WUWT reader “ClimateQuoter” brings this latest IPCC AR 4 reference to our attention. It seems the issue is about preventing footwear borne biological contamination. It appears this has nothing to do with Antarctic climate at all and seems more than a bit of a stretch in the way IPCC cites it. How does climate change link to the need for boot cleaning? I can understand it by itself, don’t contaminate the local bio environment with spores on your shoes, but linking it to climate change? Even the organization for a similar and very real shoe borne contamination problem, suddenoakdeath.org don’t try to link climate change in their shoe cleaning guide here (PDF) or website.
From ClimateQuotes
IPCC cites boot cleaning guide for Antarctica tour operators
No that headline is not a joke. The IPCC cited a guide for Antarctica tour operators on decontaminating boots and clothing. Here it is.
The reference is in the Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group II, section 15.7.2 Economic activity and sustainability in the Antarctic. The claim is:
“The multiple stresses of climate change and increasing human activity on the Antarctic Peninsula represent a clear vulnerability (see Section 15.6.3), and have necessitated the implementation of stringent clothing decontamination guidelines for tourist landings on the Antarctic Peninsula (IAATO, 2005).”
This is referenced as:
IAATO, 2005: Update on boot and clothing decontamination guidelines and the introduction and detection of diseases in Antarctic wildlife: IAATO’s perspective. Paper submitted by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) XXVIII. IAATO, 10 pp. http://www.iaato.org/info.html.
So the IPCC cites a boot and clothing cleaning guide as evidence that the “multiple stresses of climate change…have necessitated the implementation of stringent clothing decontamination guidelines”. That might be laughable in and of itself, but the problem is the article doesn’t even mention climate change. Once. Nothing at all about global warming, or temperature increase. Nothing!
I can’t think of a citation any more pathetic. Read the report , (link to MS Word DOC from IAATO, PDF is available here from WUWT) and tell me if you can find anything.
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Maybe the IPCC should take a cue from Calvin and Hobbes
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The Grauniad puts the boot in!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/dispute-weather-fraud
peer-reviewed by ???????
Next I fear you will find an IPCC reference to a paper describing the affects of climate change on nose picking!
Climategate
Pachaurigate
TERIgate
Disastergate
Glaciergate
Amazongate
and now … Bootgate
Which just goes to show – nobody ever really read the report. They read the SPM which was whipped together by bureaucrats with an agenda who were easily impressed by the number of references and citations without ever bothering to check them out. If IPCC survives to issue AR5 it’ll probably be a very slimmed down document without all the NGO fluff propaganda pieces.
to add to the levity:
EDITORIAL: Osama and Obama on global warming
Discredited climate theories make strange bedfellows
The hitch is that the man-caused catastrophic global warming theory is dead, and it needs to be buried…
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/02/osama-and-obama-on-global-warming/
It seems a cast of sock puppets inhabit the boot.
I liked this one:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/gallery-e6frg6zx-1111120349509?page=1
The horse has bolted.
Closethegate?
(with apologies to the incomparable Terry Pratchett)
A lie can travel round the world before the truth can get it’s boots on.
Somewhat OT, but I just read a faxed copy of an article from Nature written by their Germany based climate correspondent that offers explanations about denialist’s claims of the significance of climategate (or lack there of) and the scientifically correct procedure Mann and Briffa used to cleanse the tree data to create the hockey stick (which he still regards as real). There’s more and its rich. Perhaps someone who has an online subscription might post a link. Its worth a dozen or more posts to debunk the debunking.
The report specifically blames the rise in Antarctic tourism on the fall of the soviet union and the resulting availability of ice breakers and other specialty ships. The IPCC is stooping to creative writing on this one.
“JaneHM (17:43:46) :
The Grauniad puts the boot in!”
I wonder why UK newspapers, especially The Guardian, are so serious-minded. We have no counterparts over here……
Love this sentence.
Dr. Chris Curry (Australia), not only played a major role in writing these guidelines but he also pioneered a three- year research study to investigate the “the feasibility and efficacy of chemical disinfection of the microbial contamination on visitors’ boots.”
And the result of the three year study is….. wait for it…
…. results of this study recommend that “consideration should be given to including a disinfectant such as Virkon when cleaning the boots of visitors.
The IPCC really stepped in it this time.
Maybe “climate change” is in the documents outlining Australia and the IUCN’s concerns?
Why quote the source article when you can quote an intermediate one?
It’s all laughable. Shame the repercussions weren’t so serious.
This doesn’t leave much for April Fools Day.
And the fecal matter continues to hit the rotating air movement device:
“Strange case of moving weather posts and a scientist under siege”
“It is difficult to imagine a more bizarre academic dispute. Where exactly are 42 weather monitoring stations in remote parts of rural China?
But the argument over the weather stations, and how it affects an important set of data on global warming, has led to accusations of scientific fraud and may yet result in a significant revision of a scientific paper that is still cited by the UN’s top climate science body.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/dispute-weather-fraud
VIA Lucianne.com
(I hope I’m not behind the curve again….)
What i’ve seen lately from the IPCC is indeed something I clean off my
Justin cowboy boots-and it’s green too…
Nothing at all about global warming, or temperature increase. Nothing!
Climate Scientists’ bootlicking AGW funders “warms” and “worsens” the Climate, while boot cleaning tries to erase the DNA evidence?
But as to the more exact importance of shoe and boot fetishes in the interplay between the Climate Scientists, the Warming Models, CO2, and temp., perhaps it is best left to Dr. Pachuri’s new Study of that specific Tribe’s practices to describe it to all the other Tribes.
Wouldn’t want any banana or orange seeds tracked in!
Open mouth insert foot.
The boot and clothing cleaning guide probably came into existence because of previous IPCC reports claiming death and destruction due to diseases spreading because of global warming.
So in other words IPCC claims disease spread due to global warming which causes IAATO to issue guidelines which is then cited by IPCC as one of the stresses of climate change.
But that doesn’t discredit all of the good work all the other scientists did on climate change!!!!
One has to wonder. Did anybody read the damned thing in its entirety? I couldn’t stomach it. But, the ones that supposedly believe that tripe, did they read it? If they didn’t, do/did they really believe it, or was it a means to an end? Boot cleaning tied to climate change? Sigh, would someone please take a penguin to the Arctic and let a polar bear eat it so at least some of this could be true!?
The third paragraph of Appendix B of the Decontamination Document states: “Resulting from the Diseases of Antarctic Wildlife workshop hosted by the Australian Antarctic Division (Hobart, October 1998), this document is intended to address the concern about the potential translocation of diseases by tourists in Antarctica,…”
You can find the Diseases of Antarctic Wildlife workshop report here: http://bit.ly/ctcj1h. On page 13, Section 2.8.2 it reads: “Human activity in Antarctica could be the cause of disease outbreaks by a number of direct and indirect mechanisms. People could act as vectors for infectious agents, either by bringing non-indigenous pathogens into the region or by translocating indigenous pathogens. In addition stress caused by human activity could reduce immunity, increase pathogenicity and could cause the expression of a disease that might otherwise not have revealed itself. Stress may be the result of direct human disturbance, food shortage (perhaps caused by fisheries competing for the same food stocks), exposure to pollutants and possibly, in the longer term, as a result of climate change.”
So, while climate change is not the major reason for the implementation of the decontamination guidelines, it is mentioned as a potential problem. Personally, I wouldn’t have made the reference (or I would’ve at least written the sentence differently), but I hope you’ll at least include all the information in your original post so your visitors will have the whole story and see where the “climate change” part of the story originated.
Perhaps a mixed metaphor competition. My entry:
Time to clean house and give them the boot.