Guest essay by Wim Rost
Sometimes you know that something “stinks” somewhere. But you don’t know what and you don’t know where. You can search everywhere and don’t find it. Till you finally find out.
Until recently I thought about the IPCC as an organisation “filled up with science”. That thought was both right and wrong. Sure, you can find a lot of scientists and scientific results there, but, IPCC does not (necessarily) work as science. No, it is not science, IPCC is government.
I discovered the importance of that difference by reading a title of an IPCC report twice: “Summary for Policymakers” and “Summary for Policymakers”. That title was giving me the suggestion that scientists had been writing a scientific paper for Policymakers. But, looking further I discovered it was different. That summary was not a scientific paper. It was an opinion and it does not need to be the opinion of all scientists involved*. Let me explain.
Scientists have to respect the scientific method. The scientific method has rules. The most important of all rules is to work in a way to obtain maximum objectivity. “Science or Fiction” wrote about objective science in a post with reference to Karl Popper: https://dhf66.wordpress.com/2015/06/02/ippc-does-exactly-what-should-be-avoided-in-objective-science/ . In the words of Karl Popper:
“We may now return to a point made in the previous section: to my thesis that a subjective experience, or a feeling of conviction, can never justify a scientific statement, and that within science it can play no part (…). No matter how intense a feeling of conviction it may be, it can never justify a statement. Thus I may be utterly convinced of the truth of a statement; certain of the evidence of my perceptions; overwhelmed by the intensity of my experience: every doubt may seem to me absurd. But does this afford the slightest reason for science to accept my statement? Can any statement be justified by the fact that Karl R. Popper is utterly convinced of its truth? The answer is, ‘No’; and any other answer would be incompatible with the idea of scientific objectivity.”
Is a conviction the slightest reason for science to accept a statement? Popper: “The answer is, ‘No’; and any other answer would be incompatible with the idea of scientific objectivity.”
In the IPCC Climate Discussion at this point all went wrong: conviction. But how? As said, it has been a struggle for me to discover. But now I know how we all are tricked. We are tricked in sentences like “Summary for Policymakers”. And also by way of “organising a result” in a manner which is perhaps formally correct – within the IPCC context – but as a result gives a wrong suggestion to the big public. Namely, the suggestion of “scientific evidence”, supported by nearly all scientists.
“The Summary for Policymakers 2014” of group II has a subtitle: “WORKING GROUP II CONTRIBUTION TO THE FIFTH ASSESSMENT REPORT OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE”. From the scientific point of view “Working group II contribution” to the summary is not correct as far as I can see.
To be scientific, the statement that something – for example an opinion or a conclusion – is a“working group II contribution” has to be tested and verified. So there must have been an enquiry among the scientists that were working in the group involved, in any case of a statement with expressions as “likely” or “very likely” or in any other statement or conclusion which is not straight from scientific research itself. That enquiry must make clear which of the scientists involved did judge the presented statement to be “a certitude” from the scientific point of view. This enquiry and the results have to be publicly available in order to make it verifiable. It must be possible to make the enquiry again and then we must get the same results. By doing so [parts of] the enquiry can be verified by researchers and journalists.
I have never heard about such an enquiry by the IPCC in regard to summaries or conclusions.
When the hypothesis (e.g. “X = very unlikely”) is not tested in such a way, you can only refer to such a statement as to the opinion of the writers of that specific part. But, opinion is not the same as “science” and every suggestion that the summary or conclusion is representing the science or even the scientists of “working group II” has to be avoided. Unless it is proven.
The IPCC is stating elsewhere:
The assessment process
This Working Group III contribution to the AR5 represents the combined efforts of hundreds of leading experts in the field of climate change mitigation and has been prepared in accordance with the rules and procedures established by the IPCC.
