Friday
Jan212011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Donna skewers greens
Jan 21, 2011 Climate: IPCC Donna Laframboise is off again, ripping the IPCC to shreds on the basis of the submissions of insiders to the IAC review.
The calibre of the participants has been declining.
It seems that knowledge and scientific contributions are increasingly at discount in selection of authors compared to the personal connections, affiliations and political accommodations.
Many authors are absent and also some hardly contribute.
...selection of lead authors is based on a mix of competence and politics
Reader Comments (19)
Absent professional competence, "merit" becomes synonymous with meaningless PCBS. To the extent that hyper-politicized UN bureaucracies embrace such --typically far-left-- radical extremism, just so will the resulting mindless drivel infect every outcome, every product, of the IPCC's propaganda exercise. Corrupt, malfeasant to the nth degree, the very idea that peculating Statists promote AGW's profoundly stupid theses in bad faith, under false pretenses, indicates that by Rule-of-72 these grubby little dupes face terminal disbanding as of c. 2018. Good riddance.
This has done nothing to increase my already very shaky confidence in IPCC process that is pretty much a jobs for the boys boondoggle.
The relationship between its conclusions and anything even masquerading as ‘science’ as I understand it grows weaker by the day.
Would it not be quicker for them all just to say
”Frak’ it, we haven’t much reliable evidence at all for anything, but we’d like you all to believe that we;re all going to hell in a handcart three weeks come next Tuesday if you nasty little proles don’t stop doing whatever it is that we gurus disapprove of today. Sign here’.
Surely ‘proper scientists’ would go about things in a way that reinforced the public’s trust in them…by showing integrity and rigour in all their dealings.
Instead, nearly everywhere one looks, the alarmists seem to have a death wish. In all their actions, their behaviour seems to be calculated to do the maximum damage to their credibility and reputations. Where the choice could be for honesty and transparency, they opt for concealment and dodgy behaviour. Where they could demonstrate dignity and detachment they choose snark and ‘knife fighting’.
I’m of the opinion that with very few exceptions (like Judith Curry), all the really good scientists have chosen to avoid climatology like the plague, and we are left with a gang of second-rate mediocrities suddenly catapaulted to positions of influence way behind their maturity, abilities or judgment.
This link shows the connection between IPCC and UNFCC:
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/ipcc-and-unfccc-institutional-framework
UNFCC Executive Secretary, C. Figueres, doubly satisfies PC standards: a woman from a former third-world country [Costa Rica is now formally a developing state]. Her CV:
http://figueresonline.com/CFO_English_Long.pdf
does not mention her studying with Al Gore, but does highlight her dedication to carbon trading. Approval of the Kyoto Protocol is the essence of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. She may be more qualified to direct the effort than are many third-world ´scientists´ qualified to address amospheric concerns. Evidence of her correctness can be found in her Cancun invocation of ´jaguar goddess Ixchel.´
http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2010/12/19/global-cooling-is-what-we-must-expect-because-of-global-warming/
It’s worse than that, Jim.
From the House of Lords Select Committee report on the Economics of Climate Change, widely ignored in favour of the more apocalyptic Stern Report:
“We have some concerns about the objectivity of the IPCC process, with some of
its emissions scenarios and summary documentation apparently influenced by
political considerations.
There are significant doubts about some aspects of the IPCC’s emissions scenario
exercise, in particular, the high emissions scenarios.
There are some positive aspects to global warming and these appear to have been
played down in the IPCC reports.
The Government should press the IPCC for better estimates of the monetary costs
of global warming damage and for explicit monetary comparisons between the
costs of measures to control warming and their benefits.
We are concerned that UK energy and climate policy appears to be based on
dubious assumptions.”
Richard Tol has recent relevent experience;
Government review
"I was invited to act as an expert reviewer of the IPCC Special Report on Extreme Events on behalf of the Netherlands government. In the letter of invitation, the Government reserved the right to censor my comments, in case my comments would disagree with another referee's comments or in case my comments would meet resistance from unidentified people.
I declined the invitation."
Doing things by committee often results in mediocrity.
