Pearce writes:
…
If governments won’t fire him when the IPCC meets at the Korean seaside resort of Busan next week, he should fall on his sword. For the good of the battered reputation of climate-change science. For the good of the planet.
Patchy is an amiable, bearded, vegetarian railway engineer and cricket fanatic, born under the British Raj in India. He has been showered with prizes, including Indian of the Year in 2007, and held jobs all over the world. He got the IPCC chair in 2002, after the Americans fell out with the then chairman, a Brit called Bob Watson, who is now our Government’s chief environmental scientist.
But Patchy is not a climate scientist. And he is 70 years old now. There have been too many mistakes during his eight years at the top of the IPCC. And he has made too many of them worse. Patchy is no longer part of the solution to telling the world about climate science. He is part of the problem.
Actually I think it was Booker and North that lit the fuse, but either way, your work has been important and your call for resignation correct. – Anthony
Never mind Patchy. There’s always something nice waiting for you in Almora…..
It won’t matter whether Patchy stays or goes, there is still the Concensus elephant in the room that seeks to make the rules up as they go along, to support the cause, which is absurd.
Man cannot save Earth. It’s the other way around: The Earth has saved Man the last 100 years by it’s storehouse of energy.
Ingrates want to take the energy away to use themselves. Greedy.
I think that he should stay as it ruins the credibility of the IPCC and this is a good thing insomuch as impartial undecideds are more likely to be sceptical of what the IPCC has to say as long as Pauchauri is in charge. Hope he rides the current storm and chairs the next report.
Pearce says:
“He turned a one-line mistake into a diplomatic incident….”
We should never stop reminding ourselves that this itself is spin: A close investigation of the matter puts it beyond reasonable doubt that these ‘errors’ were motivated;…no expert in the field at any time would have defended the 2035 claim…and then there is this careless confession of the lead author:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html#ixzz0dUx6pwXe
Pearce says “the IPCC’s big mistake was not owning up to the error promptly.” Yet the mistake that Pearce refers to is not, as suggested, a mistake or sloppyness in the normal process of constructing a scientific report, rather it is a mistake in marketing of a report that abuses the scientific ground it purports to express. Pearce should be held to account for supposing it is otherwise. What is he investing his emotions in when he says: “Sometimes I want to cry for an agency stuffed with good, conscientious and clever people brought down by such stupidity.” ?
And then these carefully confusing weasel words:
“Let’s be clear. The basic problem here is not climate science. There is very little doubt that the world has been warming this past halfcentury. And little doubt either that man-made pollution is mainly to blame.”
It seems that Patchy is being scapegoated by Pearce to save a ‘science,’ spinning pure what has undoubtedly been corrupted by this whole IPCC process.
If “Patchy” goes, who is next in line for the IPCC chair? Will they accept outside nominations? ;->
Patchy will go. SOP – pretend that a new public face proclaims a new dawn with no more “decline hiding” in the salt mines.
Surprised that nobody has suggested the ‘nuclear’ option of a good old fashioned re-branding.
When I raised these issues, the only answer I got was an email from Patchy’s co-editor Roger Parry from a ‘working retreat’ on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.
Ouch.
This from the online magazine that has infinitely tortured ways to associate anything to do with nature with human induced global warming. Physician, heal thy self. I’m still not going to visit their pages again.
This call is correct and easy to make even for such a biased organization as NS. They have nothing to lose – at least, nothing left to lose. You’ll find their reputation on the same heap as Patchy’s.
No, no! Keep him! He helps dissuade people of the IPCC message!
He is the poster child for how bad the IPCC and everything it does and represents is regarding “climate change.”
He is as crooked as the IPCC reports and why shouldn’t the head be as bad as the product?
The old horny dawg Pachy is the best asset us sceptics have had since McIntyre and Watts. We must lobby to save him.
Maybe a concerted lobbying effort from the blogesphere before the Busan meeting.
But then again, if WE were to lobby to save him, they’re sure to fire him 🙂
@gareth phillips
‘It’s just that once something is published in that notorious rag, it is automatically subject to doubt regardless of scientific accuracy. Does anyone ever believe anything written in that illustrious journal?’
Please don’t be too nasty about the Grauniad.Despite Monbiot’s witterings, – which are universally ridiculed and its wide-eyed sponsorship and wonder at the ‘No Pressure’ fiasco, the gardening page often has some handy hints. And the crossword can occasionally be quite challenging.
Interesting that even Fred Pearce – long-standing colleague of Moonbat – feels that he can no longer publish in that paper – presumably heresy is not allowed under its ‘principles’ of highly moderated free speech. And so he goes to the Mail.
Or maybe its just that the Mail has 8 times the readership of the grauniad.
While I found Pearce’s article to be quite refreshing, I do have some problem with his failure to recognize his own blindspot:
How did Pearce arrive at the conclusion that “the problem is not climate science” and that “man-made pollution is mainly to blame” for any alleged warming? Certainly he must know that, as Ross McKitrick concluded in his recent review, none of the inquiries examined “the science”.
Has Pearce actually “examined the science” – or is “not checking” part and parcel of his practice as a “science journalist” because his sources were/are always those “good, conscientious and clever people” at the IPCC?
Pearce’s hindsight is to be applauded as 20:20 … but it seems to me that perhaps his foresight may be somewhat clouded by the tint of 10:10.
He should have never been given the job in the first place. He is a railway engineer with a PhD in economics. I rest my case.
