From the Chicago Tribune, August 3, 2008
PERSON OF INTEREST RAJENDRA PACHAURI
By Michael Hawthorne
Story link: Blunt answers about risks of global warming
Note: Photo changed to this one at 4:40PM PST 8/3/08 due to previous one inviting negative comments about Pachauri’s personal appearance. – Anthony
Rajendra Pachauri isn’t nearly as famous as Al Gore, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with an international panel on climate change that Pachauri, an Indian scientist and economist, has led since 2002. But as chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Pachauri has an urgent message for world leaders about the perils of global warming. He talked to the Tribune recently while he was in town to meet with Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago civic leaders. An edited transcript follows.
Excerpts:
Q: What do you think about the small but vocal group of doubters still out there
Pachauri Answer: There is, even today, a Flat Earth Society that meets every year to say the Earth is flat. The science about climate change is very clear. There really is no room for doubt at this point.
Q: What have you done personally to shrink your carbon footprint?
A: I’ve become a vegetarian. I try to minimize the use of cars. Where I’ve failed is my impact with regard to air travel. I tell people I was born a Hindu who believes in reincarnation. It will take me the next six lives to neutralize my carbon footprint. There’s no way I can do it in one lifetime
Paul K,
I know Roman Catholic doctrine and one of your statements about it is dead wrong. I won’t tell you which one because I am OT as it is. Just run your statements by your local priest, is my advice.
Is that what America has come to? We can now treat anyone we don’t like in an inhuman way?
Consider history. Slavery. Lynch Law. Jim Crow. Then consider that the history of most other countries is even nastier, and the further back you go the worse it gets (in percentage terms, it even gets worse than WWII).
70,000 virgins jumping off the city walls to avoid capture by the Mongols, anyone? Human-head pyramids in Asur, anyone? “Man-corn”? (It’s what’s for dinner.) You need to brush up a bit on “inhuman”.
Nowadays all we do is invectivize each other over the web. (What the heck so inhuman about that?)
Poet, good catch. It makes it seem that he never went to catechism.
Mike
Ten years can be several lifetimes if one is reincarnated in a lower form of life
“i was a vers libre poet and nobody knew it but the bartender then i became a cockroach was that a divine literary kick in the pants or what”
REPLY: So how many is that in dog-years to reclaim your carbon pawprint?
Didn’t Monckton find some sums that had apparently been trifled with to make the results a little more catastrophic?
MIke
A LOT more catastrophic. The way he put it, the IPCC simply did its sums wrong; he didn’t say they fiddled the books, just made an error. Being a mathematician, he caught the error. The IPCC agreed and made the correction. (Very quietly. In a supplement. That no one seems to be aware of. Least of all the MSM.)
REPLY: So how many is that in dog-years to reclaim your carbon pawprint?
Dogs are living so much longer these days it’s hard to say.
“i was a vers libre poet and nobody knew it but the bartender then i became a cockroach was that a divine literary kick in the pants or what”
Evan,
I tracked down that quote via Google and that guy Ali is a hoot. Thanks for the laughs.
randomengineer (22:23:55) :
you need to recheck your assumptions about the AGW, fundamentalists, left and right. Search just a little, you will find lots of articles like this one:
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/gores.green.message.resonates.with.baptists/16621.htm
AGW is fast becoming a major religion and it is idealy suited to recruiting fundamentalists. I have read enough of your posts to know you won’t be too surprised.
A question occurred to me today. What if the steady stream of AGW trolls that come to websites like this one think of themselves as missionaries that have a duty to enlighten the unwashed? It reminds me of Carlin — “Religion is sort of like a lift in your shoes. If it makes you feel better, fine. Just don’t ask me to wear your shoes. And let’s not nail the lift to the natives’ feet.”
When it comes to AGW, I guess it is too much to ask.
More personal attacks… now Graham H. at 18:10 refers to him as a vampire, and J. Peden at 18:30 says he is Yassir Arafat.
Paul K
Hey, Paul, since you have resurrected my snipped statement, tell me just what’s so bad about looking somewhat like a genuine Nobel Peace Prize winner such as Mr. Arafat?
Paul K says:
Just curious. Does Paul K arm-wave over all non-peer reviewed articles published? Or only those written by Monckton? I ask because this goes directly to the question of Paul K’s credibility. Of Monckton, Paul K further states:
If Paul K would stick to the science, we could have a good discussion. But Paul K’s comments reek of vicious ad hominem attacks. All they do is demonstrate the bankruptcy of those pushing the AGW/CO2/climate catastrophe hypothesis.
