Here in the USA, WUWT readers probably don’t have a true handle on the firestorm that is going on in India over Pachauri’s “glaciergate”. It is making headlines and the people there are quite angry, because they’ve been led to believe that their Himalayan water supply was seriously threatened in the not too distant future (2035) as reported in the IPCC AR4, and now they find out it’s a bogus, and that a Pachauri peer now specifically admits the 2035 date was known to be false, and used anyway to scare policymakers into action.
Dr. Richard North, who co-wrote the first story with Christopher Booker of the Telegraph that got the inquiry started over two weeks ago, now says on an interview on Indian television that ” If Dr Pachauri does not resign voluntarily, he will be forced to do so.”
Here is video and partial transcript of that interview.
It was not until the Sunday Times last week actually highlighted it that he was forced to take action. And on that basis I don’t think he has any credible alternative but to resign and he is either going to resign voluntarily or as the media are increasingly saying he is going to be forced.
It is a very clearly recognisable tactic where he simply denies the undeniable and for a while if you are in a very elevated position you get away with it. He hasn’t yet recognised that his position is already untenable and the more he denies, the way the media works the more evidence they are going to find until such time as his denials will be so lacking in credibility that he will be unable to operate .
Transcript via Liberty New Central.
I’ll probably take some heat for this comment, but here goes…
I’m having a fundamental issue with the “green” movement. All these so called organizations out to save the planet and save the environment like WWF, Greenpeace, EPA, IPCC, etc.
(complete list = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_organizations)
and science journals alike are supposed to be working from a factual base to request we accept their proposed solutions.
They call for trillions of dollars to be spent on behalf of their cause and constantly bombard us with internet, TV, radio, magazine and alternate advertising to donate money or sacrifice modern conveniences for the sake of their movement. Whole economies and many industries have been put at risk – not to mention a generation of young minds indoctrinated.
But a single document such as IPCC AR4 which effectively underwrites much of their perspective can’t even pass a simple fact check !
Am I missing something or shouldn’t these groups be held DIRECTLY accountable for such lapses in the basic outline of their position ?
Nobody can beat India’s ability to generate chaos from the smallest opportunity. Can we appoint a corrupt Indian to head up every effort toward global government?
I recall reading somewhere that many of the IPCC physical scientists were against having Pachauri as head of the IPCC since he is an economist, not a physical scientist. Now that he is caught in so many controversies, this will give the other scientists even more ammo to dump him.
With the 5th assessment report about to be cranked-up, I’d prefer “his holiness the seer of all Pachauri” to stay for a while longer yet. Once he is forced to resign later this year, a very large spanner would need to be removed from the 5th Assessment engine, delaying and tarnishing the credibility of the report.
Watts (sic) more, those who will be involved in preparing and finalysing the 5th will feel as if thousands of people are looking over their shoulder, prrressssurrre. They just CANNOT blatantly fudge anything important like they did in the 1st 4 reports.
I foresee a sizeable number of objections and resignations of researchers and scientists from the 5AR.
Alongside Anthony and Steve stands Andrew Bolt, the Australian journalist and blogger who has stood firmly against The Great Man-Made Global Warming Swindle for some years now.
Andy Pitman (http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2800538.htm) runs one of the best funded climate research units in Australia. However his arrogance is breathtaking. He accuses all climate skeptics of being not having real day jobs and accuses them of being well funded. This from a man who receives millions of dollars of public money.
From the ABC interview –
ANDY PITMAN: Oh, my personal view is that climate scientists are losing the fight with the sceptics. That the sceptics are so well funded, so well organised, have nothing else to do. They kind of don’t have day jobs. They can put all of their efforts into misinforming and miscommunicating climate science to the general public whereas the climate scientists have day jobs and this actually isn’t one of them.
All of the efforts you do in an IPCC report is done out of hours, voluntarily for no funding and no pay whereas the sceptics are being funded to put out full-scale misinformation campaigns and are doing a damn good job I think. They are doing a superb job at misinforming and miscommunicating the general public, state and federal governments.
DJ Meredith says:
there are 2 names which, IMHO, should stand out in history as being cornerstones in the downfall of people like Pachauri and Gore…
Anthony Watts, and Steve McIntyre.
Pachauri and Gore: you know where to forward your peace prizes!
I think another sleeper in the AR4 report is the confidence intervals they have for the temperature record. See Figure SPM-3 p6 of the link below (warning: it’s 3.7MB).
