The IPCC “Flavor of the day”-gate is now the Amazon Rain Forest. What will tomorrow’s flavor be?
James Delingpole of the Telegraph says this better than I ever could, so I’ll provide his summary here. Note that there are plenty more cases of unsubstantiated non peer reviewed references in the IPCC report, a list of which you can see here. For those wondering what “Load of porkies” means, see this.
Delingpole relays North’s analysis:
Here’s the latest development, courtesy of Dr Richard North – and it’s a cracker. It seems that, not content with having lied to us about shrinking glaciers, increasing hurricanes, and rising sea levels, the IPCC’s latest assessment report also told us a complete load of porkies about the danger posed by climate change to the Amazon rainforest.
This is to be found in Chapter 13 of the Working Group II report, the same part of the IPCC fourth assessment report in which the “Glaciergate” claims are made. There, is the startling claim that:
At first sight, the reference looks kosher enough but, following it through, one sees:
This, then appears to be another WWF report, carried out in conjunction with the IUCN – The International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The link given is no longer active, but the report is on the IUCN website here. Furthermore, the IUCN along with WWF is another advocacy group and the report is not peer-reviewed. According to IPCC rules, it should not have been used as a primary source.
It gets even better. The two expert authors of the WWF report so casually cited by the IPCC as part of its, ahem, “robust” “peer-reviewed” process weren’t even Amazon specialists. One, Dr PF Moore, is a policy analyst:
My background and experience around the world has required and developed high-level policy and analytical skills. I have a strong understanding of government administration, legislative review, analysis and inquiries generated through involvement in or management of the Australian Regional Forest Agreement process, Parliamentary and Government inquiries, Coronial inquiries and public submissions on water pricing, access and use rights and native vegetation legislation in Australia and fire and natural resources laws, regulations and policies in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, South Africa and Malaysia.
And the lead author Andy Rowell is a freelance journalist (for the Guardian, natch) and green activist:
Andy Rowell is a freelance writer and Investigative journalist with over 12 years’ experience on environmental, food, health and globalization issues. Rowell has undertaken cutting-edge investigations for, amongst others, Action on Smoking and Health, The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, IFAW, the Pan American Health Organization, Project Underground, the World Health Organization, World in Action and WWF.
But the IPCC’s shamelessness did not end there. Dr North has searched the WWF’s reports high and low but can find no evidence of a statement to support the IPCC’s claim that “40 per cent” of the Amazon is threatened by climate change. (Logging and farm expansion are a much more plausible threat).
Read Delingpole’s blog here, North’s Blog here
I recommend adding them to your blog roll. I have.
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John from MN
Are they the lyrics for Billy Joel’s comeback tune “Liar Liar Pants on Fire”?
mikelorrey (15:44:41) :—-“The END is NEAR. REPENT!”
Of course, the difference is, when Christians say “The end is near.”, they understand it’s faith based. Further, we’re speaking of a different realm. Moreover, we don’t ask that the world suffer pain and starvation to get to heaven. PS—Armageddon doesn’t occur until after the rapture.
James.Sexton,
“Of course, the difference is, when Christians say “The end is near.”, they understand it’s faith based. Further, we’re speaking of a different realm. Moreover, we don’t ask that the world suffer pain and starvation to get to heaven. PS—Armageddon doesn’t occur until after the rapture.”
The multiple levels of irony in your statement have had me grinning for two hours. Fundamentalists of any stripe are convinced their faith is fact. They also condemn the majority of humanity (other than the chosen ones of course) to suffer pain and suffering. The Rapture wrt AGW is of course the sweet by and by of billions of dollars in “carbon debt” reparations, carbon trading profits, and “green” jobs for the true believers and those suffering victims of capitalism.
Spiegel puts up the headline:
“Save the Panel on Climate Change!”
The headline here is:
>>> Down with/destroy the corrupt/fraudulent UN/IPCC.