Finally, linking to Eli Rabett is no different than linking to Tamino or Schmidt. Halpern’s site, like theirs, arbitrarily deletes skeptical arguments that they can not be answer.
(second attempt – If this post has been accepted already, please delete!)
Mike Bryant, Evan Jones “Didn’t Monckton find some sums that had apparently been trifled with to make the results a little more catastrophic?”
Yes. Here. It’s the IPCC sums http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533290/Climate-chaos-Don't-believe-it.html .
Those who say Monckton’s science in that article was thoroughly “trashed” have not read Monckton’s courteous deconstruction of Schmidt’s discourteous rebuttal here http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/chuck_it_schmidt_a_science_commentary_on_web_posts_at_realclimate.html
Schmidt has, signally, failed to respond to this. Schmidt’s failure to respond here is surely of the utmost importance. If Schmidt had had a response, he would most certainly have given it at that point. Instead, in his latest attack on Monckton’s APS paper, he refers back to his earlier “cuckoo science” cited here, as if he had succeeded in “trashing” Monckton at that point. He had not.
Schmidt is being dishonest by omitting Monckton’s response.
I’d love it if people here could post at least the last URL wherever they find blogs claiming that Monckton has been “trashed” or is “unprincipled” or “bizarre” or “not a scientist” as they do. He is an excellent scientist. His writing goes right to the heart of the double problem, the mathematical heart of the science, and the political IPCC issues. We surely need a team who can deconstruct the IPCC math shenanigans as well as Monckton can, to answer the team at Rabett Run, Deltoid and RC.
This is hilarious. The AGW Believers have trashed science, transforming a discredited hypothesis into a quasi-religion, and hurl insults at anyone who refuses to go along. Then, trolls like Paul react in hypocritical moral indignation when the courtesy is returned. This interview, or whatever it was called was not about science, it was entirely political. The softball “questions” weren’t even questions, but statements which he then obligingly expounded upon.
Yes, some of the responses here have been a bit over the top. We skeptics are human, and we do get angry. So, sue us.
In the words of The Who, “We’re not gonna take it”.
What should worry the UN is not Climate Change, but slowing global population growth. Even Pachauri’s native India is seeing a slowing in the rate of increase in its population. For nations like Japan, Russia, Greece, Italy, and Spain, their fertility ratess are down near the 1.2 to 1.1 levels (that is, thier populations are about to be halved every generation), while in Canada, New Zealand, Scandanavia, Great Britain, and France the fertility rates are around 1.5-1.85. The US and Austrailia have a fertility rate of 2.1, but need immigration to keep its populations growing. Africa, with the scourge of AIDS and civil war are seeing its native populations decimated.
While, many may applaud the near anemic growth rates, as a sign that the world’s population growth will slow, for economists this growth level is ominous. Even China has had a 1 child policy in place for 29 years. The UN is chasing the wrong boogey-man. Sixteen of the twenty wealthiest nations on earth are about to set upon a population decrease the the world hasn’t seen since the Black Death. About 80% of the world’s wealth is tied up in the aging populations of these nations. And what does the UN worry about? A trace gas. Even if CO2 is a leading cause of GW (and that’s a BIG IF), the amount of CO2 being exhausted into the atmosphere will begin to decrease qucikly as these 16 nations steadily begin to shrink in size.
The UN is like the passengers on the Titanic, who spent thier last minutes on earth rearranging the deck chairs. They haven’t a clue.
So Pachauri believes in two fairy tales, AGW and reincarnation. When will we make the great leap out of the dark ages and let rational thought dictate our lives instead of faith?
JP (05:37:58) :
“What should worry the UN is not Climate Change, but slowing global population growth.”
Certainly the population growth is by far the most important problem we have to deal with, much more important than climate change. Unfortunately it hasn’t received nearly enough attention that it deserves.
There are a lot of incorrect statements above. A lot to fix, and not a lot of time. Let’s start with Joy at 19:09. She writes:
“Paul K:
What, exactly does The Lord Monckton, 3rd Vicount of Brenchley have to do with the head of the IPCC?The Lord Monckton is not as you describe. Whether he inherrited his title is immaterial. He has as much right to comment as you. Go to Icecap and read further. Watch Lord Monckton’s lecture and judge the man as you see him rather than relying on Gavin’s opinion. You simply express rank prejudice and inverse snobbery otherwise.”
I listed his actions and his behavior since getting his paper published. He has accused his editor of lying when the editor stated (correctly) that his paper was not peer reviewed. Meanwhile, the scientific arguments in his paper were demolished by a host of scientists. Right here on this site, Joy, there is a thread where Duae Quartuniciae took the paper apart. Have you read the scientific comments on this very site, on this very issue?
