And you thought railroad engineer Pachauri was odd…
Donna Laframboise of “No Frakking Consensus” does some digging, and what she turns up about the new IPCC lead author is to say the least, strange. Some excerpts:
In 1994, Kovats was one of only 21 people in the entire world selected to work on the first IPCC chapter that examined how climate change might affect human health. She was 25 years old. Her first academic paper wouldn’t be published for another three years. It would be six years before she’d even begin her doctoral studies and 16 years before she’d graduate.
This question Laframboise asks really, really, needs an answer:
How does one land that sort of position (and, presumably, that sort of salary) prior to finishing their PhD?
Josh provides some comic relief:
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Tom Fuller says:
March 18, 2011 at 3:22 pm
So my home city of Sydney would have a similar monthly temperature to Brisbane? Or Melbourne?
Hmmmm….
Re previous post, or Bathurst (which is on the same latitude, making it more likely)? Still no….
Given that the stock response is “List all your peer reviewed climate articles” to any objection to AGW, this is most revealing. “One standard for you, one standard for me, one standard for that other chap and then we can make it three.” I take objection to the comments that this should not be known. It is a total farce on the part of the IPCC.
No offense to the lady in question (I think that was below the belt Josh, keep the gloves up so it’s obvious which side is groin-punching and pulling hair)… but this is a very very poor showing by the IPCC. Under what circumstances do you pick someone with few credentials to lead the report following climategate? What leads to that decision?
Also, as Anthony said… 1200km apart and you get a similar monthly temperature?
300km and you get a similar daily temperature? I’m guessing the assumption here is a completely flat surface of the earth. It’s too bad we don’t have many thermocouples out on the ocean to test that theory.
Kovats is a very common Hungarian family name. It means ‘smith’.
Strange, but I never heard about her. When the IPCC received its Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, the local MSM highlighted multiple times that only two Hungarian scientists were involved in the whole IPCC process. For example, Miklos Zagoni was a reviewer and he has become a prominent AGW skeptic since then.
DeanL says:
March 18, 2011 at 3:18 pm
But this is evidence of lies spread by that glorious purveyor of ‘scientific consensus, the IPCC. Why on Earth would exposing their lies be shameful? Durely the lies themselves, and the deliberate intention to mislead for obvious personal gain would be the shameful bit, no? Or would you just prefer that everybody shuts up and does what YOU want them to do? That would be shameful. So many shameful things, but this does not appear to be one of them!
Aha! Climate is fractal; it looks the same at ANY time scale.
Wow that is wonderful news; so now we don’t need to look forward to a perpetual future of “Partly Cloudy” climate predictions; excuse me; that’s projections.
Please Anthony keep your site focused on the science not the person. Of course there reasons to look at qualifications but never a need for putdowns. I know being sceptical of AGW means that you have to endure putdowns yourself but clear, precise argument is the only way to respond if possible.
That cartoon and many of the “Friday Funnies” cross a line to, as some other commentator said, Juvenile.
I’m trying to be constructive here as I’ve followed your blog for years and heard you talk in Australia and lately noticed the tone of some blogs getting a bit flippant and derogatory. Leave that to RC.
This is Josh’s best effort, or the best I have seen. The language is perfect. The image is perfect. This has to become a cup and a shirt. Hats off to you, Josh.
Nor is this an isolated incident – Donna Laframboise has cited many other examples on her excellent blog –
” The IPCC has a history…of pretending that grad students are the equivalent of the world’s top scientists.”
http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/10/22/an-even-younger-senior-author/
And even “IPCC insiders say many of those who shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize have weak scientific credentials. They were chosen because they are of the right gender or come from the right country”.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/ipcc-nobel-laureates-lack-scientific-credibility/
Of course we must remember this is the ‘UN’ IPCC.
I disagree with the anti comments.
This stuff needs exposing – sometimes there just isn’t a nice way to do it! Especially in the case of the IPCC.
“”””” Dave says:
March 18, 2011 at 4:11 pm
This is by far the worst post I have ever seen at WUWT. I certainly hope this is not an indication of a new direction.
Let’s please stick to science when possible and facts if not. “””””
Well Dave; I know you didn’t say it; but one might reasonably deduce from your comment, that you don’t consider news about the major players, in the international field of climate inspired legislation, to be worth even taking note of let alone commenting on.
We just went through an exercise where the voters through their Electoral College Representatives elected a US President; with out anybody ever questioning just who the person was, where he came from, what his qualifications for the job are, or even what his experience in managing so much as a lemonade stand. He effectively was elected by acclaim, more or less the same way that the Rev Jim Jones led his followers to their destiny. And as if that wasn’t enough, the simultaneously elected Congress, passed the largest, most expensive Government program legislation of all time without any one of the 535 elected members of that Congress, having read even a tiny fraction of it; most read not a word; and not one of them was likely even involved in the writing of it.
So yes I think it is fitting, and certainly within the realm of science enquiry, to ask; who is this person to whom so much dictatorial power has been simply handed. Well the precautionary principle would demand that we do so wouldn’t it ?
Steven Mosher says: “…sloppy writing. but the document in question doesnt appear to be an example of her Science.”