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
The graph shows they have a confidence interval of +/- 0.1 degree C, at worst, for the entire global average temperature since 1850. Notwithstanding the excellent work at SuraceStations.org, if you think about how the global average temperature was calculated from 1850 data there’s no way it could be that accurate. They only measured temperature to 0.1 degree C, so there’s half the confidence interval. Then there is the averaging over the day using just the max and min temperature, then interpolating the whole globe from unevenly distributed point readings. Then there are the changes that occur over time. It would be interesting to see the “comprehensive analysis of known uncertainties” that they conducted.
“But while his credibility and that of the IPCC has taken a battering, Pachauri maintains his chutzpah in the face of growing skepticism, arguing that his acceptance that the research on glaciers had been dodgy had actually somehow enhanced the credibility of the body.”
Typical narcissistic response. “Whatever I do actually makes me larger”. Then things will shift in a different direction. Something along the lines of “If you disagree, that is evidence that you simply don’t understand because if you understood, you would agree”.
We understand. We disagree. That is when their heads explode.
There is another crack appearing in the AGW house. The money men are pulling out as there is no money to be made. Poor old Guardian, poor old Moonbat.
No Carbon trading, no Carbon trading desks = no support from industry.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/24/carbon-emissions-green-copenhagen-banks
I don’t understand what the melting glaciers has to do with the water supply in India.
If the glaciers melt, then the rainfall each year will determine the amount of water they get. If the glaciers are stopped from losing ground, then the rainfall each year will determine the amount of water they get. They don’t magically produce water just by existing.
If global warming increases humidity and rainfall (likely) then the melting glaciers should help. In any case, the water from the glaciers is a trivial amount for the agricultural heart of India. The Himalayan parts are too cold and high to be much good anyway.
If the problem is that the glaciers release the water slowly, throughout the year, whereas without them the water all melts at once, then the solution is obvious: dams. It is what everyone else does, and provides power as a benefit. I find it hard to believe that Himalayan snow will all melt at once anyway, since it doesn’t seem to do that anywhere else.
Poochie, Poochie, Poochie — the way things are going, you’ll be about the last person to find out that you’ve resigned, after you’ve read all the stories about WWF candidates vying for your job.
Peter Carpenter (22:34:07) :
Sure is! Not much of a shark problem either
(since the crocs got most of ’em)
This is an interesting development, but to me, a distraction.
I don’t care if Pachaury resigns, is forced from office, or stays the head of the IPCC.
I DO CARE about
+ stopping the IPCC from goading politicians into turning over national sovereignty to an un-elected UN panel.
+ resetting the integrity of “peer review” such that propaganda–like the WWF melting glacier claim–is not termed as peer reviewed and then their propaganda makes it into other scientific journal articles.
+ resetting the editorial boards at many science journals to be academically focused and not politically correct rubber stamps for folks like Michael Mann and Phil Jones.
+ getting science back to discovering natural law and not in the bu$ine$$ of fabricating models to push policy despite observations–real data–that do not support these fabricated models.
I care about the integrity of science and our journals. The specific fate of Pachauri, Mann, or Jones is as little interest to me as the plight of OJ Simpson or Bernie Madoff.
Konrad (22:29:01) :
Yep – I hope to see Lord Monckton in Perth when he does his presentation here. I would have preferred Prof Bob Carter in the tag team, because there have been a few holes poked in “Heaven and Earth” and Prof Plimer did not handle the Monbiot & Jones encounter well.
I would certainly like to be able to introduce myself as Bulldust whom coined Climategate to give his Lordship a giggle.
My main worry is that the room that was booked for the presentation is too small (250 max capacity @ur momisugly The Swan room).
BTW the Monckton tour was timed to coincide with the likely reintroduction of the Aussie ETS Bill to Federal Parliament. I wonder if Labor will delay the introduction because of the tour…
I think these issues raise questions about the scope of secondary effects – I’m unconvinced on the degree of sea level rises, malaria spread, deglaciation, falling african crop yields, and increased hurricane intensity. They also raise questions about the IPCC and some of the individuals invovled. But I don’t think they raise any questions at all about the underlying warming, human intervention as a likely cause, and the science in the high quality peer-reviewed journals.
You can also look for yourself. Arctic ice retreat is clear from the last few decades data. Even the UAH satellite data shows a warming trend (look at the minima). The rapid release of fossil carbon is clearly a major challenge to any climate equilibrium and a priori could be expected to have an effect. The effects were predicted over a century ago, and so climate science looks impressive from a falsificationist perspective. And the majority views from scientists less involved with IPCC remains clear – there is AGW and the Himalayan glaciers are in poor health.
