From The Daily Caller
9:39 AM 05/22/2019 | Energy
Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor
- Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore will testify before Congress on the U.N.’s alarming biodiversity report.
- Moore says the report’s “highly exaggerated claims” are “a front for a radical political, social, and economic ‘transformation’ of our entire civilization.”
- The U.N. report warned that 1 million plant and animal species could be at risk of extinction due to human development and global warming.
Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore will tell House lawmakers an alarming United Nations report on biodiversity is political activism masquerading as credible science, according to written testimony.
“It is clear that the highly exaggerated claims of the [U.N.] are not so much out of concern for endangered species as they are a front for a radical political, social, and economic ‘transformation’ of our entire civilization,” Moore will tell lawmakers Wednesday, according to written testimony The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained.
Moore is set to testify in front of the House Committee on Natural Resources, sitting alongside U.N. scientists who recently issued an alarming report warning that 1 million species were threatened with extinction.
“Their recommendation for an end to economic growth alone condemns the developing world to increased poverty and suffering, and economic stagnation in the developed countries,” Moore wrote.
Experts on the U.N.’s biodiversity panel, called the IPBES, will likely present a different picture than Moore. Sir Robert Watson, a British chemist who led the most recent IPBES assessment, called the report an “ominous warning.” (RELATED: Media Company Came Up With A New Term For Climate Change. Critics Say It’s Just More Fear-Mongering)
“The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever,” Watson said on the assessment’s release in early May.
The IPBES report generated apocalyptic media headlines. A CNN correspondent summarized the report as humans need to be “consuming less, polluting less and having fewer children.”
“This is not a new phenomenon,” Moore says. “The so-called Sixth Great Extinction has been predicted for decades. It has not come to pass, similar to virtually every doomsday prediction made in human history.”
Moore is skeptical of IPBES’s extinction warning, which is an extrapolation of data gathered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Moore put more weight behind the IUCN numbers.
The IUCN has evaluated roughly 98,500 plant and animal species since 2000. Of those, the IUCN considers about 27,100 threatened with extinction, but that also includes “vulnerable species” with a small chance of extinction this century.
IPBES assessed that “an average of around 25 percent of species in assessed animal and plant groups are threatened, suggesting that around one million species already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken.” That’s based on highly uncertain estimates there are 8 million species on Earth.
“This is highly unprofessional,” Moore says. “Scientists should not — in fact, cannot — predict estimates of endangered species or species extinction based on millions of undocumented species.”
“The IBPES claims there are 8 million species,” Moore says. “Yet only 1.8 million species have been identified and named. Thus the IBPES believes there are 6.2 million unidentified and unnamed species. Therefore one million of the unknown species could go extinct overnight and we would not notice it because we would not know they had existed.”
The IUCN admits its assessments focus “on those species that are likely to be threatened” and that any extrapolation “would be heavily biased” — in other words, an overestimate.
When reached for comment, however, the IUCN said “it is wholly appropriate for scientific researchers such as the IPBES assessment authors to” extrapolate extinction threats based on their limited data. IUCN experts worked on the IPBES report, the group said.
The IPBES told TheDCNF its experts “conservatively” extrapolated out the extinction based on methods “that have been subjected to no fewer than two full rounds of open international peer-review over a three year period.”
It is really a shame when bad science is used to justify more bad science in service of a political agenda.
“The IUCN admits its assessments focus “on those species that are likely to be threatened” and that any extrapolation “would be heavily biased” — in other words, an overestimate.”
Just the mentions in the article of species show how it is totally improper to use unknown but estimated error estimates to further estimate the unfounded likelihood that millions of estimated but unknown species may be subject to unmeasured estimates of extinction pressures, known and unknown, and go extinct.
It is hard to see any science in a series of guesses about other guesses using guesses of the processes involved.
OMG, they speak but when I count the feet of these alarmists, why do I keep getting 4?
Bipeds do not play quadruped games.
To repeat Willis Eschenbach: “Show me the bodies!”
Ah yes, Robert Watson, who I mentioned just the other day! The former World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank officer who developed the concept of debt for nature and who is currently Director of Strategic Development for the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
Nope, no agenda, nothing to see here folks, please move along quietly.
Take a look at the qualifications of the three from IPBES.
Dr Robert Watson … Chemist.
Dr Eduardo S. Brondizio … Anthropologist
Dr Yunne Shin … quantitative ecologist background in marine fish stocks, and probably the only one of the 3 qualified to say anything.
Nick Stokes and Steve Mosher should ask for a hearing based on the first 2.
If IPBES wants to be taken seriously the first order of business for IPBES is to eject all refugees from other fields, who are not qualified to be there. Second order of business eject all applicants that have activist activities as they can not provide objective views.
The UN has been taken over by anti western radicals. It time to defund it
Biodiversity ? I’m still not convinced that box-jellyfish, blue ring octopus, stonefish, cone snail, to quote few species, are somehow necessary for the survival of the planet.
Equally I’m also convinced that coffee at altitude would be much safer without the prosperous bacteria diversity (population: 308 species) commonly found in aircraft clear water tanks.
