by Drieu Godefridi
Mr. Chairman,
Firstly, I’d like to congratulate you on your appointment as the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If I may, please allow me to take this opportunity to submit to you five questions on the nature of your organisation, which terms itself a “scientific body” (ipcc.ch):
1. The last word, in the IPCC reports, belongs to the General Assembly (“Principles Governing IPCC Work”, article 11).
Is it true that the vast majority of the people in this assembly are not scientists, but civil servants and representatives of the governments, NGOs, etc. without any scientific credentials required?
2. The IPCC has three aims: to summarise climate science, to evaluate the negative impact, for mankind, of climate change, and to set standards to curb said negative impact.
Is it correct that two of these objectives require value judgments, which are the province of politics, not science?
3. The third part of the last IPCC report (“AR5”), published in 2014 and 2015, urges Western countries to opt for “de-growth”, i.e. negative growth.
Could it be argued that such recommendations have no connection at all with science?
4. The IPPC attempts to deduce, in its reports, the nature of climatic impact from its own summary of climatic science and set standards based on such.
Would you agree that such a claim exemplifies a naturalistic fallacy, as defined by Hume’s law (do not infer how the world ought to be from the way it is)?
5. If, as suggested by its composition, objectives and methods, the IPCC is not in fact a scientific body at all, as it appears to be, but in fact a political body, is it not moot that the very essence of its reports is political as well?
If the answer to these five questions is yes, Mr. Chairman, is it not time to reform the IPCC?
Drieu Godefridi
PhD (Sorbonne), author of “The IPCC : a Scientific Body?”, Texquis, 2012.
Update: The web link was corrected from ippc.org to ipcc.ch on October 22nd.
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Perhaps the most important question is:
What statistical criteria is required to finally and officially declare CAGW a disconfirmed hypothesis?
A) CAGW model mean temp projections off from reality by 2+ standard deviations for 20 years. (Already exceeded)
B) CAGW model mean temp projections off from reality by 3+ standard deviations for 25 years. (Should be met in 5~7 years)
C) CAGW model mean projections off from reality by 3+ standard deviations off for 30 years. (Should be met in 10 years)
D) Never.
If the IPCC can’t answer the above, it should be disbanded as CAGW is obviously a political phenomenon and not a scientific endeavor to develop a hypothesis that matches and explains reality in any statistically meaningful way.
First Rule of political organisations:
“Don’t admit it’s a political organisation…”
Dodgy Geezer,
I replied to you below at ‘John Whitman on October 21, 2015 at 2:45 pm’.
John
Mr. Chairman, could you comment on the statement of your executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres:
At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,”
Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021015-738779-climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism.htm#ixzz3pDlMiSpO
After seeing your second question, I think a follow up question should be:
Should IPCC also evaluate and make a summary of the potential benefit of climate change, because without evaluate that how do you get the “net” negative.
It is obvious that Drieu Godefridi is in the pay of Big Oil and needs to be imprisoned under the RICO act.
The UN/IPCC’s remit:
To summarise climate science, to evaluate the negative impact, for mankind, of climate change, and to set standards to curb said negative impact.
Therefore, the conclusions have been decided in advance. It is now the IPCC’s job to find corroborating evidence showing a “negative impact”, and to set standards to “curb” that “negative impact”.
The problem is this: there has been no negative impact from the rise in human CO2 emissions.
None at all (I would appreciate it if anyone could prove me wrong by quantifying any global “damage” or “harm” resulting from the rise in CO2).
As it has turned out, the rise in CO2 has been entirely beneficial. There has been zero “negative impact for mankind”. Rather, agricultural productivity is rising along with the rise in CO2.
An honest organization would report that fact.
Reform it? Reform it into what? It’s time to eliminate the IPCC and the UNFCCC. These organizations are unelected, accountability free, non-constitutional, pseudo-world government bodies. They do much harm and little good.
The whole UN has lost it’s purpose and meaning, which was to be a co-operative, positive collective influence on pre-WWII style geo-politics that don’t exist any more. The UN was not designed to be a world government. And it was worthless almost from the beginning. It became nothing more than a tool of US policy in the time of the Korean war. It has evolved into a tool of the Politically Correct Fabians (Marxists minus revolution) today. The UN has no spine. It not only can’t shoot straight, it can’t shoot at all. It cannot judge good from evil. It is amoral, and can’t tell the difference. It leaves evil dictators and world-wide movements of religious Islamic fascists to commit genocide, behead Christians and each other, kidnap girls and sell them into sexual slavery, pirate vessels on the high seas. It sides with Iran on the genocide of Israel. It is anti-individual and anti-liberty.
If it were up to me, I’d bin the entire UN, fire every bureaucrat that works there, send them home, raze that ugly building in NYC, and learn the lesson not to do that again. The few UN orgs that still do good charitable work would continue as private charities, or as is the case, they already have private equivalents.
