The Working Group II IPCC report from the big shindig in Japan this week will be making headlines shortly, but take those headlines with a grain of salt.
Richard Tol Pulls Out, Says IPCC Draft Report Alarmist
One of the authors of a U.N. draft report on climate change pulled out of the writing team, saying his colleagues were issuing unfounded “alarmist” claims at the expense of real solutions.
“The drafts became too alarmist,” said Richard Tol, a Dutch professor of economics at Sussex University in England, to Reuters.
Mr. Tol was part of a team of 70 authors working on revisions to a U.N. report on climate change, to be issued in Japan on March 31. The final draft, which is the copy that Mr. Tol found objectionable, included findings that a warming global temperature will lead to disruption in food supplies and stagnating economies — and that coral reefs and lands in the Arctic may already have suffered irreversible damages, Reuters said.
“The report is a product of the scientific community and not of any individual author,” the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, said in a statement. “The report does not comprehensively represent the views of any individual.”
The U.N. agency also said Mr. Tol advised months ago of his reluctance to participate in the summary writing of the report. He had still been invited to Japan to help with its drafting, however, Reuters reported.
Mr. Tol said many of the other authors “strongly disagree with me,” but that he found the IPCC’s emphasis on climate change alarmism — and focus on risk — came at the expense of providing solutions for the world’s governments to adapt and overcome.
He said, for instance, farmers could grow new and different crops to offset any negative impacts from climate change that impacted food supplies.
“They will adapt,” Mr. Tol said, Reuters reported. “Farmers are not stupid.”
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The IPCC are a scientific irrelevance, their relationship with science is the same as the relationship between Astrology and Astronomy.
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To equate the IPCC with Astrology is to insult Astrology.
http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/
Looking at their brief description of WG2 on it’s home page they DO mention positive consequences: “This is the Working Group II website. In its reports, Working Group II assesses the scientific, technical, environmental, economic and social aspects of the vulnerability (sensitivity and adaptability) to climate change of, and the negative and positive consequences for, ecological systems, socio-economic sectors and human health, with an emphasis on regional sectoral and cross-sectoral issues.
http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-SPMbrocure_FINAL.pdf
But when I begin to look at publications I cannot find any reference at all to “POSITIVE CONSEQUENCES”; it all appears to be slanted towards “Disaster Risk”. If they’re really only looking for trouble – they’re bound to find it!
They do not seem to be concerned with “positive consequences” at all. If you put a committee of people in a room and ask them to write a summary on: “What’s the worst that could happen?” … regardless of any particular subject, you can be certain that the group is not going to mention anything good and will attack any person in the group who even mentions the possibility.
Snowing here in Ottawa today. Thank goodness it’s Spring!
So, the IPCC concentrates on increased temperature as causing reduced food supply.
Yet the simple fact is that as the world has warmed and CO2 has increased, food supply has sharply increased. We are grwoing more than double what we were growing before global warming. Directly opposite to what the IPCC are predicting.
To know the future, look at what the IPCC is predicting, and invest in the opposite.
Well said, Ivor Ward. I wish I were able to express my thoughts so well.
I will let everyone in on a little secret. The average energy of the earth is a constant but because of the different currents in the world it flows around a bit.
What that means is that the longer we measure the temperature the more it will regress to its mean, just like rolling die.The gloom and doomers are doomed to failure.
Steve from Rockwood @ur momisugly March 30, 2014 at 5:30 am
Temperature data cannot be averaged to yield a more accurate value like other measurements. …. To collect a thousand buckets of water from all across the ocean does not give a single value of great accuracy.
This is the fallacy of false precision. The error bar should still be +/- 1.0 C, making even the decimal points … err … pointless
The only alarmist position to be taken with the IPCC is this: How can so many smart people and over so many years make such inaccurate and false projections using computer models? That is quite alarming to me.
“The report is a product of the scientific community and not of any individual author,” the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, said in a statement.
Well, it’s a product, so they got that part right. But, it is more in line with the end-product of the bovine variety. It’s fresh, and ripe, and there’s plenty of it. The rest of their description of the report is just further end-product of the bovine sort.
“The scientific community”? Please, spare us.
Ha! Great post.
So basically one scientist out of how many dropped out? *and* he’s an economist, not a climatologist.
Quote:
Mr. Tol was part of a team of 70 authors working on revisions to a U.N. report on climate change.
Are they trying to imply that this report is the equivalent of the LXX or Septuagint Bible? The LXX was, of course, compiled by 70 authors.
Ralph
At 1:10 AM Village Idiot wrote: “If my calculator is working right, that makes a 98% consensus”
Of village idiots, perhaps.
The ‘legendary 70’ of the Septuagint…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint
so when those titled climate scientists [http://www.uea.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/degree/detail/bsc-climate-science#course-profile ] are “building sustainable solutions to address them in policy and society and considering sustainability in theory and practice. Striking a balance between societal development, economic growth and environmental protection and campaigning on topics ranging from landscape and population ecology, to behavioural, physiological, molecular, genetic and chemical ecology WHO is actually coding the climate models they depend on for everything?
looks to me the term climate scientist is not defined in any way the public would think of it.
given no one has a model for climate why a student on a climate science course would spend half their time on environmental sustainability lectures from ecologists is baffling.
is climate modelling going to be solved by people with a focus on hard science or on environmental sustainability?
