental Research Institute), subsequently known as The Environmental Research Institute (TERI).

    He is presumably paid an excellent (by Indian terms) salary by TERI, at least sufficient to support a large house (with servants) on Golf Road, in New Delhi.

    The fees that he is due, from the UN for his work with the IPCC, get paid directly to TERI.

    TERI therefore places his financial affairs (and any possible kick-backs) under commercial confidentiality. Could he be rorting the system on behalf of Tata? Who knows? The system ain’t transparent.

    I could also point out that the arrangements that place TERI, between Tata (if they do still have an involvement), and the UN, could be seen as a money laundering scheme. But I am feeling charitable today, so …

    10

  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    Roy Hogue: #25

    With Pachauri and his minions, if shame had a numeric scale it would have gone negative.

    It is a cultural thing. Southern Asian’s rarely apologise. Western Europeans do nothing else.

    10

  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    Lionell Griffith: #27

    It is the act of producing wealth that gives value to money even the government printed IOU kind. Not the other way around.

    We seem to have found a point of agreement, Lionell.

    I was at a business conference in Sydney, a while ago now, and the majority of the young-guns were on about how much salary so-and-so made, and how much their house cost, etc.

    Nobody was talking about value and wealth, in terms of utility and capacity. It seems that economics has gone the way of science.

    10

  • #
    janama

    Unfortunately there are flow on effects

    IT’S the neo-Malthusians who get up Austin Williams’s nose. The high-profile British architect loathes the smug “carbonistas”, the ecological armageddonists and those who’ve grown afraid of future growth, indeed of the future, and their burgeoning political influence.

    “We seem to have lost any notion of the future as a positive place to be. We’ve forgotten that humans are endlessly creative individuals. We instead see ourselves as problems, not solutions, and once that becomes the prevailing view the next logical step is the fewer humans the better.

    “This negative view that we are nothing more than carbon excreters is an attitude I find reprehensible. I see humans as problem solvers, so the more people there are the more problems that will be solved and the better society will be.”

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/sustainable-were-a-lot-smarter-than-that/story-e6frg6zo-1225914025010

    10

  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    Roy,

    Please note that I said your post was sarcastic. I fully expected you to know the things I said. Otherwise your post could not have been so elegantly over the top. I gave a straight answer to make an important point for the incidental casual observer who often are sarcastically impaired.

    Though I will admit I don’t take even a symbolic submitting to being euthanize with much of a sense of humor. Without life there is no value.

    10

  • #
    Bulldust

    Treeman @ 17:

    Ahhh you beat me to it… I just came across that article. What a refreshing breeze through the bureaucratic morass of politically correct thinking most of the media has become. I never thought about it in quite the light Williams does, but it is now obvious how the Agenda 21 sustainability types and carbonistas are all just misanthropes with cups perpetually half empty.

    On the other hand people like Williams and I, and dare I say most people who post regularly here, have a much more favourable perspective of humanity’s future. Technology has always been our saviour from fire, to agricultural revolutions, industrial revolutions, information revolutions, and now the biotechnology revolution (couple with info and nano). I have loved watching the recent 3-part series hosted by Dr Kaku (8:30-9:30 on ABC 1 Thursday … last one this week). Here’s some excerpts of Dr Kaku on Youtube:

    http://www.google.com.au/#q=michio+kaku&hl=en&prmd=vibo&source=univ&tbs=vid:1&tbo=u&ei=CMSCTMzkO4qOvQO056GkBA&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQqwQwAA&fp=d9ecfb6b0f6a654b

    I guess we will see today or early tomorrow whether the cup half empty types have managed to wrest control of Government in Australia or not. While I have thought the prospect of a Gillard Government very unlikely, I cannot for a second begin to imagine it would be stable as it is a pot pourri of political views. If she magaes to weasel her way into a deal with the independents I cannot imagine this being any semblance of a “stable” Government.

    10

  • #
    Llew Jones

    Three cheers for Austin Williams. Maybe he can derive motivation from the tenets of humanism but risking being repetitive I’m more inclined to think in terms of the directives, to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth and have dominion over it. One doesn’t need graduate degrees in anything to see how we humans, considering our monkey origins, have built a pretty decent edifice by following those precepts.

    If only the Greens were more literate.

    10

  • #
    Bob Malloy

    Off topic:

    Is any one aware of the upcoming episode of SBS’s Insight.