248,544,843 views
As of this post/comment there are now over 248 million views to WUWT. It may reach “one quarter billion” just prior to the start of the Paris Circus. Other than an occasional troll the viewers here are most likely more informed than on the “me too” sites. Paris is most likely doomed to the annals of history as well as it should be. True science may possibly have a chance to exist and advance after the Paris Circus. I hope so.
[Note: number fixed. ~mod.]
eyesonu,
An amazing accomplishment for Anthony Watts in only eight years. But an even more important metric is the 1.5 million+ reader comments. No other climate site comes close.
And fortunately a lot of the commenters are very well informed and very logical, although I don’t fit in to that class. Even though there is not always agreement on the scientific nitty gritty between the commenters I have learnt many interesting and surprising things here at WUWT. My eyes used to glaze over during 4th year lectures in thermodynamics, heat transfer and fluid mechanics but that rarely happens here. Thanks for your endless efforts Anthony.
Dr Lee has a PhD in economics. Hardly qualified to head any real SCIENTIFIC organization. Perhaps qualified to head a political/economic institution. What percentage of people though will assume his title of “Dr” is one from the physical sciences. I think it should be part of his title when ever he is referred to. “Hoesung Lee, PhD in Econonics”
So has Ross Garnaut, the author of another set of stupid “science is proven” reports. Usually these economists pick up their PhDs from user friendly tertiary institutions.
Lee did get his PhD from Rutgers U. so at least it was a real university.
Question #6: Will you be a member of Deutschebank’s Climate Advisory Board, along with Fabio Feldman, board member of Greenpeace Int., The Nature Conservancy, and Friends of the Earth, and Pope Francis’s science advisor, Hans Schellnhuber, replacing your IPCC predecessor, Rachandra Pachauri?
Question #7: What is IPCC’s definition of conflict of interest?
“Schellnhuber is on the Climate Advisory Board at Deutsche Bank with Rajendra Pachauri, Lord Browne, Lord Oxburgh, Klaus Töpfer, Amory Lovins, (Rocky Mountain Institute), Robert Socolow, (Carbon mitigation Institute, Princeton), Fabio Feldman, (board member at Greenpeace International, The Nature Conservancy (Brazil), and Friends of the Earth Brazil).
Ciao Koch-Weser of Deutsche Bank was on Ban Ki Moon’s “High Level Climate Finance Panel”, with Chris Huhne, Lord Stern, Christine Lagarde, (now IMF chief), George Soros et al….”
comment, Dennis A.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/29/schellnhuber-and-the-tyndall-centre.html
I would like to know what is the urgency for any action?
When the original claims for urgent action were shouted from the hill tops, it was not anticipated that there would be a pause in the rise of global temperatures.
The pause in the rise of temperatures may be fortuitous (or it may be because CO2 does not case significant warming), but this pause has given us time. To date all the warming that has presently occurred has been entirely beneficial, and we should avail ourselves of the unexpected and additional time that the pause has given us to firm up on the science.
Now is not the time for any drastic action especially given that it is now clear that the mitigation action to date (renewables, carbon trading, carbon floor price etc) has been entirely futile since global CO2 emissions are not being curbed, but are in fact increasing, and will continue to increase no matter what is signed off in Paris.
Let’s be sensible and pragmatic before committing us (the developed nations) to expensive and futile gestures that will do nothing to curb CO2 globally, and will only impoverish all (including the developing world).
Yes, the course of reasonable men. The question is will the participants at COP21 be reasonable?
Question #6: Will you be a member of Deutschebank’s Climate Advisory Board, along with Fabio Feldman, board member of Greenpeace Int., The Nature Conservancy and Friends of the Earth and Pope Francis’s science advisor, Hans Schellnhuber, replacing your IPCC predecessor, Rachandra Pachauri?
Question #7: What is IPCC’s definition of conflict of interest?
“Schellnhuber is on the Climate Advisory Board at Deutsche Bank with Rajendra Pachauri, Lord Browne, Lord Oxburgh, Klaus Töpfer, Amory Lovins, (Rocky Mountain Institute), Robert Socolow, (Carbon mitigation Institute, Princeton), Fabio Feldman, (board member at Greenpeace International, The Nature Conservancy (Brazil), and Friends of the Earth Brazil).
Ciao Koch-Weser of Deutsche Bank was on Ban Ki Moon’s “High Level Climate Finance Panel”, with Chris Huhne, Lord Stern, Christine Lagarde, (now IMF chief), George Soros et al….”
comment, Dennis A.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/29/schellnhuber-and-the-tyndall-centre.html
I pray to the smiling Gods that Pachauri gets his come uppance from the Indian Court system. He will be an old man by then however.
How about re-writing the Charter / Mission Statement?