It’s not about the science, it is about the politics. It is therefore no surprise to find that its politics which is seen the main critique of an individual’s worth in the IPCC process.
When you have a selection process that operates on criteria other than expertise, you get dead wood.
Dead wood is not in a position to critique or restrain the agendas of the active contributing authors (and may not wish to).
Thus a politically correct selection process enables determined advocacy to dominate and direct the IPCC review.
Oh dear, the American politicians need to save some money.
http://www.usnews.com/news/washington-whispers/articles/2011/01/20/house-gop-lists-25-trillion-in-spending-cuts
One of the cuts proposed is this:
Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. $12.5 million annual savings.
Expect to see an increase in media attention stories in a fund grabbing raid before the cash expires.
As one ages one generally looses confidence in politicians and public administrators, especially those at the top of the bigger totem poles. We the Old (of the Western World) have been and, to some extent, still are acting like a bunch of teenie bopper girls at a Beetles concert. Every time the IPCC or some UN agency comes out with a 'special report' No.10, the WH, and Tokyo, etc., are all goooo goooo and gaaaaa gaaaaa and trying to sell everyone on the genius of it, and how we must change every light bulb and not flush the toilet but once a day and need to buy worthless solar panels. As we Boomers phase into retirement and go on the doll for all we can get the last few years of our life, let us occassionaly pause and consider the sins we have committed, and still are committing. We have passed a real mess to our children and grandchildren. If our sainted parents were the Greatest Generaltion, we were the Worst Generation by far. From Woodstock to Cancun we have left our mark. I guess at this point all we should do is nothing, which would be a nice change too. But it would be nice, if on election days, we would think of the kids a little. The UN is a worthless joke, a dream whos day is far in the future! The League of Nations ended in WWII, no doubt the UN will give us and/or the kids WWIII. I guess one really has to blame the Yanks for all this crap, they were on top of the World, King of the Mountain, for most of our lives. Oh well! Life goes on, or so we can hope. People really can live their entire life and not know how stupid they were.
Unfortunately for the AGW bandwagon, this issue of declining competence will continue and will cause further deterioration in quality and therefore credibility. As the wheels progressively fall off this wagon, the more qualified individuals will want to have less and less to do with it ..... and who will be left .... but the rag tag band of eco-lunatics .... and transparently so.
Ouch! Can we nominate Donna for a Nobel Political Prize once AGW blows over?
In the above-mentioned blog post I link these damning IPCC insider comments to the declining lustre of the Nobel.
In my book-in-progress, though, all these quotes make the case that the IPCC is not a panel of the world's top scientists and best experts. You either have top-notch expertise or you have geographical and gender balance. The two are not compatible.
Which means that everyone from Chairman Pachauri to Joe Romm has been fibbing when they've described the IPCC as:
Hello Donna
Good to see you in comments here.
I have been enjoying your blog recently and the post linked above was very illuminating. Keep it up, and thank you for your hard work.
Dominic
And of course credit to hro001 (whoops).
D
I lived and travelled extensively in the third world for many years. It is not uncommon to buy your position or job in much of the world from your boss. In effect, this is an investment by which you will then make money. In many respects it is similar to buying a company in the first world. The only qualification required is money.
As a result you find many people workig in jobs and positions in the third world that are not qualified for the position, beyond their ability to use the position to make money for themselves. The most visible sign of this is corruption in the form of "commissions" (bribes). However, the underlying problem is that the people have simply bought their jobs with little or no qualifications for the position. This is reflected in the quality of services provided and ultimately the performance of the economy in that country.
Note: A similar problem exists in the first world, where politically connected people find themselves appointed to highly paid government funded positions for which they have little or no qualifications, beyond the size of the contributions they make to election campaigns..
It is not widely known that Hadley sends out its models to developing nations, eg Magicc and Primap. They come complete with scenarios and database and recipients can input their own data and produce their own country scenarios. Thus a lowly weather clerk suddenly becomes a climate scientist and his/her model results (gender equality kicking in there) are added to the mix and acquire stature.
It really is "playstation"
Hey, I was Time's "Man of the Year" once.
No, really! I have proof! Here, look at this magazine cover...