Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
It’s been months since I’ve wandered over to the ClimateProgress wing of the political blog ThinkProgress. The title of the November 4, 2014 blog post by alarmist Joe Romm is truly remarkable. Please sit. Put down your coffee, unless you want to spritz your keyboard. (I have a standby keyboard from my old computer just in case I run into something like this.) Here it comes, ready or not.
The title is IPCC Scientists Emphasize Immorality Of Inaction By Focusing On ‘Irreversible Impacts’.
Told ya’. It’s a doozy.
Odd thing, I don’t recall the IPCC being tasked with preparing reports about the ethics of hypothetical human-induced global warming and climate change. Do you? Referring to the IPCC History webpage, the IPCC I know was tasked with preparing reports that (my bold):
…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, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies.
If the IPCC is policy neutral, one might suspect it is also ethics neutral. In other words, it is not for the IPCC to decide what is moral or immoral.
Recall, the IPCC is only a report-writing arm of a political organization. They are not a scientific body. The reports are written for a political body—by like-minded scientists, granted—but they are prepared only to support that political body’s agendas.
On that IPCC History webpage, they also note:
The scientific evidence brought up by the first IPCC Assessment Report of 1990 underlined the importance of climate change as a challenge requiring international cooperation to tackle its consequences. It therefore played a decisive role in leading to the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the key international treaty to reduce global warming and cope with the consequences of climate change.
That’s also odd. The first IPCC assessment report wasn’t very conclusive. In fact, the IPCC admitted, at that time, they could not detect the impacts of manmade greenhouse gases on global mean surface temperatures. Yet somehow, the UNFCCC was created based on those inconclusive findings in the first IPCC report.
This has led many persons to conclude the UN was going to proceed with their agenda of stabilizing “greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” by creating regulations intended to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases…regardless of the findings of that first IPCC report. In other words, there was never any real need for the IPCC, never any real need for governments around the globe, since the founding of the purposeless IPCC in 1988, to continue to waste billions of dollars annually on climate studies. All of that time and money has been wasted. The politicians had already decided what they were going to do.
But I’ve gone off on a tangent. Back to Joe Romm’s IPCC Scientists Emphasize Immorality Of Inaction By Focusing On ‘Irreversible Impacts’.
The title of that post did its magic. I clicked on it.
It turns out that Romm performed an in-depth study on the use of the word “irreversible”, finding that it was used “only 4 times” in the IPCC’s full 4th synthesis report but used “31 times” in the IPCC’s new full 2014 synthesis report. To Joe Romm, the almost 8-fold increase in the use of one word in 100+ page documents was a clear message that “world’s leading scientists” were emphasizing the “immorality of inaction”.
Or it could indicate the politicians for whom the report is written have grown increasingly more frustrated with their own failures and have directed the report writers to ramp up the rhetoric.
Joe Romm then quoted portions of, possibly, a past synthesis report, and a 5-year-old NOAA study, and, assumedly, the recently released IPCC 2014 Synthesis Report, though I haven’t bothered to confirm the quotes or their sources. Then Romm proceeded to translate those quotes, all according to the Romm beliefs in the immoralities of failing to act on the computer-model projected impacts of hypothetical human-induced global warming, while failing to consider that those climate models cannot be falsified, because the models, purposely, are not representative of Earth’s climate.
I have no further comment about Romm’s post, but I’ll be happy to read yours.
Related:
Pierre Gosselin of NoTrickZone reports on “contradictions, falsehoods and distortions“ in the new IPCC Synthesis Report, which were discovered and documented by the Germany-based European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE). See Pierre’s post EIKE: IPCC Synthesis Report “In Crass Contradiction To Almost Every Measurement And Trend In Nature”.
Additionally, maybe you recall the blog post or news story from recent days. It was by a science reporter who had documented that many portions of the IPCC’s new synthesis report weren’t supported by their year-old 5th Assessment Report (AR5). If you have a link to the original article, please leave it for me in comments. I’d like to discuss it (introduce it) in this post as part of an update.
Thanks.
The greatest immorality of the IPCC is the prostitution of science by the political class. The greatest immorality of the scientific community was to be the prostitute.
Eisenhower was right…. From his farewell speech…
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Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
It is our free society that the IPCC would sacrifice on the altar of climate change.