Dodgy Geezer
October 21, 2015 at 9:17 am
First Rule of political organisations:
“Don’t admit it’s a political organisation…”
That’s the second rule. The first rule is “never talk about Fight Club / (the organization)”.
peyelut,
I replied to you below at ‘John Whitman on October 21, 2015 at 2:45 pm’.
John
Greenpeace / WWF aka IPCC is a dishonest political propaganda organization. The new leader will not change that because this is not about science, logic, pollution, weather or CO2 – it’s not even about the clima, – it’s all about the money!
I propose the following additional open letter to newly appointed IPCC Chairman Hoesung Lee.
In this thread I suggest viewers should consider providing their own open letters to the new IPCC Chairman.
John
John Whitman:
You say
Why?
Richard
– – – – – –
richardscourtney,
In a nutshell, self determination & free will.
John
John Whitman:
Thankyou for your reply to my request for clarification, but I admit to remaining bemused.
I have “self determination & free will”: those are internal properties that everybody has. I don’t see how that is – or can be – affected by writing an Open Letter to the IPCC Chairman.
What purpose are you thinking such letters could have?
Richard
– – – – – – –
richardscourtney,
You have ‘self determination and free will’ and you may choose, as is your wont, to not write any such open letter. Others may choose. My suggestion to others was me exercising my ‘self determination and free will’. It is other’s ‘self determination and free will’ to decide for themselves about writing an open letter. That is obvious. Remember, richardscourtney, this is still a free marketplance of ideas at WUWT, and a wonderous & glorious one. (Thanks Anthony)
And, richardscourtney, you ask me what is a purpose of open letters? I can only state my purpose; to have an open and critical dialog with viewers of my comment and (if WUWT is as potentially as effective as I think it is) to have some reasonable chance of input to the IPCC Bureau / chairman.
John
John Whitman:
Thankyou for the clarification.
I understand your bafflegab to summate to you saying you suggested everybody should waste their time writing pointless Open Letters because you wanted to feel self-important.
Drieu Godefridi wrote his Open Letter to the IPCC Chairman as a method to publicise the fact that the IPCC is a purely political organisation. To me that seems worthwhile and worthy of support, but diluting it with many pointless other Open Letters would reduce its effectiveness.
Richard
– – – – – – – –
richardscourtney,
In a rationally based hierarchy of fundamental concepts, where does the knowledge of how human beings should associate with one another (i.e. – political ideas & knowledge) fit into that hierarchy?
I think political ideas & knowledge are merely the conclusion of all other areas of the order of the hierarchy. The other areas are necessarily first; politics is merely a result of them.
I think any potential political insights of the IPCC assessment process can only be a result of: a metaphysics, an epistemology, a philosophy of science, an ethics; in that order of thought. I think a political interpretation of the IPCC, without consideration of how it necessarily depends on the other areas, is useless info. You have, as you have consistently done over the years in hundreds of comments, put politics as the primary fundamental cause of the IPCC assessment process.;whereas I do not.
John
John Whitman:
You write
Your gobbledeygook that I have quoted here demonstrates you suggested the effect of the Open Letter from Drieu Godefridi should be diluted by many pointless Open Letters as part of your long-running propaganda campaign to promote the falsehood that the IPCC is a scientific organisation.
Your propaganda is denied by the IPCC’s own Rules, documents and procedures, which define the IPCC is a purely political organisation tasked to produce documents intended to provide information selected, adapted and presented to justify political actions.
I posted the facts which deny your propaganda in this thread here.
Richard
Friends:
Several people have discussed whether the IPCC is a scientific or a political organisation and some have suggested that the First Rule of political organisations is:
Don’t admit it’s a political organisation…
In fact the IPCC is an overtly political organisation. Indeed, the answers to the “five questions” in the above Open Letter from Drieu Godefridi to Hoesung Lee are a matter of official IPCC record.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only exists to produce documents intended to provide information selected, adapted and presented to justify political actions. The facts are as follows.
It is the custom and practice of the IPCC for all of its Reports to be amended to agree with its political summaries. And this is proper because all IPCC Reports are political documents although some are presented as so-called ‘Scientific Reports’.
Each IPCC Summary for Policymakers (SPM) is agreed “line by line” by politicians and/or representatives of politicians, and it is then published. After that the so-called ‘scientific’ Reports are amended to agree with the SPM. This became IPCC custom and practice when prior to the IPCC‘s Second Report the then IPCC Chairman, John Houghton, decreed,
This was done and has been the normal IPCC procedure since then.
This custom and practice enabled the infamous ‘Chapter 8′ scandal so perhaps it should – at long last – be changed. However, it has been adopted as official IPCC procedure for all subsequent IPCC Reports.
Appendix A of the most recent IPCC Report (the AR5) states this where it says.
This is completely in accord with the official purpose of the IPCC.
