Wednesday
Feb172010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill ...a British geologist with the IPCC...
Feb 17, 2010 Climate: Russell This is interesting: an old article (2008) from the Gulf News in which Geoffrey Boulton is described as "a British geologist with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change".
Reader Comments (46)
What's next-- Boulton rafting the Tsang-po to proclaim "the glaciers are melting!" while denying an affiliation with his sponsoring IPCC? If this is the best Sir Muir ap Lac and confreres can do, mayhap an adjunct panel made up of McIntyre, Montford, von Storch, Watts for starters might introduce a measure of gravitas to the proceedings.
Busted, again!
Haha...I love the internet. Citizen journalism and citizen investigations. Good work.
OK, why do so many Warmists favour the moustache/goatee beard look?
Well UAE seem to think he belongs to the IPCC:-
Blair lauds UAE's fight against climate change
UAE is leading the fight against climate change even though “there is no reason of immediate or narrow self-interest to do so,” says Blair.
By Faisal Masudi, Staff Reporter
Published: 18:55 January 21, 2009
Oil-rich UAE is leading the fight against climate change even though “there is no reason of immediate or narrow self-interest to do so,'' former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday.
“Here, in one of the carbon centres of the world, this country is leading. Against everything you might expect, against intuition, the Emirates have decided to become a centre of alternative energy … showing others the way to the future,'' Blair told delegates at the World Future Energy Summit 2009 in Abu Dhabi.
The Gulf country holds an estimated 10 per cent of the world's proven oil reserves, and has perhaps the biggest carbon footprint relative to its small population.
On average, each one its six million residents produce 80 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, Prof. Geoffrey Boulton, a British geologist with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, had earlier told XPRESS.
Read this at http://www.jmt.org/jmaward-2050landscapes.asp#Geoffrey%20Boulton
No alarmist preconceived ideas here then!
"Now, in 2050, flooding of large areas of coastal lowland and of river valleys has become a reality, and together with other impacts of climate change, has had a massive impact; politically, economically and socially. But although a large part of the necessary transformation of the global energy system has been achieved, and although global emission rates have been dramatically reduced, and atmospheric concentrations have been stabilised at about 550ppm of CO2 equivalent, (and they now need to be reduced), the Earth's climate and environment are very different from what they were 50 years ago, and future changes, possibly associated with a still warming ocean, remain difficult to predict."
"In the last 100 years or so, the human species has become a major geological agent. We have massively engineered the planet, but out of ignorance. With a population of 6 billion, rising, barring accidents, to 9 billion by 2050, there is no way back to the simple life. We will have to continue engineering the planet, but this time through knowledge and, hopefully, wisdom. Economic theory and practice that regard the planet as 'an externality', as if the human economy were a bubble, detached from time and space, need to be changed. Our economic system is not separate from the environment, but part of it."
Geoffrey Boulton, Vice Principal and professor of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Edinburgh, extract from 'A tale of misplaced optimism'; Reducing Carbon Emissions - the View from 2050, David Hume Institute Occasional Paper no. 79.
[Snip. Off-topic]
@Frank O'Dwyer
Frank, are you implying a link between AGW scepticism and anti semitism?
doobie,
Not in the least. I'm just suggesting that the fact checking of the Gulf News might be a tad loose.
F O'D,
How many heroic rationalizations do you have in you?
You tell 'em, Frankie boy. You and me knows the Gulf News is just a bunch of wops, don't us?
Bishop,
What was off-topic about stating that the Gulf News probably made the same mistake you did (i.e. not understanding that 'intergovernmental panels' and 'The IPCC' are different)?
And after all you could see how somebody would not understand the difference between plural and singular if English wasn't their first language or if they just didn't check things very carefully. They might even think two sentences have similar meanings just because they both contained the word 'disaster', mightn't they?
What was off-topic about showing that the Gulf News has published some rather enormous factual errors in the past, so that maybe we should not blindly accept everything the esteemed Gulf News publishes?