The idiotic EU plan is to sign up for AGW mutual economic destruction which they hope will encourage other countries to sign up for AGW economic destruction. The EU has no surplus money to spend on green scams that do not work, even if more EU money could be created with a magic wand, the developing world or the US is not going to follow the EU to mutual AGW economic destruction.
The EU countries are all running massive deficits which is not sustainable and they are doubling down on job killing regulations and policies. That is the EU crisis, not AGW.
From Sunday warmth will be in the US only in the south-west.
Indeed Ren but all the cold is still the result of the satanic CO2 molecule and GLO-BULL warming 😉
IPCC AR5 TS.6 Key Uncertainties is where climate science “experts” admit what they don’t know about some really important stuff. They are uncertain about the connection between climate change and extreme weather especially drought. Like the 3” drought that hit Phoenix. They are uncertain about how the ice caps and sheets behave. Instead of gone missing they are bigger than ever. They are uncertain about heating in the ocean below 2,000 meters which is 50% of it, but they “wag” that’s where the missing heat of the AGW hiatus went, maybe. They are uncertain about the magnitude of the CO2 feedback loop, which is not surprising since after 17 plus years of rising CO2 and no rising temperatures it’s pretty clear whatever the magnitude, CO2 makes no difference.
“The latest science says that the pause is caused by the heat entering the deep ocean”
Seems to me that is opposite the way heat flows according to 1st & 2nd laws.
It works in theory.
Osmosis drives the currents.
It’s thermohaline.
So missing heat found?
No, just where it isn’t ignored.
Heat may not exist.
Fear mongering with a sciencey, well funded veneer.
I’ve noticed an 8 fold increase in use of the word “cold” in national weather reports. Pretty much tears it for me!
Douglas Adams was writing about the IPCC all along in the 5 volume Hitchhiker Trilogy.
Funny Friday.
I dont know what to say. The IPCC report is a political tool to enslave us under carbon tax. And Romm is right, of course they use language as a weapon and load it with apocalyptical sounding words like “irreversible” to emphasis that we must tax carbon or else….. irreversible stuff happens.
Thats the whole idea behind the IPCC that grew out of the 1987 Brundtlandreport that scared us with global warming, desertification, overpopulation, failing agriculture, and horror after horror of wich none has happened. Sure there has been warming but it seems to have benefited us, deserts are greening perhaps because of extra carbondioxide in the athmosphere. Its so funny, I was reading the document the other day just to put the hysteria in perspective, and this is how they explain the failure to implement UN programs to counter desertification:
“…. lack of involvement of grass-roots communities”
I think it is a deliberate choice of words, I think they hate humans and behind closed doors, make jokes about how we must die to save the planet. I really do.
http://www.un-documents.net/ocf-05.htm#II
“I think it is a deliberate choice of words, “, well of course, they could also have used their favorite word stakeholder here, by which they mean NGOs like Greenpeace, self appointed -and UN certified- representatives of “the people”, but in reality a controlled opposition in the Hegelian sense, and not even an opposition calling for sanity but one calling for MORE insanity.
http://www.writerbeat.com/articles/3713-CO2-Feedback-Loop
I’ll never understand climate alarmists. They’ve advocated for decades a pause or even reversal of the climate and now that it’s here they’re in denial. It should be pretty obvious now even to the main stream press that the goal was not a stable climate but the gutting of American industry. If you’re Joe Romm it is a travesty that the pause has come along well before our lawless president could take us too far down that path.
But Joe doesn’t matter, never did. He’s a useful tool and nothing more. But he’s also a distraction – rather than reading what is balled up in his empty head we should be picking apart what is in Senator Inhofe’s head and learn where he is taking us and what we need to do to make sure it is the better path. It is time to turn our attention away from the climate reality deniers and start moving the ball down field. The years of obstructionist tactics are over and it is long past time to affect where grant money goes, dispatch the “team” leadership that has gamed the system for decades and install climate realists and energy pragmatists at every critical position.
Let’s move forward and take back our economy, climate, and education system. Symbolically I’d start by banning AlGore’s AIT from public schools except that it may be used to teach our kids how to recognize how damaging misinformation is used to advance an otherwise unsupportable agenda.