The following plead the case:
“Richard Tol is a research professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Roger Pielke Jr. is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Hans von Storch is director of the Institute for Coastal Research at the GKSS Research Center in Geesthacht and and a climate researcher at the Institute of Meteorology at the University of Hamburg.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,673944,00.html
“Y2Kyoto: Sponsored In Part By The World Wildlife Fund
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi
Continental regions are nothing if not resilient. Amazonian ecosystems have undoubtedly evolved to deal with anomalously long-lasting, widespread “stresses” of various natures– drought, fire and flood, volcanic-induced ash and cooling episodes, you name it. Given 1.8-million years of cyclical Pleistocene glaciations interspersed with median 12,250-year warming periods (our current Holocene Interglacial Epoch is overdue to end), the Amazon Basin is self-evidently a survivor. In this respect, Pachauri’s IPCC emits more Greenhouse Gas than all Brazil together.
We sense that, like H.G. Wells’ Martian invaders, “intellects vast, cool, and unsympathetic” are scrutinizing Climate Cultists’ Green Gang excrescences line-by-line, discovering pervasive misrepresentation and fraud at every turn. World Wildlife Fund, indeed! What, cite valid scientific authorities that detract from Chicken Little’s standard rant? Next up: Warmists’ long-standing claims that species are going globally extinct at whatever hogwash rate they fabricate, when 500-year historical records in fact show none at all, with 2 – 3 exceptions due to unique circumstance.
Nothing bruited by Pachauri, by peculating academics such as Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenbert et al. no longer has any slightest credibility. Agenda-driven politicians exploiting these ideologues’ grotesque fantasies are kindergarten bullies without a grain of integrity or even common sense.
I wonder if the IPCC will find suitable or willing people for their AR.5 report in view of what we now know?
http://www.ipcc.ch/activities/activities.htm
If you want to have a blast and see how many WWF entries there are in the IPCC AR4, do a search “WWF” there: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/contents.html
The WWF reference is all over the map in there…
davidmhoffer (15:22:32) – I apologize if I misread your statement . However , this site is devoted to debating AGW “truths”. If you had been around here long enough , you would understand the frustration that many of the posters and commenters feel after suffering a rebuff at the hands of AGWers who dismiss all non-peer reviewed work . That an IPCC report , upon which (for example) the EPA relies for an endangerment finding turns out to be ridden with speculation from dubious sources , then it’s time to shovel lead .
I wouldn’t be surprised if piranhas (and anacondas) are rapidly becoming extinct because of climate change. The author should strap on a couple of pork chops and swim through piranha-infested waters just to prove my point.
I doubt if they’d even get a scratch. Prove me right guys.
O/T but a very interesting listen : The BBC’s Ethical Man Justin Rowlatt asks if the environmental movement is bad for the planet. He explores the philosophical roots of a way of thinking that developed decades before global warming was an issue. And he examines some of the ideological baggage that environmentalists have brought to the climate change debate – from anti-consumerism and anti-Capitalism to a suspicion about technology and a preference for natural solutions. Could these extraneous aspects of green politics be undermining the environmental cause and are some environmentalists being distracted from the urgent task of stopping global warming by a more radical agenda for social change?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00q3cnl/Analysis_Are_environmentalists_bad_for_the_planet/
Even the ethical man from the BBC is putting his head above the parapet.
And given that it’s Burns Night tonight
Would that be George?
Hey no offense meant. Just making a joke.
Craig Loehle (15:26:14), thanks for your two posts on Ice Age forests and the contemporary Amazon rain forest. Do you have a couple of references handy?
WWF = ACORN of Climate Science…
I like this better:
WWF = WWF of Climate Science…
This isn’t too far from the truth:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=107168805965784&ref=nf
Eve,
You’ve Overestimated Deforestation in Brazil by about 1,000%.
http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html
And, whatever deforestation that’s occurring in Brazil at present isn’t related to Oil Crops. Soybean Acres have declined in Brazil since 2003.
Oh, and do you have the names of a couple of those 20,000,000 people that have died because of biofuels? It seems kind of strange, since most biofuels are made from corn, and corn is down to a little over $0.06 pound, today.
JonesII (13:36:09) :
I wonder if their real interest is the fact that under those trees flourish thousands of cocaine laboratories, their favourite drug they inhale to get the inspiration for new end of the world phantasies or to concoct new scientific “peer reviewed” papers.
Ayahuasca explains it better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayahuasca
I need to make a couple of corrections to my previous comment. First the number should have been 7 percent, not 8 percent. Second, the actual source of the RM00 claim was located further down in the Nature paper:
“ENSO-related drought can desiccate large areas of Amazonian forest, creating the potential for large-scale forest fires. Because of the severe drought of 1997 and 1998, we calculate that approximately 270,000 km2 of Amazonian forest had completely depleted plant-available water stored in the upper five metres of soil by the end of the 1998 dry season. In addition, 360,000 km2 of forest had less than 250mm of plant-available soil water left by this time (Fig. 1b).”