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/american-physical-society-and-monckton-at-odds-over-paper/
Another scientist, Arthur Smith, wrote a rebuttal and submitted it for publication, sent The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley a private courtesy copy, and his lordship added text to the copy, and published it on a political motivated website, SPPI. He published it without permission of the author, and before the author even had a chance to get comments back from the publisher. These are all facts. I read the rebuttal on SPPI myself, and TVMOB’s own rebuttal of the rebuttal, so I know that TVMOB took the man’s work and published it without permission.
Regarding TVMOB as part of the IPCC, you are correct. I agree with you. TVMOB is not connected to the IPCC. TVMOB is not an official with the IPCC, even though he claims he is. He submitted comments during the review period, and this does not make him an official of the IPCC. There are some people on this site who claimed he won the Nobel prize himself, because he was an official of the IPCC.
You ask me to read his papers, and I have, including his response to the rebuttals. And his scientific argument doesn’t stand up. TVMOB reduced the carbon dioxide forcing by a factor of 3, without any substantiated reason to do so. This is simply his biggest error, in a long list of mistakes he made.
Why didn’t any of you post your scientific analysis on this site’s post on TVMOB’s paper, when Duae Quartuniciae was here and taking comments and responding and reviewing the paper? I came here to read those posts, and because I heard TVMOB was holding court over here.
As for those who claim I am a troll… I didn’t even know what the word “troll” meant, until I read the article in the NY Times this week on trolls. I get it. I am not welcome here. Opposing viewpoints will not be tolerated. I get it.
jc stout — “you need to recheck your assumptions about the AGW, fundamentalists, left and right.”
I think that perhaps you misread me, which is my fault for being unclear. Let me rephrase: Gore, Pachauri et al are borrowing tactics.
Some time back the Kansas school board, under pressure from the ID crowd to revise textbooks, invited a grand debate: “evolutionists” vs. ID supporters. The “evolutionsists” didn’t bother showing up. Why? There was (and remains) no debate to be had, of course. Evolution is a fact; ID is a half baked hypothesis. At best, this does little more than raise the status of ID supporters to that of being equal to the scientists. After all, debate can only happen when there are equal and opposing points.
Gore and Pachauri et al are borrowing this. They refrain from debates and refer to skeptics in terms designed to let everyone know that this is yet another example of kooks attempting to appear equal to scientists. It’s why Gore proclaimed the “science is settled.” That is why Pachauri refers to skeptics as flat earthers. They’re painting climate skeptics to be just as pathetic and clueless as the creationists. You don’t debate with madmen, and you don’t debate with the clueless, either.
***
Re left/right if you read enough of Revkin’s dot earth blog it becomes clear that many, if not most, of the posters seem to think that climate skeptics are informed by right wing politics. Lots of accusing skeptics as having been told what to say by Rush Limbaugh and so on. The upshot is that they are generally equating skeptics and creationsists. Re-read the quote from Prof Brulle that is in my earlier post; he’s making a claim about RIGHT WING politics and saying that this is the source of “misinformation.”
In short, they are making the case that there is no valid skepticism because it’s largely an attack from political opposition to science itself, which is precisely what the creationism argument is.
To the posters above who criticized my religious knowledge, you guys missed the point. I know Catholicism doesn’t believe that angels impregnated Mary… I was using that as an example of how people can misinterpret religious beliefs. Do you people really know that much about Hindu beliefs on reincarnation?
Here are these wonderful nasty comments, not snipped:
statePoet1775 (23:11:00) :
Paul K,
I know Roman Catholic doctrine and one of your statements about it is dead wrong. I won’t tell you which one because I am OT as it is. Just run your statements by your local priest, is my advice.
Mike Bryant (23:23:13) :
Poet, good catch. It makes it seem that he never went to catechism.
Mike
Response to Mike: I did go to catechism. I was even an altar boy who had to say the responses to the Mass in Latin. Your ignorant assumptions are leading you astray from the truth.
“Opposing viewpoints will not be tolerated. I get it.” Paul K
Don’t get your feelings hurt. Post away. People will disagree with you but this site won’t censor any reasonably polite conversation, in my experience.
Ok, I’m done with this thread, it has turned into a religious argument. And while statepoet1775 makes a correct point, I do tend not to “censure polite conversation”, I’m simply growing weary of the off-topic moderation.
So the simple solution is: close the thread, which it is now.