The IPCC does NOT exist to summarise climate science and it does not.
The IPCC is only permitted to say AGW is a significant problem because they are tasked to accept that there is a “risk of human-induced climate change” which requires “options for adaptation and mitigation” that can be selected as political polices and the IPCC is tasked to provide those “options”.
This is clearly stated in the “Principles” which govern the work of the IPCC.
These are stated at
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles.pdf
Near its beginning that document says
This says the IPCC exists to provide
(a) “information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change”
and
(b) “options for adaptation and mitigation” which pertain to “the application of particular policies”.
Hence, its “Role” demands that the IPCC accepts as a given that there is a “risk of human-induced climate change” which requires “options for adaptation and mitigation” which pertain to “the application of particular policies”. Any ‘science’ which fails to support that political purpose is ‘amended’ in furtherance of the IPCC’s Role.
The IPCC achieves its “Role” by
1
amendment of its so-called ‘scientific’ Reports to fulfil the IPCC’s political purpose
2
by politicians approving the SPM
3
then the IPCC lead Authors amending the so-called ‘scientific’ Reports to agree with the SPM.
All IPCC Reports are pure pseudoscience intended to provide information to justify political actions; i.e.Lysenkoism.
Richard
Might I assume that our UN representative has only one vote in requiring a response to these five questions? Assuming he could even be required to ask for a vote.
Can our Congress as a major funding agency of the UN require an answer as requisite for funding on the premise that to get what we pay for it should be defined.
Reblogged this on Mbafn's Blog and commented:
Power power power that’s what IPCC stands for…
Bingo!
No replies will be coming from Der Emperor because as a God, humans are not allowed to ask questions or look at the face or into the eyes of Der Emperor, as they are treasonable offenses to the sensitivities of Der Emperor.
– – – – – –
Dodgy Geezer & peyelut,
Unfortunately, it is much worse than that.
Donna Laframboise has looked** closely over many years at the reality of what the IPCC actually is and has actually done versus what the IPCC officially says and what the Charterers of IPCC officially say about what the IPCC formally is and formally does. A (arguably ‘the’) main conclusion by her is the former is largely not-consistent with the later and often the former is conflicting with the later. Also, Donna Laframboise has documented the disturbing IPCC ‘de facto’ policy of not publically addressing the publically obvious discrepancies between the former and the later. In other words, it behaves like a classical unaccountable bureaucracy, it is a “delinquent”** in its behavior.
** D. Laframboise – wrote two books entirely focused on the IPCC (‘The Delinquent Teenager’ and ‘Into the Dustbin: Rajendra Pachauri, the Climate Report & the Nobel Peace Prize’) and has prolifically written more than a hundred blog posts at her blog site detailing all crucial aspects of the IPCC.
I thank Donna Laframboise!
John
Please don’t just post URLs – at least give a proper summary of what they may contain.
[REPLY: Yes, always include a few words of explanation. Thanks. ~mod.]
Jan Christoffersen
October 21, 2015 at 7:05 am:
“So, the new head of the IPCC is a South Korean, joining his two countrymen who lead the U.N. and the World Bank. Do the Koreans have sensitive photographs of the string pullers who make these kinds appointments?”
@Jan: This is just my opinion. I will suggest here that getting South Koreans to be in charge of these international organizations (including the IPCC) is part of Seoul’s aggressive effort to de-legitimize the North and fatboy Kim Jung Un’s regime on the international stage (at least outside of China anyway).
One needs to put oneself in the shoes of the the South’s government here. Your country has been divided now for many decades, and your countrymen to the north of the 38th parallel are your bitter ideological enemies. Understanding this, it should not be difficult to realize how important it is in the minds of the South’s govt to establish itself as the one, true and legitimate Korea on the world stage (and I concur that it is). What better way to do this than to aggressively pursue the leadership positions of these international organizations? This also explains why the South has aggressively and successfully pursued the opportunity to host numerous international events like the summer and winter Olympics (they will host the winter games in 2018), the World Soccer Cup, and the Korea 500 auto race.
Again, all of these efforts (I suggest) and designed by Seoul to de-legitimize the North outside of China. With a South Korean at the helm of the the IPCC, I cannot say if he and the South’s govt actually believe in the alarmist CO2-induced climate change theory (I don’t) and whether he can and will answer the questions in the post above. As I have said here though, the importance of having a South Korean in the IPCC chairmanship position has importance to Seoul that goes beyond the scientific validity of theory itself (or lack thereof). I believe that should be understood here.
…..that goes beyond the scientific validity of THE theory itself.
I would ask where is the refund mechanism in any carbon tax plans? If we don’t warm up despite lots of CO2 and the climate doesn’t warm up then how will they do the refund? Let’s base the temperatures or not on the UAH & RSS measurement data sets just to be fair (one scientist from each side of the argument).
Typo in the article: IPPC.