(WR: italic is mine)
Source: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_full.pdf
That was an eye opener. Does this statement mean that rules and procedures of science and of experts are used to produce summary’s and conclusions? No, not at all. It means, that what you are reading in the summaries and the conclusions is IPCC. And IPCC, although a lot of important work is done by scientists, IPCC is not equal with science. The IPCC is an intergovernmental panel on Climate Change. To be even more clear: IPCC is government and not science. And the workers of the IPCC prepare the work in accordance with the rules and procedures established by the IPCC.
In order to be scientific the scientific method has to be adhered. The use of many scientists to fill important parts of IPCC reports does not mean that everything is science. A report is just a report. In this case, a report from the IPCC. And the IPCC is (inter-) government. Scientists involved can produce their own scientific papers about their own specialised part of science, but a small group of writers writes the summaries and the conclusions – for the IPCC. And IPCC is government.
When you are reading well, formally the IPCC knows. But, the problem is that in public use the fact that a lot of scientists are working for the IPCC is mentioned so often, that it seems that everything produced by the IPCC is “scientific”. But, the summaries and conclusions are not scientific. They are just representing the intergovernmental opinion.
Of course, government may have an opinion. And government may also find support for that opinion in scientific research. But by making choices for certain lines and by drawing certain conclusions – even when made with the help of scientists – this doesn’t mean the government is representing “Science” and that her conclusions are “Science” or even “scientific”. It could very well be, that another choice for the IPCC‘s stated mission**, another choice of writers, another choice for “process organisers” and another selection of scientists would have delivered other summaries and other conclusions. As is usual when it is about an opinion.
The ‘big lie’ about the scientific nature of all of the IPCC statements and especially her conclusions has to end up by strictly avoiding the overwhelming suggestion that everything is science. Unless there are enquiries which prove the opposite. Therefore, to start with the next report the IPCC should give reports titles and subtitles like:
Summary by Policymakers
Approved by governments, not science
As a beginning. And to continue, they have to make everywhere a strict division between “science” and “opinion”. And tell with every statement who’s opinion it exactly is.
Wim Röst ***
* Of course there always remains the possibility that at a certain moment one specific researcher is more right than the other 99.9% of researchers which “are not that far”. Think about Albert Einstein’s E=mc2 or Alfred Wegener’s Continental Drift. So, majority doesn’t count in science. “Reigning by majority” is a democratic principle which is bound to government and not to science. The IPCC is government and so uses “majorities”. But, from the scientific point of view, “majority” is without any meaning and doesn’t belong to Science.
** “The IPCC’s stated mission is not to discover what accounts for climate change, but to assess “the risk of human-induced climate change.” Consequently, there is almost no discussion in its lengthy reports of other theories of climate change. Policymakers and journalists took this to mean the AGW theory was the only credible theory of climate change, and the IPCC’s sponsors and spokespersons had no incentive to correct the mistake.”
Source: https://www.heartland.org/sites/default/files/7theories-web.pdf
*** The article above has to be read as my personal opinion.
With regards to commenting: please adhere to the rules known for this site: quote and react, not personal
Maurice Strong the initial author of the whole scam is dead on the eve of the summit. As he has been advising the Chinese on this matter, will this lead to a change in the chinese stance on limiting CO2 emissions which will prevent the chinese public from benefitting as the west hase done?
This article should be read and understood by Governments and their employees.
We all understand it, but do they?
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
From the protests in Paris:
:large
Yup and the man who orchestrated this morass, passed away yesterday.
Kleptocracy is driven to gain total control of all resources, consume all is the mission.
The UN has become(always was) a bunch of rent seekers, their attempt to use the social credibility of science,as an institution, was very well played.
The creation of a world wide bureaucracy taxing air, too juicy a bait for the Kleptos to forgo.
This scheme to stampede the citizens into surrender to central authority, using fear of the weather, could only play out in an urbanized community.
CAGW is pure politics, thinly wrapped in a cloak of science illusion.
Old politics, Hans Christian Anderson described it well.
Nothing has changed in our nature, parasites will run true to form.