What was off-topic about responding to the claim that Watts would add gravitas?
Keep on trolling, Frank.
Fair enough, Frank. That was a somewhat controversial juxtaposition, though.
It might also be worth making the point that anti semitism is something of a 'cultural' bias in those sorts of regions and does not preclude, or support, the accurate reporting of other subjects by the same journals.
Yer Grace, is there any chance you can reinstate Frank's ot post, so we can all see what he was on about? Judging from the following comments, he seems to have come up with a convoluted and offensive theory as to why the UAE had mistakenly thought Boulton was involved with IPCC. (As opposed to the obvious one, which is that Boulton or one of his friends had given them a CV with IPCC on, at a time when it was thought to be a good thing to have on one's CV.)
Turn your back for a sec and see what you miss.....
doobie,
"That was a somewhat controversial juxtaposition, though."
At first I could not see what you were on about. That thought truly never entered my head.
On reflection I accept that it was a careless juxtaposition, and I think I understand why you took it the way you did. However my response to Bishop above expresses what I was actually thinking when I wrote it.
What I actually did was go checking for Gulf News errors/retractions, especially to see if they had corrected that article, and that is what I found.
There is of course a much better reason to conclude they are wrong - his own CV doesn't mention any work for the IPCC, and the inquiry FAQ says he didn't. Perhaps the Gulf News read his CV. After all, we already know that people aren't too clued up on the difference between 'intergovernmental panels' and 'The IPCC', as many such people are posting here. So what's one more.
The alternative is to believe that Boulton, supposedly knowing that he had worked for the IPCC, and supposedly knowing that he'd gone around the world issuing press releases to that effect, decided to flush his distinguished career down the toilet by standing up and denying it.
Frank,
We are dealing with someone who has already been caught in several lies and misrepresentations yet does not seem to care. I presume it is because he expects the olde boys network to protect him from unwashed who dare to point out his lies.
That said, the media get titles wrong so often it is impossible to known if they were given that title by Boulton or just assumed it was true because of the nature of his visit.
When I worked in the middle East we called the Gulf News "the green truth" it was printed on light green news print and bore little relation to reality.
Thanks for that, Frank. I am placated =)
What are universities for? (From Geoffrey Boulton Vice-Principal of the University of Edinburgh)
http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/transplant-ed/2009/04/02/what-are-universities-for-from-geoffrey-boulton-vice-principal-of-the-university-of-edinburgh
"...Thirty years ago, scientists who studied climate change, and I am one of them, tended to have long hair and very colourful socks. We were regarded as harmless but irrelevant. But the serendipitous investment in their work revealed processes that we now recognise as threatening the future of human society, and the successors to those scientists are playing a crucial role in assessing how we need to adapt..."
"On the political level I think there should be an international agreement on the level of pollution any state can produce. Put a price on carbon, a tax if you like“.
Are you open to negotiations on that tax idea Geoffrey?
Quote of the Month:
"I bet right about now Al Gore wishes he could go back in time and not invent the internet."
as seen here:
Virginia Challenges EPA on Climate policy.
a must read:
Chris Horner: Climategate 2.0 — The NASA Files: U.S. Climate Science as Corrupt as CRU (PJM Exclusive — Part One)
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-2-0-—-the-nasa-files-u-s-climate-science-as-corrupt-as-cru-pjm-exclusive-—-part-one/?singlepage=true
Try page 23 onwards
http://www.davidhumeinstitute.com/DHI%20Website/publications/hop/HOP%2079%20Reducing%20Carbon%20Emissions%20-%20the%20View%20from%202050.pdf
Ummm - I'm rather lost here.
But if the 'intergovernmental panels' and 'The IPCC' are indeed different things, why were they both setup? Sounds like either a boondoggle or a waste of public money.
If the science is settled, then why need two (or possibly more since there could be any number of unspecified 'intergovernmental panels' UK-France, UK-Germany, UK- Ireland, UK-France-Ireland, UK-France-Germany, Ireland-Germany-Tahiti...etc..you get the drift).