The way gym lockers smell is also evidence of biodiversity. So are we bound to stop washing our socks to save the planet from extinction?
Coffee plants are endangered? Don’t tell my wife!
“Biodiversity ?”
There’s your problem. You should ask a biologist.
OK, why don’t you support the notion that the loss of any species spells doom for us all?
Gotcha MarkW, thanks for the tip:
-We are all doomed unless we save all species ! I just registered DynoBackInScam, a non-profit environmental religious cult sect for the preservation of dinosaures. Generous donations welcome !
Next step, fight extinction by regressing back to Cro-Magnon !
Rejoice Loydo, your voice has been heard !
“We are all doomed unless we save all species”
No, you still don’t get it and it seems you just want to stuff a little more straw in and take a swing at MarkW’s puerile all or nothing strawman, good for you.
I still suggest you need to ask a biologist about why box-jellyfish, blue ring octopus, stonefish, cone snail are somehow necessary.
And what is the costs of saving them?
If you know what the biologist would say, why don’t you tell us? If you don’t know then what is the point of your comment?
‘If you don’t know then what is the point of your comment?’
He’s just here as a provocateur. The end.
We’re still waiting for you to name 10 species which have gone extinct in the last 10 years.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01618-4?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20190523&utm_source=nature_etoc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190523&sap-outbound-id=ABF62C6EBD788882A1B18C21753EB1DD9FE1D29E&mkt-key=005056B0331B1EE7838176A7ADF1F0CD
McHenry: Gotta put a line of explanation if you want people here to click something. The average commenter here is more savvy than at most sites and know that the internet is a despoiled jungle with links for every really worthy click outnumbered 100:1 or more. It also displays that you arent aware of this and ate more easily led than is good for you.
I think most of the people here know NATURE.COM is safe
Most people are busy and won’t click on a link unless given a reason to.
Unfortunately, being recommended by MIKE MCHENRY is insufficient for most.
No it’s in one of the top English language science journals and thus very relevant and important. It would be redundant for me to repeat it. There are bright people reading this blog who do know what’s written in Nature is important. It’s nothing to do with me.
Another thought: I wonder what he hopes to achieve by saying this to the people who are more or less behind it? If we think for a moment that the UN is going to act on his advice versus for example that of the glaringly obvious (to say nothing of well-positioned and very experienced) globalist power broker Watson, we’re fooling ourselves.
It gives me chills to say it, but every day I get closer to completely losing hope that the elitists who want to dismantle western civilization will be thwarted.
I sympathize. At the very least, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
If it does.
Michael H Anderson
Don’t despair. We have had 40+ years of nothing but failed predictions. The propaganda didn’t work on the adult population so they turned to the children. In 20 years time these kids will grow up watching the world getting greener; they won’t be impressed with having to eat gruel and slave to survive whilst the elitists enjoy banquets.
And if you think about it, this precise thing has being going on in one form or another for thousands of years; terrify the proles and make them pay for the elite’s lifestyle. As has child indoctrination.
And what happens? Nuthin!
Other than we move onto the next scare. The proles remain the cash cows for the elite, and so life goes on, with the proles deluded by the illusion that politics make a difference to anything, other than being the cash generator for the elite.
When a bunch of fraudsters and crackpots are pushing a scam there is always Macaron in the audience.
The U.N. team is stuck with Dr. Watson. No Sherlock Holmes there.
You sense they’re getting more desperate and unhinged the more they’re losing control of the narrative and the power of elite MSM wanes-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/false-narrative-from-polling-may-have-ended-malcolm-turnbull-says-industry-veteran-after-election-results/ar-AABNHL1
On top of Trump Brexit and Yellow Vests the Oz Federal election has really rattled them and their insular world and the hand wringing and breast beating by the usual suspects in Oz is a joy to behold.
The IPBES is like the IPCC in that it is another branch of United Nations. The UN produces self-serving political propaganda, without any pretense to observed reality.
The UN is the real problem. The UN is purely a cancer on humanity and should be treated as any other cancer.
For example, the new leader of the IPBES has no science education whatever. Her CV reveals the details.
https://www.ipbes.net/system/tdf/cv_ana_maria_hernandez_salgar_for_ipbes.pdf?file=1&type=node&id=17581
The solution to IPBES perfidy is to remove it from existence, along withe the IPCC and the UN. Remove all funding immediately. Sell the property under the UN building to a developer. Then sit back and breath a little easier at the reduction in global pollution.
“…The IPBES report generated apocalyptic media headlines. A CNN correspondent summarized the report as humans need to be “consuming less, polluting less and having fewer children.”’.
I find it incredible that CNN interviewed Paul Ehrlich for this so-called extinction “study.” An sane, reasonably intelligent and educated person should have realized a long time ago that the guy’s credibility as a source for a story like this should be a serious question mark after the failed prognostications he made 51 years ago in “The Population Bomb.” But CNN goes and runs to him anyway.
Keep it up CNN. Your credibility goes down another notch with me every time you do something like this.