When considering the pressure to achieve a consensus, even if that consensus is WRONG, I am always reminded of this account of a meeting of engineers which occurred before the fateful Challenger launch:
“The problem escalated during the meeting. NASA could not go against a contractor’s ‘no launch’ recommendation. However, such a recommendation of a minimum launch temperature would destroy the ambitious launch schedule of the Shuttle.
‘I turned to my fellow managers and said if these guys persist in this decision not to launch, then we can’t launch, and they agreed with me, we were at their mercy,’ added Lovingood.
‘As soon as the button was pressed to mute NASA from our meeting, the managers said ‘we have to make a management decision,’ said Boisjoly. ‘It was obvious they were going to change their decision to launch decision to accommodate their major customer.
‘But surely the photographs I had showed that the more black that you see between the seals, the lower the temperature, the closer you are to a disaster. I was told I was literally screaming at the managers to look at the photos, but they wouldn’t look at them.
The general manager of Thiokol turned to his three senior managers and asked what they wanted to do. Two agreed to go to a launch decision, one refused.
‘So he (the general manager) turns to him and said ‘take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat’ – and that’s exactly what happened,’ said Boisjoly. ‘He changed his hat and changed his vote, just 30 minutes after he was the one to give the recommendation not to launch. I didn’t agree with one single statement made on the recommendations given by the managers.’
The teleconference resumed and NASA heard that Thiokol had changed their mind and gave a recommendation to launch. NASA did not ask why.
‘That was stupid on our part, that was dumb,’ said Lovingood. ‘We should have said ‘give us your rational for changing your mind’ but a guy sits in a meeting, that is a good for launch meeting and he doesn’t stand up in front of the train to stop it, he’s go. No one stood up, so everyone was go for launch.
‘But I remember going home and telling my wife that I sure hoped we made the right decision, as I had misgivings about it.’
‘I went home, opened the door and didn’t say a word to my wife, ‘ added Boisjoly. ‘She asked me what was wrong and I told her ‘oh nothing hunny, it was a great day, we just had a meeting to go launch tomorrow and kill the astronauts, but outside of that it was a great day.”
It seems that with regard to IPCC summaries many scientists are effectively being asked to take off their scientist’s hat and putting on their political actor’s hat.
As shown by the consequent destruction of Challenger, reality has no obligation to comply with the “consensus agreement” of scientists or engineers who choose to abandon the principles of science and engineering.
let’s not forget the twisted thinking, too –
https://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/climate-change-and-the-death-of-science/
By doing so [parts of] the enquiry can be verified by researchers and journalists.
Or anyone.
“They must always have a Great Evil to crusade against, because only crusading against a Great Evil can excuse their own actions.
— Glenn Reynolds on the Left”
Of course there always remains the possibility that at a certain moment one specific researcher is more right than the other 99.9% of researchers which “are not that far”. Think about Albert Einstein’s E=mc2 or Alfred Wegener’s Continental Drift.
Or Anthony’s microsite.
Yes. have you checked what the acronym IPCC stand for? 8 years ago it took me a couple of months to realise there was no science being discussed, it was all government politics. 8 years later you tell us IPCC is government.
You’re going to make Leland whine again.
Liars lying,
Lies lied,
Lying liars,
Lied low
Low lies
Liars low
Lied low
Lying low.
Climate science has its own scientific method which can easily be described as “Trust me, I’m a climate scientist”.
IPCC – the result is decided before trolling for data. Then data is found to fit the desired result. Not the way I did science as a chemist……….
The author wrote –
“Scientists have to respect the scientific method. The scientific method has rules”
The ‘scientific method’ didn’t begin as a set of rules but as a single rule –
“Rule III. The qualities of bodies, which admit neither [intensification] nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.” Newton
I wouldn’t expect you fine gentlemen to comprehend that the scientific method came in under the radar as the ‘theory of gravity’ where the experimental science (fall of an apple) could be scaled up to the motions of the moon and planets (universal qualities).