    The Sceptics

    Tuesday, 7 Sep 10

    Can one climate change scientist change the minds of a roomful of climate change sceptics?

    Featuring the late Stephen Schneider and 52 sceptics. Will I be seeing Jo or any of her cast of well informed regulars if I tune in.

    10

  • #
    Bob Malloy

    As an afterthought to my previous post I doubt if I’ll see any of the following were invited to participate, Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks or Bill Kininmonth

    10

  • #
    Brian H

    Lessee — if the IPCC takes its direction from governments, and the governments base their policies on the findings of the IPCC, what we have is… what is vulgarly referred to as a circle jerk!

    Nice work if you can get it.

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Lonell,

    I made it so purposefully over the top so it couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a put-on that I missed the nuance of your point.

    Though I will admit I don’t take even a symbolic submitting to being euthanize with much of a sense of humor. Without life there is no value.

    I can agree with that. What I wrote is a statement of contempt for those who lead from behind, wanting others to go down the road to sacrifice and hardship while they stay safely behind and then profit from the sacrifice. I couldn’t think of a better example of how to give it some impact.

    I often wonder whose list I’m getting myself on because of some of the things I write. This blog must be watched all around the world.

    10

  • #
    John Watt

    Pity! For Oz a one minute to midnight confession is unlikely to stop the folly of a carbon price!

    Such a lot of time and money wasted on a hoax..however sincerely it was designed.
    Perhaps it was too easy for Rudd to label CO2 as pollution and drag along all the pseudo-feel-good greenies. Oz will have a carbon price in the very near future and that mess will take even more time and money to clean up.

    It’s time for the real scientists and data analysers to come out of the woodwork and identify and quantify the impacts of the real drivers of climate change.

    Perhaps it is time for Dr Nicol’s analysis to be seriously scrutinised. He and a few others have the courage to stand against the overwhelming majority of Oz scientists,public servants,media and politicians who were too lazy to ask proper questions but simply fell in behind the Gore/IPCC lemmings.

    The imperative issue for Oz is to somehow get this IPCC confession in front of our undecided Independent politicians…we have only hours to do this!

    10

  • #
    MadJak

    I don’t take scientific advice from writers of soft porn.

    Has someone else? Oh yeah, that’;s right, the greens have *figures*

    10

  • #
    cohenite

    Kaku is an interesting guy; a futurist and, based on his current SBS program, optimistic about humanity’s future; conversely he is pro-AGW, anti-nuclear and an associate of Caldicott. Nothing like inconsistency.

    10

  • #
    Llew Jones

    Not sure that scientists (the professional variety anyway – we humans are all working scientists of one sort or another) are particularly good at seeing a hole in a ladder. That probably is why many buy the IPCC story. I’m more inclined to think that lawyers are better at weighing up evidence than most and also perhaps those like Abbott who have studied philosophy, on which journey one assumes logic has been mastered.

    Though I find Gillard’s politics not to my taste, I’m playing with the idea that she, like Abbott thinks, though as more of a closet unbeliever, that ACC is crap. Which of course should make for a bit of fun as she in her own way scams Bob Brown and his Greenies (i.e. assuming the three amigos are as stupid as their public utterances make them appear to be).

    (Poor Rudd with an arty, farty sort of education was always likely to be a sucker).

    Which in a round about way leads us to the conclusion that Pachauri is a sucker master.

    10

  • #
    pattoh

    Call me a sceptic, a denier or whatever, but the understanding I have built following some of the arguments has left me in no doubt that the science is far from settled. Personally I am firmly in the “Solar Irradiance variation camp” + or – the odd geological event, extra terrestrial gibber or SN.
    So when I see “concerned, enlightened” politicians & other prominent figures calling for action on carbon driven climate change, it is very hard to focus on any other elements of their platform/dialogue. It is easier to dismiss them as either ignorant, arrogant or self serving (or all of the above).

    The most galling thing is the self-interested role the main stream media continues to play in this. Controversy & drama focus interest & that sells copy, which sells advertising at a premium. However the media companies do not seem to be far sighted enough to realize that in “banging the drum” they are promoting a cause which can only lead to the greatest economic downturn & social upheaval since the Great Depression or even the (first?) Dark Age. Perhaps we will have to wait till enough of their advertising clients go under before they decide to re-focus their “mind control settings”.