Thanks, Anthony. Good article.
andrewmharding said “The IPCC are a scientific irrelevance, their relationship with science is the same as the relationship between Astrology and Astronomy.”
Do you forget that astrology gave birth to astronomy?
I bet nothing good will come out of the IPCC.
They are hiding behind a bureaucracy, similar to most governments. Not a single individual would ever take away your individual or civil rights, but gather a groups of hundreds protected behind guarded walls and a disconnect from real people and you get far-reaching plans to impose “sustainable development” policy that rivals the most fascist 1930’s era politics.
Look, this is all very well and we can all dither around the actual point but there is a catastrophe looming. Surely we can all see, with rising horror, that because of its generation of CO2 fermentation will soon be banned.
Fermentation is the vital component in the manufacture of beer and wine, two of my most favourite compounds. I thought we were safe when they started the old bio-fuels rubbish because that uses fermentation and so generates a lot of CO2 in the process so we would be under the radar so to speak. But I now hear that the IPCC isn’t keen on biofuels anymore. It is obvious to me that this is the beginning of that journey to ban all forms of man made fermentation and quite frankly it is scaring me.
I know that there are some very big brains out there who are trying like mad to invent a new source of energy that doesn’t use fossil fuel but I think in the interests of humanity itself they need to be redirected towards coming up with a way of making good tasting, alcohol containing, beer and wine that doesn’t create CO2 as a byproduct first. It is just a case of simple priorities so come on men, lets get the pressure on before it is too late and our lives are made completely joyless. Sitting in the dark with no car to get away in, having to listen to the old folks warbling on about how much better things were when we burned stuff will be bad enough, but without beer and wine to enhance our food and companionship life will be downright unbearable.
Enough is enough gentlemen! It is time to really make a stand.
In the following quote, note the bold text (mine):
http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_history.shtml
“Today the IPCC’s role is as defined in Principles Governing IPCC Work, “…to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, . . .”
The bold part explains why they need GHGs.
Some of the rest explains why they need others besides “climate scientists” (sic). They are just following orders. The USA pays for a lot of this and guess who has need of a legacy? Health Care a mess. Foreign Policy a failure. Sea level rise – Ha!. The belief is that the stool still has one leg and the boss and his lackeys are doing their best to keep upright.
Folks such as Richard Tol do not help the cause. It is a good thing he is not a US citizen. The IRS, the EPA, and the DoJ would be investigating.
on my journey to find the ‘wizard of oz’ behind what clearly is some political agenda i have had to let go some notions. The latest notion i have had to let go is the idea that ‘a climate scientist’ is someone who studies climate. ie Someone who gathers climate data builds models tests them. Given the nature of the climate scientist courses one sees that is not the focus at all and that it is at least equally shared with ecological environmental campaigning for sustainability. which is why the IPCC thinks it has the right to pontificate on everything from ice cores to recycling apple cores.
now no longer illusioned i began searching for ‘climate science and sustainability’ in google. Bingo.
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/inspiring/keythemes/science/climate/
http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/admissions-and-study/masters-degrees/masters-courses/msc-sustainability-climate-change/
Climate Change, Justice and Sustainability
http://www.springer.com/earth+sciences+and+geography/earth+system+sciences/book/978-94-007-4539-1
and so on.
so climate science isn’t about maths/physics geeks producing accurate models which seems to be the impression the public gets. Its about sustainability and ‘solving’ climate change.
climate science seems light of describing the processes of climate change and heavy on the sustainability of ‘solving it’.
so for me climate scientist is a jedi mindtrick word used to give one impression while engaged in something else. So next time someone tells me i’m not a climate scientist so have no right to speak on climate i can point out those with that title might not be either as the title does not mean what people think it means.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Climaticm note :
One of the authors of a U.N. draft report on climate change pulled out of the writing team, saying his colleagues were issuing unfounded “alarmist” claims at the expense of real solutions.
“The drafts became too alarmist,” said Richard Tol, a Dutch professor of economics at Sussex University in England, to Reuters.
village idiot
it’s interesting about how a consensus of scientists must be right but even though all climate models were wrong, a consensus, they must still be right.
Something weird and wonderful in that thinking, a touch of Alice in Wonderland.
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble……………
Or, making it up as you go along.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26802192
Deja vu? See what Robert Watson has to say at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Watson_%28scientist%29#cite_note-WebsterPagnamenta2010-6
In 2010, he warned the IPCC against overstatement:[8]
“The mistakes all appear to have gone in the direction of making it seem like climate change is more serious by overstating the impact. That is worrying. The IPCC needs to look at this trend in the errors and ask why it happened.”
siberian_husky says:
March 30, 2014 at 7:28 am
So basically one scientist out of how many dropped out? *and* he’s an economist, not a climatologist.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
WG3 is about the science.
WG2 is about impacts and adaptation and mitigation strategies,
In other words, the cost of both change and attempts to either stop it or deal with it.
I other words…. economics.
Given that WG3 has walked back almost all the serious claims about the impacts (albeit shrouded in the words of silver tongued devils who go to great lengths to obscure that they in fact did say that), there is no reason on earth for WG2 to be alarmist when the science itself isn’t.
Hence Richard Tol’s principled resignation.