Criticise the IPCC by all means. It is perfectly reasonable and appropriate to raise these questions, and to criticise poor practice. But it does not follow that AGW is false – if anything I agree with Pachauri that it increases confidence, because all this (deserved) criticism has only turned up issue with secondary fringe effects and it has not been able to undermine the claims about the main underlying AGW trend. For my money, to undermine AGW, you would have to show that all the global data sets post 1850 are wrong. That is what is required to rebut AGW, IMHO.
As I’ve said before, “Robust” is a word used to describe spaghetti sauce. Another suitable word is “zesty”.
Yes, our science is zesty, our data robust.
33,333,517 hits at 17:00 Japan Standard Time, 25 Jan 2010.
I had waited for a happy encounter with 33,333,333 hits but failed.
The Scotsman ran a short story on this one.
http://news.scotsman.com/world/UN-climatechange-expert-stands-his.6008987.jp
I was particularly tickled by this comment:
“The mistake had prompted demands for his resignation from rich groups in the US which question humans cause climate change”
Lots of follow up links to WUWT in the comments section though.
Keep up the good work
I propose a genuine climate scientists to be appointed as chairman to the IPCC. Professor Lindzen.
Could we have this up as a poll?
Why is there so little coverage of this on mainstream tv?
I seem to remember that the BBC gave plenty of coverage
to global warming news items when there seemed to be
evidence in it’s favour.
Unless the pressure is kept on the AGW establishment will just close ranks and and protect their own. So I expect to see Pachauri given an Honorary Knighthood by the Queen. Or maybe even a Nobel Prize. Oh..Wait….
Expect also (after a decent spell of ‘gardening leave’) to see Phil Jones similarly rewarded for his services to the religion.
It isn’t too surprising to see the World WildLies Fund and Greenpiss sources quoted by the IPCC. No doubt Fiends of the Earth, the SiError Club and the EnvironMental Defectives Fund will be in there as well.
Not only do these NGOs (well supported by YOUR tax pounds and dollars, as well as donations from the credulous) obviously share the same religion but also the same disregard for scientific accuracy as the IPCC.
Many big Charities are now in the same scam. So we have Oxfam (set up as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief) now using their funds to put up big posters across the UK promoting Global Warming scares before the Copenhagen Conference. In other words promoting policies which have driven and will continue to drive up food prices especially in the Third World and which have already led to famine. And we have the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, (oblivious to the fact that no birds have been or are likely to be affected by ‘Climate Change’) actively campaigning against coal and for policies leading to the erection of thousands of bird shredders.
Yet how often do we see (especially on the BBC) some bearded buffoon from one of these groups trotted out as an authorative source on some nonsensical eco fascist scare?
Doug in Seattle (21:20:17) :
I must say though that I too am amazed that the press, at least in Britain, are now vigorously digging into the scandalous level of hyperbole that has been dressed up as science by the IPCC and its green allies.
Doug, I am not amazed; once the British Press can smell blood they can turn in an instant. Also, they don’t like: being “sold a pup”; preached or pontificated at; having to agree with politicians; seeing their peers (aka “environment correspondents”) get all the front page coverage and realising that they are not in tune with the general public.
I personally find it eminently satisfying and somewhat amusing that the major initiator for this turn-about was, I believe, ClimateGate. If Dr Jones, et al, hadn’t been so precious, arrogant and unscientific over the years and had simply released information when asked then I suspect that any faults found with their work would not have attained the prominence they now, rightly, enjoy.
That is not to denigrate or belittle any of the stirling work of WUWT/CA/… etc. I believe that these blogs were responsible for giving the push to ClimateGate that brought it within the cruel and cold spotlight of the media and they should be applauded and rewarded for this.
This blog remains an island of sanity in the rising sea of stupidity; maybe now, however, the tide begins to turn…
Cheers
Mark
Lord Monckton for IPCC chairman 🙂
Here he is having a debate with an Aussie scientist on a breakfast tv show http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/video/play/-/6716776/
Here’s a nice quote:
Rajendra Pachauri: Are Humans to Blame for Global Warming?
‘The point is, you have a transparent, comprehensive, extremely widespread process, involving the best scientist and experts from all over the world telling you that climate change is for real, and this is not something the authors working at the ippc reports has invented, this is based on peer-reviewed literature, thats the way the ippc functions, we don’t pick up an newspaper article and based on that come up with our findings’