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Global Warming Policies

Wreaking Havoc on Global Economies

Normally an historical review is interesting but has limited immediate importance. This is not true of this review because of emerging events. Policies designed to deal with global warming or climate change, such as the biofuels debacle, are wreaking havoc with global economies and poor peoples’ lives. Sadly, none of these policies were necessary. They all emanate from the incorrect idea that global warming and climate change are due to CO2. Those pointing the finger at the biofuels policy want it stopped and that is necessary for immediate relief, but does not address all the other policies in place or planned that will have more damaging medium and long term effects.  It is urgent to understand how world leaders were so misled about CO2, global warming and climate change and to stop them before any more damage is done. 

In Part 4 of this series (How UN structures were designed to prove human CO2 was causing global warming) I explained how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up to achieve the political and scientific objective of identifying human activities as the cause of global warming, and later climate change, generally referred to as Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory. Their work effectively thwarted the standard scientific method of disproving the theory. Scientists who dared to question the theory were derisively called skeptics and when this epithet didn’t stop them they were called deniers with its holocaust connotations. Most of the so-called skeptics were well qualified but excluded from the IPCC, making it a carefully selected group. Some, such as Richard Lindzen, and Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT, participated hoping to have reasonable scientific input but eventually gave up. “There’s little doubt, Lindzen said, that the IPCC process has become politicized to the point of uselessness.” You can read more of the problems identified by probably the best-qualified person to serve on the IPCC here.  (Heartland.org)

How did the IPCC maintain control and convince many, including political leaders they were right and were the authority? Beyond using UN agencies as vehicles they had the challenge of running an apparently open process while keeping total control. This appeared to take several forms.

1. Controlling who participated and who were the lead authors, especially of critical chapters. As Lindzen explains, “IPCC’s emphasis, however, isn’t on getting qualified scientists, but on getting representatives from over 100 countries, said Lindzen. The truth is only a handful of countries do quality climate research. Most of the so-called experts served merely to pad the numbers.”

2. Publishing the political document, the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) before the Technical (Science) Report of Working Group I was issued.  Making sure the Technical Report matched the SPM. As Lindzen said, “The IPCC clearly uses the Summary for Policymakers to misrepresent what is in the report, said Lindzen.”

3. It’s difficult to describe scientific information for an essentially non-scientific audience through the media; what one blogger describes as the “Math-Free Zone of Journalism”.  Columnist James Kilpatrick says “People who write for a living should never be left alone with mathematics. They are almost bound to mess up.” They are less likely to with the terms used by the IPCC, but it is easier to dramatize. Using non-mathematic terminology in the SPM, exemplified by the labels set out in a table in the third report, such as; Very unlikely (1–10 %) Likely (66–90 %) Very likely (90–99 % ). The percentages are not used in the Technical Report.  As one study says, “How the assessment frames the information is determined by the choices and goals of the users.” (link)

4. Including and highlighting studies that appeared to identify a “human signal” while excluding others.

5. Focusing on negative impacts of warming when there are positive effects.

Here is Lindzen’s summary of the IPCC process. “It uses summaries to misrepresent what scientists say; uses language that means different things to scientists and laymen; exploits public ignorance over quantitative matters; exploits what scientists can agree on while ignoring disagreements to support the global warming agenda; and exaggerates scientific accuracy and certainty and the authority of undistinguished scientists.”

In law it is usually necessary to show a history or pattern of behavior. The rest of this Part examines the first of a series of events that underscore a pattern that created a global deception.

Despite attempts at control it didn’t take long for the politicking and manipulation to emerge. The Wall Street Journal of June 12th 1996 contained an article by Professor Fredrik Seitz, former chairman of the American Science Academy identifying interference with the process to raise the scare level. He pointed the finger directly at IPCC co-chair Bert Bolin. This was the first major public scandal to strike the IPCC process and occurred over the Second Assessment Report (SAR). Not surprisingly it involved changes to the Technical Report to make it accommodate the statements and sentiments of the SPM.

In 1995, to the consternation of many and as disclosed by Seitz, Chapter 8 lead author Benjamin Santer made changes to accommodate the SPM rule that says, “Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) or the Overview Chapter.” What became known as the “Chapter 8 controversy” involved the most important part of all IPCC reports, namely, the evidence or implication of a human signal. Chapter 8 didn’t have specific evidence or even strong indirect evidence. The original draft submitted by Santer said, “Finally we have come to the most difficult question of all: “When will the detection and unambiguous attribution of human-induced climate change occur?” In the light of the very large signal and noise uncertainties discussed in the Chapter, it is not surprising that the best answer to this question is, “We do not know.” So Santer was asked to change his comment. He made the change claiming it was not a significant change. “The body of statistical evidence in Chapter 8, when examined in the context of our physical understanding of the climate system, now points toward a discernible human influence on global climate.” It is a very significant change. Also notice it is “statistical evidence” not actual evidence, but that is a subtlety the media and most of the public would miss. Compare it with the comment in the 1990 IPCC report before the political manipulating became dominant. “...it is not possible at this time to attribute all, or even a large part, of the observed global-mean warming to (an) enhanced greenhouse effect on the basis of the observational data currently available.” The issue hadn’t changed in 5 years and that is still true today, but that wasn’t what was needed. 

Seitz wrote in reference to the 1995 report, “I have never before witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events that led to this IPCC report.” The issue that humans were causing global warming was key to the entire objective of the IPCC. Seitz’s comment couldn’t go unchallenged. He was almost immediately attacked as the Marshall Institute described; “The campaign of personal destruction propagated by environmental advocacy groups hit a new low with the release of the May issue of Vanity Fair and the subsequent press conference today by the National Environmental Trust.  Their accusations about Dr. Frederick Seitz are unfounded and unbelievable. It reflects a campaign of character assassination and the lack of any standards of decency.” The manipulation of the reports was to continue and get worse as were the attacks on those who questioned them.

No single event symbolizes the political focus and manipulations to achieve the goal of identifying humans as the cause of climate change, but the Chapter 8 fiasco was the first to reach the world stage. Reaction to its exposure brought the now familiar pattern of responses. These include strident denials of any agenda by suggesting those who raised the questions had the agenda.  Outrage at the suggestion a poor hard working scientist would have a political agenda. Personal attacks on the individuals who asked questions, including innuendoes and direct charges of their associations and challenges of their general credentials especially climate qualifications, and most important of all funding.

The climate debate was now a purely political battle. Science was increasingly and rudely pushed aside. The misdirection and machinations within the IPCC were to get worse as we will see.  Sadly, the results and their impact are already evident and going to get worse unless they are stopped

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