    Things will only change when an enlightened media either gets a conscience (unlikely) or it sees a new mass market when stark reality finally dawns & focuses into mass indignation at the real cost of the deception.

    10

  • #
    Llew Jones

    “Things will only change when an enlightened media either gets a conscience (unlikely) or it sees a new mass market when stark reality finally dawns & focuses into mass indignation at the real cost of the deception.”

    The article below needs to be read with a bit of skepticism as it’s author is committed to the American Republican cause but maybe ACC is just another of those intellectual fads that has a relatively short life and will die from waning interest as well as competing interests, such as a robust national economy and a good life style for all its citizens.

    http://tinyurl.com/2dljaj2

    10

  • #
    Bob Malloy

    Sorry if I’m off topic again but I just read the following on wuwt,

    In Search of Cooling Trends
    Posted on September 4, 2010 by charles the moderator

    by Verity Jones and Tony Brown (Tonyb) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/04/in-search-of-cooling-trends/#more-24414

    It is an independent study by Jones & Brown focusing on Norwegian climate site Rimfrost (www.rimfrost.no)

    Initial sites studied are:

    * Brazil – Curitiba (1885 to 2009) Cooling 1955 to 2009
    * Canada – Edmonton (1881-2009) Cooling from 1886 to 2009
    * Chile – Puerto Montt (1951-2009) Cooling from 1955
    * China – Jiuquan (1934-2009) Cooling all years
    * Russia – Kandalaska (1913-2009) Cooling 1933-2009
    * Iceland – Haell (1931-2009) Cooling all years
    * India – Amritsar (1948-2009) Cooling all years
    * Morocco – Casablanca (1925-2009) Cooling all years
    * Adelaide – Australia (1881-2008) Cooling all years
    * Abilene, Texas – USA (1886-2009) Cooling 1933-2009

    and concludes in this way.

    The wave pattern is still present in many data sets worldwide, no matter what the overall trend. In some the date of the onset of warming or cooling is later or earlier, depending on location – as would be expected with the oceans moving warmth around the globe. In others however the wave pattern is not present or is obliterated by something – in these sets should it be present or not? Is it wiped out by anthropogenic effects on the temperature record such as growth of cities and even small rural communities though the otherwise cooling 40s, 50s and 60s?

    For us the take-home message of this study was simply how widespread and consistent the wave pattern is, and this, ultimately is very convincing of the veracity of the arguments against CO2 as a primary cause of current warming. From the physics I don’t doubt it has a role in warming, but its role needs to be disentangled from the large magnitude natural climate swings that are clearly present all over the world – a pattern that is not widely disseminated.

    10

  • #

    Bob – Regarding the SBS insight program – it was the funniest thing. I knew they were organising it in June because I got email after email from the people they invited (including Janet Thompson and Baa Humbug and Case Smit).

    It was obvious they were going through the skeptic community with everyone who wasn’t one of the full timers. So we carefully fed some questions through to people in advance. (So in answer to your question, no I wasn’t invited, nor was David Evans, David Archibald, William Kininmonth, Ian Plimer, Garth Paltridge or Bob Carter.)

    From those who were there I hear that no one is quite sure what SBS will make of it. They filmed far longer than the show required, so they can edit many different ways.

    I gather only a few skeptics put up their hand at the end when they were effectively asked “who has changed their mind and been convinced by Schneider”.

    One of those there even suggested that he wasn’t sure that the producers were all that impressed with Schneiders responses.

    10

  • #
    Allen Ford

    “And here was me thinking their strength was their “2500 scientists” and their rigorous review?”

    No, No, No, Jo, it’s 4000 scientists. Patchy told Kerry so on the 7:30 Report, and elsewhere.

    If Patchy is recanting, whom do we now believe? Oh, the horror!

    10

  • #
    janama

    thanks for the info on the SBS program Bob and Jo – I’ve already posted a comment on their comments page – I suggest everyone else does the same.

    10

  • #
    F. Eckenhuijsen Smit

    Joanna, you are an admirably good critic again.
    I love to read your attacks on the AGW CO2 idiots.
    Pachauri –as the worst crook ever– should have been put behind bars in a very unpleasant jail.
    He and dumb Al Gore should return their Nobelprice and its accompanying money.