Um, I think Joe Romm’s inability to spell certain words correctly has led many to misunderstand him. You see, he didn’t mean the “immorality of inaction.” What he really was the “immortality of inaction.” It’s funny how merely one letter of the alphabet completely changes the meaning of two words that would otherwise appear identical. What good ole’ Joe means (I’m not talking about Biden here) is that if inaction on climate change doesn’t retain an immortal character about it, well then, the effects on the careers of incumbent politicians will be “irreversible” if that inaction assumes a sudden death by being eaten alive by the birth of a blood dripping carnivore called ‘action on climate change.’ Remember y’all, politicians are voted into office and paid a salary, not by the UNIPCC, GISS, NASA, NRDC, Tom Steyer, or all the rest, but instead by U.S. taxpayers – a lesson we all learned on Tuesday. On that I think we can all find common ground.
“Irreversible.” I guess “robust” just wasn’t working anymore.
Thanks, Bob,
“the IPCC is only a report-writing arm of a political organization. They are not a scientific body. The reports are written for a political body—by like-minded scientists, granted—but they are prepared only to support that political body’s agendas.”
Well, yes, and we know from where they write, the left. They also write for advancing that ideology. Nothing new, but worth noticing from where this scam is coming from.
The string “uncertain“ occurs 57 times in the AR4 synthesis report, but 94 times in the AR5 one, a 65% increase in 7 years. If this trend is going to be continued, uncertainty is projected to increase a thousandfold in a century. I daresay it’s worse than we thought.
Thank you, Berényi Péter. I may have to roll that into a quick post.
Why are the IPCC & UN not first caring for the Poor?
A business leader is advocating that “cheap and abundant coal should be used to drive economic growth and help the world’s impoverished improve their lives.”
That is a major priority in our Judeo-Christian Western Civilization.
How far the IPCC’s “global warming” and “climate change” agenda has diverted/corrupted us is that the reporter of this quote commits the genetic logical fallacy by titling this: “Coal’s Defender-in-Chief Tries to Shift Debate About Fuel” because it was by Greg Boyce, chief executive officer of Peabody Energy Corp. – the world’s biggest publicly traded coal company.
Harming the poor in the name of caring for the planet worships Nature rather than stewarding the earth while adhering to theWest’s foundational religious/ethical principles. Contrast Advance Energy for Life
Greg Boyce observes:
Here ye!
@David L. Hagen – what you have to realize is that the UN could not care less about “people”. They are only concerned about “governments”. Where the government is of, by and for the people, it naturally transfers to the people as well. Where the government is a brutal dictator, their caring stops there.
Or how about the desperation/corruption/bias of the IPCC?
Has reality been about an 8-fold departure from it’s “projections”?
Well now that they bring up the “immorality of inaction”, paging all honest citizens and competent scientists within the Climatology fold.
Finally these amoral fools have spoken on a subject of which they do have some experience and expertise.
Immoral inactivity.
Climate Gate exposed them.
The inactivity of all concerned is certainly immoral.
I too am immensely cheered by the American election results, as a canadian I am cheering for the house cleaning and budget cutting soon to come.
For where the USA goes our spineless politicians follow, so our PM will finally be able to raze a few of our parasitic institutions .
Why do you continue with this unethical immoral outlandish attack on science? Your impact could be irreversibly irreversible. /sarc off
Best response to Joe Romm:
I Don’t Care — RADIX JOURNAL
I am going to intentionally increase my carbon emissions. Next year I am going to start using my gas powered lawn mower instead of using the push mower. I might drive a car once in a while. I am going to have a shower tonight, my 4th one of the year, after I go for a run (I am not making this up).
Apologies, but I don’t think Romm is much worse that Paul Farrell over at the WSJ:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/republican-win-spells-doom-for-overheating-cities-2014-11-07?link=mw_home_kiosk
Republican Win Spells Doom for Overheating Cities.
I didn’t get past the first page. If you’ve read one of his climate doom articles, you’ve read them all. No science, no facts … just emotionalism, fear-mongering, and all the usual blame-game and name-calling we’ve come to expect from the worst of the alarmists.
Makes you wonder if Farrell has spent a summer in San Francisco or Seattle, which among Washington DC, Chicago, and others he writes will become hell holes due to irreversible global warming by 2047-2049. This is far enough in the future that he probably won’t be around to lose face for his predictions. I trust that his alarmist pronouncements will not be forgotten with the passage of time.