Begin with a notion of a greenhouse (experimental science) and extend it on to planetary climate (Universal qualities) and hey presto, you can fill in the gap with droughts and floods, cold snaps and heatwaves.
Check out http://www.ipcc.ch/activities/activities.shtml . While there’s a more formal process document, this will do.
There are two classes of people mentioned. Experts, who are typically scientists, often closely tied to the warmist view of things, and governments, people representing the interests of the countries involved.
So while the large WG reports are pretty much controlled by the Experts, the SPMs are controlled by the Governments.
The WG reports are huge, the SPMs are more widely read, and most readers think they are a fair summary of what the scientists had to say.
In AR5, I think it was WG II that had to incorporate changes made at the final review of the SPM into the synthesis report or the large report. I wasn’t able to hunt that down readily, I may try again. Others are welcome to find it themselves!
Even among the experts, there can be serious dissent. In the AR4, Chris Landsea, one of the leading tropical storm experts who has done some very good work, was asked to participate:
At a press conference at Harvard, Trenberth stated a position that was far from what Landsea and other tropical storm experts share. Treberth said that the active 2004 Atlantic season was due to anthropogenic greenhouse warming. (Perversely, the US has not been hit by a major hurricane in the last ten years.)
Landsea protested:
And closed with his resignation:
The full letter is at http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html and is well worth reading.
While I think the IPCC has improved a little since then, I think credit for that goes to pressure from the ever-widening skeptic community, events like Climategate, and especially people like Donna Laframboise, see her retrospective look at http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/07/05/landsea-the-ipcc-the-union-of-concerned-scientists/
Thank you Wim Rost. You have summarized quite well what I have been trying to say rather clumsily to my alarmist friends for a long time. I’ll refer them to your article and hopefully they will understand the subtleties in your argument.
How did we allow an organization like this to become the arbiter of what is and what is not climate science by what they publish in their reports? Why can’t otherwise rational people see this conflict of interest?
I thought it was obvious the IPCC was using data from scientists to produce a political summary:
Scientist A: “Air temperatures have risen since LIA.”
Scientist B: “Atmospheric CO2 has risen during industrial revolution.”
IPCC: “Scientists say air temperature rise due to CO2 emissions by industry.”
Scientist A and B: “I never said THAT!”
SR
“the IPCC is (inter-) government.”
That’s why its acronym should be IGPOCC.
Even when scientists talk about science, they are very often wrong if they are predicting by extrapolation. In fact they are no more accurate than a dart-throwing monkey. Tetlock (Interpolation, on the other hand, is usually safe.)
Peer review isn’t particularly reliable. Research is not particularly reproducible. Modern science is in a very bad place. Economist
Unfortunately, the quest described above could have been much shorter and easier if he had known that the Summary for Policymakers was written by upper-level IPCC (politician) bureaucrats BEFORE the main body of the report was compiled and written. Simply knowing that the upper-level bureaucrats are politicians sale-dunks the conclusion that the IPCC and it Summary has nothing to do with science but an agenda that must be fed. It is also worth mentioning that there is a good bit of science, particularly the temperature data that has been falsified by massive, unfounded, dishonest adjustments or blatant fabrication of data for regions with no temperature measurements.
I had thought it was common knowledge in the skeptic community that the IPCC was not a scientific body, but a bureaucratic one, whose terms of reference do not allow it to question the fundamental assumption on which its very existence depends, namely that man made climate change is a fact, and a real and present danger, and that the purpose of the IPCC is to investigate how bad it will be, and what impact this will all have, and produce recommendations accordingly.
It is one huge ‘assumptive close’. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closing_%28sales%29 )
This morning on UK TV a man said ‘I mean, look, all these world leaders are there in Paris: why would they be there if they didn’t think Climate Change wasn’t a really serious issue?’
Why, indeed…?