    10

  • #
    JaniePo

    Subject: The Greens policies would destroy the Australian economy

    Senator Bob Brown has emerged as a destructive parasite. A green fanatic living at the public trough whose esvconomic wish list would destroy the Australian standard of living, which is exactly what it is intended to do. Not only has the media overlooked just how elitist and loony Brown’s green economics really are so have our rightwing.

    MORE:-

    http://brookesnews.com/?p=26

    10

  • #
    JaniePo

    In the largest effort to date to document global warming dissent in the scientific community, 31,486 Americans with university degrees in science – including 9,029 PhD, 7,157 MS, 2,586 MD and DVM, and 12,714 BS or equivalent – have signed on with the Global Warming Petition Project to state “the human-caused global warming hypothesis is without scientific validity.” (http://www.petitionproject.org/)
    Many of the best and brightest minds in the United States and around the world are in total agreement: The so-called global warming “scientific consensus” is a complete fabrication and does not exist.

    10

  • #
    JPA Knowles

    Perhaps Pachauri will have more luck setting up an Indian Porn Comedy Collective. Apparently he actually has some experience in that field.

    10

  • #
  • #
  • #
    Bob Malloy

    Joanne Nova: @50

    Thanks for that info about the insight program, it will be interesting to see how the final product is presented, how selective the editing will be.

    10

  • #
    King Katter

    Me numbers aren’t the best either and somtimes I have to guess how menny there are and that BUT I CANT BELIEVE THESES WEATHER MEN CANT DO THE PROPER MAFF!! PLUCKERS!!!

    10

  • #
    Lawrie

    Janama @ 52,

    I took a look in the comment section of Insight and made my own. There were no comments visible. Maybe they only want comments after the event.

    10

  • #
    janama

    I’m sure you are correct Lawrie- but I posted anyway 🙂

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    I let this post tempt me into looking for documents from inside the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) since Pachauri mentions it. They’re proceeding apace with a grand micromanagement plan for the world. I started out at this link if anyone’s interested:

    http://unfccc.int/2860.php

    It reads something like a big mutual back patting society and in its way seems a lot like mating elephants. It all happens at a very high level and is accompanied by a lot of noise as they congratulate each other and go off to fancy resorts at our expense; all while you and I down on the ground don’t get a clue about what our governments are participating in — at least not until the baby elephant is dropped on us. Frankly it’s scary stuff. We hear a lot about the IPCC but this is the organization seemingly poised to do the dirty work.

    Jo,

    Do you have any material on the UNFCCC that would make a decent subject for debate? If you have I’d encourage you to put it up.

    Thanks

    10

  • #
    Ross

    Roy @ 63. I saved this article from Feb 2010 about the UN Bali Conference. There was a paper presented there that will make you lose some sleep !! ( see link about half way through the article )

    http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/02/25/bali-hoo-pushing-global-environmental-control/

    10

  • #
    JaniePo

    Call me cruel but I would love to see the look on the face of the average clueless, “I’m voting for the Greens ‘cos they like the environment”, voter, when they discover there’s more to the Greens than they realised.

    MORE:-

    http://www.rightjab.observationdeck.org/?p=3945

    10

  • #
    JaniePo

    car bumper sticker suggestion……

    If Julia is the answer.
    How stupid is the question.

    10

  • #
  • #
    Boris

    So if you can’t quantify uncertainties (like is climate sensitivity say 0.5 degrees or 6.5 degrees

    Climate sensitivity is not one of things that Pachauri is talking about in the paragraph that precedes this statement. Just read the literature on the subject.

    10

  • #
    Brian G Valentine

    Boris, if “climate sensitivity” isn’t one of the things Choo Choo refers to, than what IS he referring to?

    “Climate sensitivity” is taken as a mean probable value – and it just so happens that IPCC works with a value that is a lot higher than other people have derived.

    The Summaries for Policy Makers assign probabilities to future occurrences (to some degree of “certainty”) that don’t come with a methodology of their derivation that can be discerned within the Assessment report. But it is implicit in making these probability estimates that the analysis is correct to the degree of certainty of variables used in the analysis. (among these, the “climate sensitivity.”)

    I know it is likely against your religion to do so, Boris, but have you read the new book by Professor R Carter? If you read about all the deception that went into the IPCC work it is impossible, I think, to walk away with any faith in the IPCC at all.

    10

  • #
    King Katter

    THE IPPC IS JUST A WASTE OF TAX PAIERS MONEY

    we no the climate doesn’t even feelins so how can it be sensitive about somethin! Not like my missus ya no!

