HIDESIGHT: The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert is a must read for anyone interested in the intersection of science, politics and public policy. Here's a little taste.
HIDESIGHT
Canadian journalist Donna Laframboise’s The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert is a must read for anyone interested in the intersection of science, politics and public policy.
Her book is an expose of how the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) operates.
Here’s a little taste.
IPCC chairman Dr Rajendra Pachari told the US Senate that “all rational persons” should be persuaded by the IPCC’s conclusions since his organisation mobilises “the best talent available across the world.”
In fact, the IPCC doesn’t use the best experts. Hence, the now embarrassing IPCC claims that global warming will cause more and stronger hurricanes, fearful rises in sea levels and more malaria.
The IPCC’s 1995 Climate Bible said malaria-transmitting mosquitoes usually don’t survive in areas where winter temperatures drop below 16C. Nonsense. In the 1800s thousands died of malaria in North America and Europe – even in Siberia.
Several of the IPCC lead authors are graduates in their 20s writing outside any expertise they may have. The IPCC chairman is flat out wrong.
Dr Pachauri claims, “So you can’t think of a more transparent process.than what we have in the IPCC.”
In fact, the IPCC has no formal process or criteria for selecting authors and no transparent author-selection process or well-defined criteria for author selection. That’s what the UN’s own review of the IPCC found.
Dr Pachauri defended the IPCC’s reckless 2007 claim that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 or sooner, declaring “The IPCC studies only peer-review science. Let someone publish the [opposing] data in a decent credible publication. Otherwise, we can just throw it in the dustbin.”
In fact, the IPCC’s claim itself was based on an Indian professor’s unfounded speculation in an email to a journalist.
It turns out 30% of the references in the 2007 Climate Bible are non peer-reviewed. Again, the chairman is wrong.
Dr Pachauri boasts of the “2500 reviewers” that check the Bible. Turns out critical material is added to the assessment reports after the reviews are all done.
He declares, “Whatever we do is available for scrutiny at every stage.” The all-important IPCC Summary for Policy Makers is rewritten line-by-line by politicians behind closed doors over days.
And get this: the actual report is released weeks after the Summary is released. Pachauri explains that’s because “we necessarily have to ensure that the underlying report conforms to the refinements [made by the politicians in the Summary]”.
That’s right: the scientific report is “refined” to fit the Summary written by politicians and is then later released. No scrutiny of the process or the changes is allowed.
When convenient, Dr Pachauri puts himself above the political fray, “We in the IPCC do not prescribe any specific action, but action is a must.”
However, he has declared “a radical value shift” is needed and a “new value system” required. “I am not going to rest easy until I have articulated in every possible forum the need to bring about major structural changes in economic growth and development. That’s the real issue. Climate change is just a part of it”.
There you have it. A pretend mantle of scientific rigour shrouding a deep and dark social, economic and political agenda.
The IPCC’s head wants a “new value system” and “major structural changes in economic growth and development.” Fair enough. He can argue for whatever he wants. But the argument for a new value system and economic structure shouldn’t be smuggled by the UN under the cloak of so-called climate science.
But that’s exactly what’s been happening. In the chairman’s own words.
In fact, “climate change is just a part of it”.
It’s hard to believe our nation’s politicians paid any attention to the IPCC, let alone based wealth-sapping policies on the nonsense.
