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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Monday, April 7, 2014

From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

Obama Administration Seeks Green Changes To UN Climate Report Newspaper Reveals How IPCC ‘Sexed Up’ UN Climate Report
 
Obama’s administration is concerned that a crucial United Nations report on climate science may be too harsh in assessing the cost of fighting global warming. Such a finding may lower the incentive for the world to reduce fossil fuel pollution and feed the arguments of those skeptical about whether it’s worth spending money to curtail rising temperatures. State Department officials are pressing to factor in improvements to public health and lower energy costs from increased efficiency that would happen if fossil fuels were limited. Those would offset the price to be paid for switching over to cleaner forms of energy such as wind and solar and paring back on lower-cost fuels such as coal. --Alex Morales, Bloomberg, 4 April 2014

According to Rajandra Pachauri, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), its report last week was its most terrifying yet, portending famine, disease, extreme weather and wars, proving ‘no one on this planet is going to be untouched’. But a Mail on Sunday analysis shows that the 47-page ‘summary for policymakers’ of a much more detailed 2,600-page document – ‘sexed up’ some of the key findings. --Ben Pile, Mail on Sunday, 6 April 2014

In his new book, James Lovelock admits that “the global average temperature has not risen as expected”, having “hardly warmed at all since the millennium”, and that he was “led astray” by the ice cores that seemed to imply changes in carbon dioxide were the dominant cause of changes in temperature. He thinks it is a mistake to take the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s “projections almost as if written in stone”; instead we “need to stay sceptical about the projections of climate models”. For those of us who have been saying such things for a while, and who were told more than once (as I was by the head of the Science Museum among others), that if Lovelock was very worried so should I be, this is delicious to read. Welcome to the Lukewarmer Society, Jim. --Matt Ridley, The Times, 5 April 2014

At the heart of the current, poisoned debate about global warming lies a paradox. Thanks to the ‘pause’, the unexpected plateau in world surface temperatures which has now lasted for 17 years, the science is less ‘settled’ than it has been for years. Yet, despite this uncertainty, those who use it to justify a range of potentially ruinous energy policies have become ever more extreme in their pronouncements. Their latest campaign is an attempt to silence anyone who disagrees. Maybe it’s because their argument is weak that they resort to climate McCarthyism. The cost, apart from higher energy bills, is to democracy, and free speech. --David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 6 April 2014


Why aren't climate scientists winning the argument on climate policy? It sure isn't for lack of effort. The scientists themselves -- some of them, at least -- are partly to blame. They chose to become political advocates, no doubt out of a sincere belief that policies needed to change a lot and at once. But scientist-advocates can't expect to be seen as objective or disinterested. Once they're suspected of spinning the science or opining on questions outside their area of expertise, as political advocacy is bound to require, they lose authority. --Clive Crook, Bloomberg, 3 April 2014

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