“Please don’t be too nasty about the Grauniad.Despite Monbiot’s witterings, – which are universally ridiculed and its wide-eyed sponsorship and wonder at the ‘No Pressure’ fiasco, the gardening page often has some handy hints. And the crossword can occasionally be quite challenging.
Interesting that even Fred Pearce – long-standing colleague of Moonbat – feels that he can no longer publish in that paper – presumably heresy is not allowed under its ‘principles’ of highly moderated free speech. And so he goes to the Mail.
Or maybe its just that the Mail has 8 times the readership of the grauniad.”
————————————————————————————————–
I try not to be to hard on the Grauniad, but the miserableso and so’s never publish my letters on how blind they are with being being even handed in the climate debate. However the Torygraph has a much better gardening page. Apparently the National Enquirer hugely outsells even the Mail, now is that worrying or what? Does this account for some of the odd political statements that occasionally intruded into this great debate?
John Marshall says:
October 4, 2010 at 1:23 am
He should have never been given the job in the first place. He is a railway engineer with a PhD in economics. I rest my case.
Indeed. IIRC he was nominated for the post by the neo-cons in the the Cheney-Bush administration. If I put my conspiracy hat on I can’t help but think that this was a cunning ploy, to make it easier to discredit the IPCC in the future, should the need arise.
Fred Pearce – USUALLY writes for the GUARDIAN…..
He is one of their environment correspondants, and has written hundreds of articles for The Guardian. Presumably, the Guardian, can’t quite bring themselves to write it.
Patchy should stay. He is fit as the head of IPCC, the organisation of lies, corruption, and non-science. Why would we want him replaced? Putting new skin on the rotten apple won’t help anyway.
So essentially the concept of washing ones hands if one is zealot to the AGW-religion is:
1. Blame someone else.
And that’s it.
Breaking it down to smaller parts it looks somewhat like this:
1. Blame someone else (this to call to attention that someone else is to be blamed for ones own screw up.)
2. Prepare for a back up to take the blame, just in case I imagine.
3. Appeal to ones own ignorance and naiveté (like just being lowly journalist and can’t one trust a source of information that is this [………………… (21 dots I kid you not)] authoritative?)
4. Make a show of pointing out that this one error, that one self completely screwed up, was just a simple “one line” mistake, really, anyone could have done (as long as it was someone else that did it.)
5. Make a last show of really how authoritative ones authority-heroes are by pointing out other error that “in fact” wasn’t any error at all but, alas, simple mistakes (done by other people). And at this point don’t give valid references nor evidence for it so people just have to take ones word for it.
One thing I can agree with though is that Mr Pearce appears to be just the simpleton journalist who missed out on the fact checking process that he appears to now want to project onto the world. I don’t know, I’m no journalist, but isn’t it kind of dumb to point out that you failed the most basic of your own profession?
“Actually I think it was Booker and North that lit the fuse, but either way, your work has been important and your call for resignation correct.” – Anthony
The difference is that Pierce makes his case with a calm analysis of “Patchy’s” arrogant PR blunders as IPCC chairman, whereas Booker and North built much of their case on baseless claims of personal and financial malfeance (unless of course KPMG is a part of the grand “eco-fascist” conspiracy). Booker, North, and Delingpole could learn a thing or two from Fred Pierce’s level-headed skepticism, instead of shamelessly pandering to their oft conspiracy-obsessed readership.
I am impressed with Patchy North history………
For anyone who might still be following this comment thread, mai I put the record straight on some serious factual errors in the post above by John Heyte, Had he examined the evidence with the care WUWT readers normally expect, he would not have charged that Dr Richard North and I built much of our case’ against Dr Pachauri on ‘baseless claims’
Despite the fact that, for technical legal reasons, the Sunday Telegraph was eventually forced to publish a limp and very brief ‘non-apology’ for one of our reports on Dr Pachauri’s commercial dealings, his lawyers were not able to prove a single factual error in our coverage. After scrupulous research, we were able to bring to light the worldwide network of influential positions built up by Dr Pachauri during his eight years as chairman of the IPCC, and this remains unchallenged.
The only evidence Mr Heyte could find to support his comments was a report commissioned by Dr Pachauri’s Teri institute from the international accounting firm KPMG. Did Mr Heyte actually read that KPMG report? It was so heavily qualified, and KPMG were so anxious to emphasise that it was in no way based on a proper audit of the Teri accounts, that it could have given comfort to no one other than Dr Pachauri himself and his supporters,
Despite the impression Fred Pearce tried to give in his Mail on Sunday article, it was not he but Dr North whose expert researches did more than anything to bring to light the facts behind those various IPCC scandals last winter, such as ‘Glaciergate’, ‘Amazongate’ and ‘Africagate’. Mr Pearce’s only real involvement with the errors exposed in the IPCC’s 2007 report was that he himself was indirectly responsible for the most glaring error of them all – the prediction that most of the Himalayan glaciers would have disappeared by 2035 (which originated in a telephone conversation between Pearce and Dr Syeed Husnain in 1999).
Mr Heyte may wish us to believe that Mr Pearce’s article in the Mail on Sunday constituted ‘calm analysis’, rather than simply an example of overheated and rather self-regarding tabloid journalism. But it was sad to see him making such a dottily ill-informed contribution to WUWT’s comment thread, where we have come to expect rather higher standards, both of accuracy and courtesy,