    10

  • #
    Brian G Valentine

    Lindzen blames the charade on a general scientific illiteracy amongst an “educated” public.

    It sounds so simple – “see that? Carbon dioxide acts like a blanket. It’s real simple. And if you DON’T believe it you’re an idiot.”

    The tactic may have worked for a while, amplified by a hyperventilating media but by and large the Public has become to doubt the whole thing deeply.

    The Gavin Schmidt’s and the Kevin Trenberth’s of the world used to deal with it by snickering at the “denialsts” as uneducated boobs but are gradually realizing that the story isn’t playing very well anymore with the middle class who wind up the ones paying (dearly) for this arrogance

    10

  • #
    JaniePo

    The rise of the greenshirts…

    Violence is becomming the norm for these fanatical communists!

    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_rise_of_the_greenshirts/

    10

  • #
    Baa Humbug

    Hi all

    For those interested in the SBS Insight programme, below is an email I received from one of the producers. (After I told him I wouldn’t be attending)

    as it turns out, from a meeting with some colleagues today, it seems like we do have a pretty full cast, so not a problem.

    Thanks for your comments too, we’re discussing all these things on meetings to put together the best show.

    In terms of getting involved I can recommend online as a good way to get involved on the night of the show. There are two options here:

    – we have a 1 hour online chat where you can submit questions and comments after the show, which always features guests from the program
    – we have a ‘Your Say’ section on our website where you can leave permanent, archived comments leading up to, during and after the program

    As for the date of this particular show, I can’t be 100 per cent sure but it looks like it will be in late July or early August when we come back on air after the World Cup – watch the website for further info!

    Thanks again.

    Cheers,

    Kyle

    Those who intend to watch the programme may like to hop on-line at the same time and send as many comments/observations as they like. (who knows, Schneider may be involved in the on-line discussions)
    If they get good ratings accompanied by lots of comments, they may be open to inviting people like Jo to future programmes about AGW.

    Thnx in advance

    10

  • #
    JaniePo

    Getting Ready for the UN Takeover.

    Plans for the New World Order exposed!

    http://www.larryhannigan.com/treason.htm

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Ross @64,

    You’re right!

    10

  • #
    Bulldust

    Isn’t it hilarious that Chancellor Merkel has had to extend the life of nuclear reactors in Germany by an average of 14 years, because the country had no hope whatsoever of getting sufficient renewable energy before the 2030’s:

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/environmentalists-angered-by-germanys-decision-to-keep-nuclear-reactors-open-longer/story-e6frg6so-1225914785311

    I love this quote … some people insist on opening their mouths and remove all doubt (of their ignorance):

    And Austria’s environment minister Niki Berlakovich termed it a “hard blow for the… development of renewable energy”.

    “The future of energy supplies lies indisputably in renewable energy,” he said. “In any case, nuclear energy will not answer the problems related to climate or be a solution to reducing CO2 emissions.”

    Huh? What? Nuclear emits CO2 now? Look far and wide you must to find a more naive comment.

    Greenpeace is spitting chips of course, because they hate nuclear with a passion:

    Environmental pressure group Greenpeace heaped scorn on the report and accused Ms Merkel of yielding to the powerful nuclear energy lobby, a charge echoed by an increasingly confident opposition.

    “Ten or 15 years’ extension. That sounds harmless, but it’s not,” said Tobias Riedl, Greenpeace’s nuclear energy expert.

    Yes, file that under “unsubstantiated meets claim”…

    10

  • #
    Brian G Valentine

    Janie @ 72

    That kid’s parents ought to be jailed for letting him and that situation get that far out of control

    SOMEBODY needs to be jailed for that

    10

  • #
    Siliggy

    Baa Humbug:
    September 6th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
    (who knows, Schneider may be involved in the on-line discussions)

    Huh?!?
    Pre prepared answers? Or do you mean David Karoly

    10

  • #
  • #
    crakar24

    Bulldust @ 76,

    Maybe he is talking about all the water vapour that pours out of a nuclear reactor?

    10

  • #
    Speedy

    If the ABC was Relevant, Part 15.

    [John and Bryan are in the studio after the show. Feet on the table, ties off and waxing philosophical over a beer or three.]

    Bryan: ….And that’s why Peter Garrett’s job is a safe as houses.

    [There is an awkward silence.]

    John: [Changing subject] I see Penny’s in the news again.