However, even with these corrections, we’re still no closer to learning where the 40 percent number came from. The only possible way to reach 40 percent is to make a bunch of calculations based on assumptions that falsely interpret the claims I outlined in my previous comment. For example:
1. Take 270,000 km2 (correct)
2. Add 360,000 km2 (incorrect, does not meet the definition of fire-sensitive forest and should not be included in our estimate)
3. Find the percentage for 630,000 km2 of 4m km2 = 16 percent
4. Incorrectly interpret “present estimates of annual deforestation for Brazilian Amazonia capture less than half of the forest area” as being applicable to our water-depleted fire vulnerability statistic. This incorrect interpretation would allow us to double the percentage to get 32 percent.
5. Finally, incorrectly scale it up to 40 percent to adjust for the El Nino drought year and the caveat that our estimate is “even less [than half] during years of severe drought”. (in other words the initial doubling should be somewhat more than doubled during drought years).
Maybe someone else has a better explanation.
OT
US politicians trip to Copenhagen cost $1,000,000.00.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/25/cbsnews_investigates/main6140406.shtml
Icarus (14:19:23) :
It appears that the 40% figure references this passage in the WWF/IUCN report:
“Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall. In the 1998 dry season, some 270,000 sq. km of forest became vulnerable to fire, due to completely depleted plant-available water stored in the upper five metres of soil. A further 360,000 sq. km of forest had only 250 mm of plant-available soil water left.”
And the connection with global warming is?
Bye Bye EPA’s CO2 Regulations?! Report: UN IPCC’s reliance on WWF may compromise EPA’s claim that IPCC peer review ‘meets the statutory standards required of EPA peer review’ (Climate Depot)
http://climateaudit.org/2010/01/25/the-wwf-and-the-epa-endangerment-finding/
Obama, Kerry, Boxer and Lisa Jackson are still AGW supporters. They will collectively attempt to kill the U.S. economy based on the “science” of Hansen, Phil Jones, Mann, Briffa and the manipulated data from CRU and GISS. Pachauri has not resigned. The IPCC has not been discredited except here and in the press. The APS still has their AGW agenda. The MSM has hardly noticed climategate barely noticing glaciergate. Which brings up the point that there is much work to be done.
This just keeps getting better and better. This is something like Robert Ludlum. Tom Clancy or Clive Cussler would write. You have a conspiracy to convince the world Global Warming is a threat to mankind. Then you have an international meeting with 193 nations to sign an agreement to transfer wealth to the third world and to profit from the sale of carbon credits. These same people just happen to have an interest in companies that sell carbon credits. No conflict of interest here…ha ha ha ha . That is step 1. Step 2 is to define how everyone will live as agreed to in UN Agenda 21. The only thing we need for this story is a hero and a pretty women.
Daniel H (16:03:30) :
Fire is an essential ingredient in the health of many types of forest in North America. Some will not reproduce without fire.
Are there any papers that might suggest that fire is an essential ingredient in at least parts of he Amazon?
Not really OT – Revkin has just tweeted the following New paper seems to up-end @Anthony Watts view that bad instrument siting overheats US temperature record http://j.mp/MastersonWatt #agw
Actual link is http://j.mp/MastersonWatts
My reply: #agw @Revkin: Watts is at third of Gandhi’s four stages: “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win”
The glaciers are retreating and we need to be prepared to deal with the consequences. There are many uncertainties as to when the glaciers will be entirely gone
It is a tragedy of epic proportions. Just 20,000 years ago Chicago was covered with a mile of ice. One of the current consequences of the loss of glaciers in the Chicago area is the heat during the summer. Kids turn on fire hydrants to keep cool because the ice is gone. And there is no doubt what so ever that the fauna and flora currently extant there are invasive species that would not have been viable if the area was covered with ice year around.
And the Great Lakes? Basins scoured by the glaciers.
IIRC, James Delingpole was the first person that used the term “climategate” in public on 21 November. Is this right?
REPLY: No our commenter “bulldust” coined the term here on WUWT, and Delingpole picked it up. – Anthony