CNN HAS credibility with you? Colour me astonished – this is the channel that has anchors who make five million dollars a year stage-managing “everything wrong with America is because of the rich” rant-fests without a trace of cognitive dissonance. Even more ironically a lot of that is true, except they’re targeting the wrong rich people.
On the subject of cognitive dissonance, I had a bit of a brainwave a couple of days ago – I wonder if the reason a lot of people on the left have it so badly is, to put it baldly, chronic drug abuse when they’re young and their neural circuitry is still forming. Another free research idea from yours truly to the abnormal psych community; you’re quite welcome.
Perhaps a ‘new’ (Patrick) Moore’s Law can be elucidated:
The stridency of Climate Change alarmist claims will double every 12 years.
Excellent, J Mac!
LOL – excellent!
Galapagos.org:
Evolution quickly fills in empty niches in nature with new species.
Species that no longer adapt to nature go extinct.
All are natural process of nature; adapt or go extinct.
N.B.
Even in the rather pristine world of Galapagos Islands:
Eight of twenty-nine species means 27.6 percent of Galapagos excellent evolutionary example land birds are IUCN Red Listed.
That is:
Red List identification is considered.
Galapagos Islands land birds that are recognized examples of evolutionary process have a substantial portion of species considered endangered.
IUCN and UN biodiversity report both ignore a significant portion of the natural process of evolution; i.e. the part where species that are unable to adapt move into the extinct list.
Unsurprisingly, IUCN and the UN biodiversity report team do their best to blame mankind for every endangered species. They are not neutral objective parties.
Anyone here who has actually read the report?
Guess not, because the report doesn’t exist.
Only the summary for policymakers.
According to my sources, the report is scheduled to be released in the fall!
Anybody here who has seen that before?
RTP, producing the desired policy is so easy.
Manufacturing the evidence,so hard.
Math is hard you know.
At least in the world of our progressive comrades.
As none of the “policy makers” seem to be literate or have any numeric skills, who needs the “report” anyway.
Data? We don’t need no stinking data”.
Works for the IPCC.
“Facts do not exist. Facts are created” Steven Donziger said in the outtakes in the pseudo documentary crude. The whole UN biodiversity report follows the same approach on a much larger scale.
Lets see 6.2 million undiscovered species where do they live? Ah the undiscovered country.
Now we know where extra CO2 is coming from.
michael
The missing CO2 is believed to originate in dark matter. The missing species exist in a dark fog.
Jared Huffman was absolutely despicable during this hearing. He was rude to both Morano, and Moore, trotted out the thoroughly debunked “97” Consensus”, and then with a smarmy tone claimed that Patrick Moore was not a founder of Greenpeace. Very frustrating to watch.
Huffman is a BA Poli Sci (from his Wikipedia bio), then law school. Wow, what a shocker – ZERO science bona fides. Law career had emphasis on feminism and the environment. Legislative career seems to demonstrate fear and loathing of religious people. He looks and sounds like someone who desperately needs a slap in the face from a Baptist coal miner, aka “deplorable.”
Moore’s Wikipedia article doesn’t say he’s a co-founder – probably got Memory-Holed at some point, because I distinctly remember learning that he is ages ago – but does contain this, emphasis mine:
“As Greenpeace co-founder Bob Hunter wrote, ‘Moore was quickly accepted into the inner circle on the basis of his SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND, his reputation, and his ability to inject practical, no-nonsense insights into the discussions.'”
That certainly hasn’t changed. He has a Ph.D, but WP declines to name the discipline, though does say his initial B.Sc. was in Forest Biology. In short, a sneering Fascist of a career California politico with a hate-on for non-“progressives” versus a genuine scientist who saw the writing on the wall and bugged out of the green movement over 30 years ago.
According to this paper:
https://www.pnas.org/content/99/6/3706
“…24–31% of currently accepted [species] names eventually will prove invalid, so diversity estimates are inflated by 32–44%. The estimate is conservative…”
with the consequence that:
“…current estimates of total global diversity could be revised downwards to as low as 3.5–10.5 million species.”
That paper just erased at least 1.2 million species, in one swell foop.
To echo BonBon:
“LOL – excellent!”!
In various biology/zoology disciplines the terms ‘splitters’ and ‘lumpers’ are used to describe:
A) ‘splitters’ demand to name based upon any noticeable difference; e.g. color, or habitat location.
B) ‘lumpers’ prefer to define species with a much broader analysis/observations.
DNA analysis has changed the Family-species landscape.
Unfortunately, splitters love the immense amount of detailed information DNA provides regarding allele or ‘single nucleotide polymorphism’ (SNP) differences.
Making stuff up for New World Order Socialism. That’s all that anyone affiliated with the Left seems to be doing these days, no matter the topic. Everything is a crisis, an outrage and requires urgent economy altering action.
The missing species exist in a dark fog.
How come I cannot find the original B&W photo showing Patrick Moore as co-founder of Greenpeace? It was published on WUWT several years ago. Where is that photo which was on the Greenpeace website? Google has deleted that photo from images, not even on Duckduckgo images?
Couldn’t find a link to that hearing, but I found this which is great! :
Why Congress? No-one in the real world pays any attention to what goes on there.