    Bryan: Yeah?

    John: Got up on her hind legs and went into bat for the climate scientists. They’re not coping well with the skeptics.

    Bryan: Inquisitive types, aren’t they?

    John: True, Bryan. But it’s a given that the weatherologists have been taking a bit of stick lately. Look at Al Gore…

    Bryan: Brilliant scientist. Did a movie.

    John: Say no more Bryan. But nevertheless pilloried by the skeptics on a simple matter of interpretation.

    Bryan: How so?

    John: He only tried to say that sea levels would rise by 6 inches – suddenly there was this communication problem, and somehow the public gets the idea he said 20 feet…

    Bryan: Clearly misquoted.

    John: In his own movie.

    Bryan: You can’t be too careful John.

    John: And Professor Pachauri. He’s just at home, doing his tax…

    Bryan: As you do.

    John: As you do Bryan, and making a very earnest attempt to declare a net income of 3 million. But…

    Bryan: But?

    John: Owing to a typographical tragedy, he only managed to put himself down for 30 grand that year.

    Bryan: Missed off a couple of zeros?

    John: What’s a couple of zeros?

    Bryan: Nothing!

    John: Nothing at all Bryan. Not that you’d ever guess it but. The critics went off like a pork chop – just like they did with that glacier business.

    Bryan: What was that?

    John: Well, the good Professor had just finished informing the Indian Government they had about 30 years to find themselves a new set of Himalayan glaciers…

    Bryan: And?

    John: And that they were a collective pack of duds, Bryan. When a quick glance at the notes revealed that the existing glaciers would be in the hands of the said government sometime north of the year two thousand and never.

    Bryan: At least he got the thousand bit right.

    John: Despite this, the gratitude of the Indian Government was distinctly underwhelming. And as a token of their appreciation, I now believe he’s about to be given the Khyber Pass.

    Bryan: Khyber Pass?

    John: Home of the Vegemite Valley Bryan.

    Bryan: Not good.

    John: A little like Professor Jones. Doing a little spring clean around the climate laboratory one day, when he inadvertently discards the greater part of the 20th century temperature record.

    Bryan: Desperately unlucky, John. A brilliant scientist but.

    John: Just not very well equipped for the collection, retention, analysis and reporting of large data sets Bryan.

    Bryan: No-one’s perfect…

    John: Quite true Bryan. So you can see where Penny is going with this Bryan.

    Bryan: Yep, there’s nothing wrong with the Climate Science.

    John: It’s only the numbers that are dodgey.

    10

  • #
    Baa Humbug

    Sliggy # 78 asks..

    Huh?!?
    Pre prepared answers? Or do you mean David Karoly

    err no, I mean an attempt at bad taste humour.

    They can channell him thru the CO2 induced vortex don’t you know.

    10

  • #
    Speedy

    Baa H

    Regards Steve S and his message from beyond the grave – you and I were on a similar wavelength. I didn’t do it but was sorely tempted!

    Cheers,

    Speedy

    10

  • #
    Bulldust

    Election Update:

    The independents are asking what the Tony Crook (WA-Nat) situation is:

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/independents-press-abbott-over-crook/story-fn59niix-1225914963108

    It begs the question why they are asking unless they have decided to lean towards the Coalition. Were they deciding to go for Labor the question would be moot.

    10

  • #
    Bulldust

    PS> Let’s put it this way… if Crook does not whole-heartedly back the Coalition he will get zero votes next election. In case anyone forgot he represents a mining & agricultural country electorate.

    10

  • #
    Brian H

    Bulldust;
    There seem to be a few electees about who don’t give a rap about the opinions of the electors.

    P.S.
    “begs the question” doesn’t mean what you think it does. YCLIU

    10

  • #
    Bulldust

    Meh English is my second language … technically…

    10

  • #
    Bob Malloy

    Just found this story posted by a participant on Tuesdays insight program, a little long but makes for some interesting reading.

    The episode is finally screening on SBS on Tuesday 7 September at 7:30pm. I must confess that I’m a little scared. I think I would have been okay if they’d just aired it reasonably soon after filming, but the World Cup then the Federal Election interrupted screening.