And who could staff such things? We know that there are only a limited number of 'climate scientists' with relevant qualifications in the whole scientific world. Would they all be so busy writing papers for the various bodies that they would run out of time to do any climate science at all? Is that why no warming has been seen for the last umpty years - nobody has had time to look?
Have these intergovernmental bodies (not to be confused with the IPCC) ever published anything...or are they like the lizards beloved of Icke -'shadowy figures lurking in the murky byways of academe...with their influential fingers in every corridor of Whitehall policy and with the very influential ear of the Prime Minister, Prince of Wales and Al Gore at their beck and call? Not forgetting the Archbish of C, Chief Rabbi and The Pope?
I think we should be told.
Perhaps F O'D, expert in all matters Boulton, could clarify just which bodies were meant in his CV. Or was it just window dressing to boost his reputation? 'Massaging' ones CV is a serious matter - and would certainly lead to disciplinary action in my esatblishment.
Frank, he apparently has two CVs and one of them does say he's worked for the "intergovernmetal panel". I know it's probably reckless, but people have taken that to mean that a man who worked at the CRU for 30 years, is an outspoken supporter of the CAGW theory, and has already signed the petition put out at taxpayers' expense, in support of the UEA/CRU would be on the intergovernmental panel for climate change. Of course you're right it might not of have been the IPCC.
You make an interesting point about why he'd risk his distinguished career by telling lies. I don't know, but look aat the CRU letters, and Michael Mann's hockeystick nonsense. It is clear from the letters and the hockeystick that these scientists risk going down in infamy, but they don't seem to care. Why they don't I have no idea, could be hubris, feeling safe because you have the political establishment behind you, or someone powerful. I observed from the beginning that Prof Boulton was/is behaving as though he's untouchable, just like Michael Mann.
Frank, I have found his 2007 CV courtesy of Steve Mc.Here are his words:
"As contributor to G8 Preparatory Groups and Intergovernmental Panels on climate change"
Still room for some ambiguity, but how many panels are there on climate change?
Frank
I can do without the thread descending into a discussion of antisemitism. If you'd like to make your points again in a less-troll like fashion I'll be happy to let it stand.
His profile on the Edinburgh Uni page :
"Works: on the processes that condition the stability of large ice sheets, particularly the hydrculic and deformational processes at the ice sheet bed; modelling the dynamic behaviour of former ice sheets and their geological products; and the future evolution of glacier cover in the Himalayas."
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/people/person.html?indv=437
Why didn't he notice the Glacier 2035 problem in the IPCC report then ?
And from the 2008 report from the Global Change Research Group of which he is a member, the first paragraph in the report :
"Human impacts on our planet are changing the atmosphere, climate, ice cover, global biogeochemistry, biodiversity, soils, and even ocean circulation. This puts Global Change at the centre of the international scientific agenda."
I guess geologists really want to be rock stars
Bishop,
It is generally bad form to editorialise about comments you have removed. No big deal on this occasion.
geronimo,
That isn't true either. He was at UEA and left before CRU was established.
According to the CRU's own website, the CRU was founded in 1972. Boulton worked at UEA until 1986.
Frank, that isn't true either!
He left UEA in 1980 if you believe what Boulton said in the press conference, or 1986 if you believe his CV and his affiliation given on his research papers.
Either way, this is long after CRU was founded in 1972.
CRU was established in 1971. Boulton was at UEA until 1980 or 1986 depending on which version of the story is correct. I can't find Jones' CV but he was publishing with other CRU authors by 1980 and writing for the CRU house magazine by 1977 (Source)
1. Boulton's CV states an IPCC connection.
2. The news piece reports a connection between Boulton and the IPCC.
3. Sir Muir Russell states categorically that Boulton "has had no formal contact with the IPCC. He has not been a member of the Panel or made any submissions to it."
It doesn't add up. Either Boulton has had a formal connection with the IPCC, or he has falsely claimed in the past that he had a formal connection with the IPCC.