…Full of buzzwords and banality, signifying nothing. But Steven is 100% right–it’s not a true sample of her Science. Scissor out some of the more purple prose, above, put it in quotes, and google it. Some of the unattributed phrases are found in earlier works, such as “A Short Introduction to Epidemiology,” (Neil Pearce, 2005), “The health impacts of climate change and variability in developing countries,” (Bettina Menne, et al, 2003), and “Epidemiology for the Uninitiated,” (Coggon, et al, 1997). There is, no doubt, some original work here, but I’m not going to look any further, since the lack of attribution makes it impossible to determine the ultimate sources. This document is a merely bunch of stuff cobbled together informally for a colloquium from various sources, including Kovats’s earlier work. Not worth looking at, and not relevant to the matter at hand.
Funny, When world class physicists with PHDs and decades of outstanding work, awards and thousands of published works to their names, and memberships and directorships of prestigious acclaimed scientific bodies turn against the theory of catastrophic human induced climate change, the alarmist crowd attack them as not being a credible or serious scientists.
Yet when one of their own holy IPCC chapters had a lead author had not yet even become a scientist, let alone a “climate scientist”, and when Al Gore (neither a scientist or advocate of truth, but a failed polititian and hypocrite) spout their faith backed beliefs, and we call them on it, these alarmists call foul and claim that this is shameful to expose it.
I think that this article, though mildly shameful, is entirely appropriate as it shows how poor and weak the IPCC is and how unscientific it is.
The IPCC is NOT a scientific body. It is a political body with a political and deeply flawed and very very dangerous agenda.
She must have been a hard core alarmist from very early on in her professional life. My guess is her fanaticism for AGW impressed Patchi and won her the position as an IPCC writer.
Nevertheless, I think Josh’s cartoon is more than just a little over the top and not really worthy of WUWT.
She will be writing part of the next IPCC fantasy report and is clearly aiming for a high priestess position in the AGW cult. One thing is for sure: don’t expect anything balanced in any publication from this lass – for more, see below:
http://www.clacc.net/About%20CLACC/Team/International.html
Doesn’t the real rocket scientists get their phd before 25? Like 16 years after they started school if they’re late bloomers or 16 years after they’re born if they’re really special like.
So one could infer she’s not a rocket scientist.
Why would IPCC bring onboard a pre-schooler that was not a rocket scientist, you may ask, and you may, so I answer, because you can only brain wash the knobs and not the absolutely brilliantly insane folks. :p
Tom Fuller says:
March 18, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Hey guys (and gals)–let’s stay focused here. Does she do good science? That’s all I care about.
REPLY: You tell me, see this:
http://www.isse.ucar.edu/climatehealth/doc/Publications.Pg/Abstract.Kovats.doc
“Climate and weather exposures
Climate variability can be expressed at various temporal scales (by day, season and year) and is an inherent characteristic of climate, whether the climate system is subject to change or not.”
Obviously, her intelligence has declined seriously since she got the gold star. And I am not cherry picking her work. The first sentence of a peer-reviewed, published article reveals a mind that strings together cliches into gibberish. I am not taking cheap shots. I am devastated, saddened, and fearful. This gibberish could get published in a journal only if some power had over-ridden the judgement of editors, reviewers, type setters, you name it. If the fact that this article was published does not send cold shivers up and down your spine, if it does not seriously frighten you, then you have surrendered your critical faculties totally and completely.
Steven Mosher says:
March 18, 2011 at 3:53 pm
“That said, who knows why she was selected? or if it matters.”
Does the total absence of critical standards matter? She is writing at a sixth grade level.
In response to the objections to Josh’s cartoon, satire is always biting. That is why it is satire. Josh was not very subtle with it. Perhaps a more subtle approach might have been warranted, perhaps not. Satire is in the eye of the beholder. Sadly many of the AGW crowd are self-satirizing. Apparently the lady in question was part of that group.
Tim says:
March 18, 2011 at 4:33 pm
“Please Anthony keep your site focused on the science not the person. Of course there reasons to look at qualifications but never a need for putdowns.”
Putdown? Presenting the quotation from the article is all the putdown possible! If you believe that her writing is evidence of intelligence then please explain to me just what intelligence you find in that first sentence. How about anywhere in the article?
She was unqualified to perform the duties she was tasked with. Everything she worked on as an unqualified 25 year old, everything she did for the IPCC she be tossed out as tainted, if not fraudulent.
She also knew she was not qualified but went along with the “deal”.
Dr. Pachari knew she wasn’t qualified but went along with the “deal”.
No wonder the credibility of the IPCC is questionable and their results next to useless.
Here’s a fact for the fact-hungry:
I wrote better than Kovats when I was 16.
Personally I’d ask if Kovats got the job on the casting room couch in the normal Hollywood way when Pauchauri was drafting his loin-boiler….
Berkeley’s Professor of Physics Richard Muller deconstructs “Mike’s nature trick,” where Mann deviously hid the actual temperature decline and replaced it with a steeply rising hockey stick: click
Steven Mosher says:
March 18, 2011 at 3:53 pm
…”That said, who knows why she was selected? or if it matters.”
=========
That said, who knows why CO2 is increasing? or if it matters.