    Why would I be scared? When someone says the words “climate sceptic”, the instant stereotype which springs to most people’s minds is that of a right-wing Holocaust-denying lunatic who is immune to reason. And I assure you, I am none of those things. But once you “out” yourself as a sceptic, you get tarred with that brush. I worry that my colleagues, my friends and my students might judge me, because I didn’t really get to put my views across properly (in fact, I don’t speak until half way through, presuming they even put my bit in!). I don’t like the term “climate sceptic”, to be honest; I prefer to think of myself as a climate agnostic. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

    http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2010/09/04/climate-change-scepticism-and-elitism/

    Some of the comments from Noel Pearson are quite insightful.

    h/t to Australian Climate Science coalition for the link.

    10

  • #

    […] over the last few years. Of course, they aren’t the only ones who guesstimate. So does the UN IPCC, as admitted by their head hypocrite, Rejandra […]

    10

  • #
  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Bob @88,

    The T. S. Elliot quote kinda says it all as far as most of the MSM and so many others.

    Half the harm that is done in this world
    Is due to people who want to feel important.
    They don’t mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them.
    Or they do not see it, or they justify it
    Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle
    To think well of themselves.

    (From The Cocktail Party, T.S. Eliot)

    But the pushers like Gore and Hansen, the bankers, the top politicians and the UN can’t get off that easy. It’s willful with them.

    This also sums up very nicely what I’ve been seeing in many of those who show up here and try to claim they know it all and skeptics know nothing. If you’re really honest you must have the humility to get yourself out of your own way.

    10

  • #
  • #
    Jay

    Jo,

    Have you ever read a Gartner report? Gartner publishes reports on IT and what they publish guides/dictates how vast fortunes are spent. As in, “no one ever got fired by buying IBM”, sort of conservative benchmark thinking.

    Anyway, they are usually total bullshit, their reports, based on common sense and group think, and peppered hundreds of times in each report with these bogus probabilities that are never explained. Gartner advises that iPads will be able to play music (0.7). And there never was a little boy to say they were wearing no clothes.

    At least that was the case 10 years ago, maybe they’ve reformed.

    In the meantime, Pachauri seems to be describing a similar approach, and one based on some sort of “post normal” science. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science , which the wiki says is a somewhat valid approach, but which I think Mel Brooks would describe as Abby Normal Science. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ_pKqiB5Rg&feature=related

    10

  • #
    Lawrie

    Brian Valentine @ 69.

    Bob Carters book is a very succinct expose of the science so far. A great read in line with Plimer. It puzzles me that with the mountains of historical information and the modern data all pointing away from MMGW/CC that so many policy makers are still buying the crap from the IPCC.

    As mentioned here earlier there is another conference of the UNFCCC coming up at which they plan to extort even more funds for an unspecified benefit for all people. In similar vein I have just posted to Climate Spectator which is strongly pushing for a price on carbon. As I concluded, a carbon price is simple a mechanism for investors to screw Joe and Jane Public.

    I still think that company CEOs and Directors should be made aware that the science is far from settled, it is almost certainly wrong, and that they have every means of knowing that. Therefore expenditure on carbon abatement could be seen as failure to do due diligence leaving them open to litigation.

    10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Post normal science defined: south end of a northbound bull

    Beware of what comes from it.

    10

  • #

    Regarding Post # 81,

    LOLOLOLOLOL

    10

  • #
    Oddsox

    Now who’s doing voodoo science?

    10

  • #

    Pachauri really could use some remedial reading lessons, so that perhaps he will be somewhat less ill-prepared when he shoots from the lip:

    [From Jo’s quote:]

    let’s not take away the importance of expert judgment. And that is something the report has missed or at least not pointed out. [emphasis added -hro]

    [From the IAC report, p.4, and repeated on p.37, & p.53:]

    Recommendation: Quantitative probabilities (as in the likelihood scale) should be used to describe the probability of well-defined outcomes only when there is sufficient evidence. Authors should indicate the basis for assigning a probability to an outcome or event (e.g., based on measurement, expert judgment, and/or model runs). [emphasis added -hro]

    Amazing. Simply amazing.

    While I’m here … on a somewhat related note … When is an IPCC rule not an IPCC rule?

    10

  • #

    […] not such a good idea … considering the (94 and counting) scandals we have had with the IPCC in the […]

    10

  • #

    […] you are trying to defend the indefensible. We need scientists here not spin doctors after all. Pachauri admits the IPCC just guesses the numbers « JoNova __________________ Buy more Hummers …..for warmer Summers ! Last edited by flogger; 21st […]

    10