Which is it?
Professor Boulton is also on record on the Himalayan glacier saga> This is what I posted on Climate Audit:
” Calculations by glaciologists now suggest that by 2050 most of the Himalayan glaciers will have gone”
An interesting quote from a lecture given by Geoffrey Boulton to the Glasgow Centre for Population Health in Jan 2008, the text (.pdf file)of which is here:
http://www.gcph.co.uk/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,385/
The general drift of the lecture suggests that he is not unbiased.
I was a bit confused reading the article as my dyslexia kicked in!
I read the whole thing thinking he was talking about UEA - not UAE!
You are right, my mistake
According to his CV he was lecturer to 76 and reader from 76-86, half-time from 82-86
I've seen no evidence that he worked at CRU for 30 minutes never mind 30 years.
More precisely, if you believe what McIntyre claims he said at the press conference.
I received a copy of the same transcript as McIntyre (we asked the same journalist for it independently) so I can confirm that it is as reported at CA. Boulton said he worked at UEA until 1980.
I take you understand the point about CRU - that Boulton and Jones would have been colleagues in the School of Environmental Sciences and almost certainly knew each other. Nobody is suggesting that Boulton worked in CRU itself.
A suggestion to all who are wondering to exactly which 'Intergovernmental Panels on climate change' Prof Boulton contributed is, if they've not done so already, to email Kate Moffat (the media enquiries contact) via the Review's website and simply ask for these 'Panels' to be identified and what his contributions were. The use of upper case implies bodies of official standing, after all, so he should have no problem naming them. It's also worth asking if Prof Boulton has had any substantive informal dealings with the IPCC. If you do this at the moment you'll get an 'out-of-office until 24 Feb' message, but it'll be interesting to see what response, if any, comes back in due course. If many people ask these same (entirely reasonable) questions, perhaps something will be added to the FAQs. Copying the questions to the general correspondence email link mightn't be a bad idea, as doing so should ensure that they get published in due course.
F O'D,
Again, the question, modified: How often are you prepared to make heroic rationalizations for obvious fibbing, and why?
Boulton has clearly been either inflating his resume, or is lying now.
Which is worth such a strong defense?
He is a climatologist, working at UEA. And we are to believe he had no strong professional relationship with CRU?
He has defended the IPCC position irt glaciergate, and he is supposed to be objective?
And you wish to be taken seriously?
It is important to be careful and not accuse anyone of lying. He is a glaciologist and has not worked for UEA since 1986. He left his part time role at UEA (and then part time at Amsterdam) to go to Edinburgh University.
Whilst working at UEA he did not work for the CRU, he was a lecturer and taught students and did his research.
Should also be careful between the IPCC and working on other climate advice committees of which there are many.
[Snip - please can you avoid making personal remarks about other commenters]
KT,
Let the person in question show why he is to be trusted.
There are entirely too many instances where conflicts in the AGW community are glossed over.
His comments, since he left, clearly indicate a strong- and in the case of glaciergate- wrong, opinion regarding his area of expertise.
His CV is his, not mine.
If he needs to clarify to make it tell his story more clearly- let him do it.
Bishop,
Why doesn't that kind of answer work for climate data?
Anyway, journalists, McIntyre, yourself and the 'sceptics' in general have recently had difficulties with quoting people accurately and with telling different sentences apart. So his CV is still more credible than a game of telephone involving an unnamed private source quoted by some guy on a blog.
That's if it is really his CV, of course. The 'blog scientists' are the source for that too, aren't they? Nullius in verba, innit?
Somebody in this thread did suggest that. And yes I understand very well - you and McIntyre are playing guilt by association via the 'top tenuous' / six degrees of separation game. It's just more trumped up nonsense, isn't it?
F O'D,
I take it then that you can do heroic rationalizations of AGW promoters with the same natural verve as a pig rolling in slime.
Let's not loose sight of the big picture.
Sr Russell said that all his committee members are impartial.
Is that correct?