Friday
Oct142011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Speaking of books
Oct 14, 2011 Climate: other Donna Laframboise's new book about the IPCC is out. It looks like this is going to be a good one:
Blooming brilliant. Devastating" - Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist
"...shines a hard light on the rotten heart of the IPCC" - Richard Tol, Professor of the Economics of Climate Change and convening lead author of the IPCC
"...you need to read this book. Its implications are far-reaching and the need to begin acting on them is urgent." - Ross McKitrick, Professor of Economics, University of Guelph
Reader Comments (186)
D Gill
US = $4.99
EU = €4.88
UK = £4.99
It's not only the IPCC that needs an 'exposure'....... I didn't realise that a mouse click could differ in price that much
Rip-Off Britain is alive and well... It's always worth checking the price in all currencies accepted by the seller - eg when booking cross channel ferries.
Donna's book (downloaded this morning) appears to be a remarkable piece of calm, investigative journalism providing a valuable source of evidence to counter repeated claims that the IPCC must be regarded as the ultimate authority on climate change.
But one thing troubles me: she mentions a subject about which I know a lot: the millennium date change problem – or Y2K. And here her research was plainly inadequate: she is fully signed up to the established but false notion that it was another exaggerated scare. (A view shared by another of my heroes, Matt Ridley.) But the much-maligned "experts" didn't get Y2K wrong. They issued warnings (not predictions) – people listened and did what was necessary to fix a real and seriously worrying problem. We should be glad that they did.
The book reiterates much of an article – The Y2K Scare, the Media & Climate Change – published on her blog in August. To my email expressing concern, she replied with the (reasonable enough) challenge that
A month ago, I sent her a paper that I think fills the bill. It's here.I’m awaiting her reply.
BTW a journalist who agrees with my analysis advised me last week that I shouldn't have any illusions: once the establishment, the media and leading commentators have made up their minds about something (e.g. that Y2K was an over hyped scare story) there is nothing, no matter how cogent the argument or clear-cut the evidence, that can change their collective mind. It's settled and that's it. Sound familiar?
I suggest Donna has missed the essential point: yes, there is a parallel between Y2K and AGW but it's the opposite of the one she's drawn – the real point is that, just as the commentariat is completely wrong about Y2K, so it’s completely wrong about AGW.
PS: she makes an amusing (to me) date change error in the book. She refers (location 3106) to “a 2003 column” written by a computer consultant. It was written in 1993.
Robin Guenier
I remember 2000 too, I was an embedded programmer at the time, who, vaguely aware of the concept, admittedly came back still stoned and drunk and demanding answers when things went wrong . All I remembered was my IT lovely friend laughing at me for not realising it was my responsibility for checking my crappy Motorola IDE didn't check dates proper.
Bless you, but the retreating scene of the past where battles have been fought and maybe you should get credit for some achievements - wont find an audience inured to fear mongering here today I expect.
If you think we have missed some aspect of useful fear mongering then I am all ears .
Or all "arse" as the horrors of word processor malfunctionment could dictate for ever more in the fear world ... )
Robin Guenier - I'm reading your paper with interest. I worked at the time for a large computer company and saw at first hand the effort that went into verifying that its systems would continue to enable it to serve (and bill) customers into the 21st century.
A colleague advised me not to travel by air around 9/9/99 (I think it was that date) as he thought some systems might fall over on that date because of their method of representing dates.
It will be interesting to see if Donna Laframboise eventually acknowledges your paper.
Donna L - Congratulations on your book!
I just bought the Kindle for PC version and am settling in for a nice weekend read through.
John
BTW I must say I am totally n concordance with Matt Ridley and most other mundane non-arm wavy people about Y2K
I see concordance of Robins's views and climate alarmist views too, but this is not to demean Robin, but because I am fascinated that I see some investment in an intellectual technological subject with some social education element.
In my world view I never thought Y2K was an inevitable threat to humanity. and to be honest, the fact it turns out it wasn't is clearly a thin that informs my further views.
It was clear for a while and then it clearly wasn't. It seems laughably obvious. But watch Melancholia.
A brilliant film but laughable ;)
TLITB and Martin A:
Because some commentators foolishly predicted disaster and in the event there was none, it's probably not so surprising that today's established view is that Y2K was just another exaggerated scare. But I think that's a misreading of a seminal event of recent history; a misreading that ignores lessons particularly relevant today. For example, Y2K demonstrates that technology “experts” can both make and ignore serious errors, that the modern world is more vulnerable to technological failure than is generally realised (the recent Blackberry failures are a minor example), that nonetheless, contrary to common experience, massive computer-related projects can be successfully completed on time, that widespread, urgent international cooperation on a matter of serious concern is possible and, arguably the key lesson, that the unglamorous task of anticipating and fixing a problem costs vastly less than ignoring it: all directly relevant to our increasingly technology dependent and interconnected world.
TLITB: I suggest you read my paper.
@D Gill
Amazon.com seems to be selling the Kindle version for $7.59.
As an IT consultant at the time of the Y2K issues, I would heartily concur with Robin Guenier's view (and he has written an excellent paper on the matter).
The difference between Y2K and AGW is that first was a specific problem with a specific timeline and specific solutions and was thus fixable (and hence any potential disasters were indeed forestalled). AGW is a vague, ill-defined problem with even vaguer possible outcomes and no obvious clear solution that could be guaranteed to fix the hypothetical outcomes envisaged.
The cost of Y2K was always going to be well-controlled since it had an obvious end-date. The cost of dealing with AGW is completely open-ended - no-one riding its gravy train is ever going to say it has arrived at its destination.
I remember the action taken on Y2K too. We did all the checks, and found no significant problems.
I think the main reason that it proved such a damp squib, and the reason the IT industry over-reacted, is that IT people assume everybody relies on computers far more than they actually do. Computer code is always full of bugs, and computers are always crashing, giving wrong answers, messing up. People are used to it, and work around it. The jokes and cynicism about computer error are a part of everyday culture.
The only significance to Y2K was that a lot of these bugs were expected to show up at the same time, but there was nothing fundamentally different about it in regard to how people needed to respond to them.
It's the same as all the hype over extreme weather. We experience and deal with extreme weather all the time. We have hurricanes and floods and droughts and wind and snow - we always have, and we always will. Humans are extremely adaptable, even more so with modern technology and prosperity, and work around such tribulations as a matter of course. Trying to scare people saying that global civilisation (or the global ecology) could collapse as a result of an increase in such events is to grossly over-estimate the fragility of naturally adaptive systems. Civilisation is very robust - and our evolutionary success generally can largely be put down to our incredibly powerful problem-solving ability. Our ingenuity is the "ultimate resource".
The projected changes are trivial compared to the background noise of adversity we face daily. We survive constant network failures and hard drive crashes and computer viruses. We survive climates - even without technology - from the nomads of the African deserts to the eskimo of the Polar fringe, from the tribes of the Amazon rainforests to the herders of the Tibetan plateau. Of course, we can all cite examples and individual instances where people didn't, and this is not to say that the constant background does no damage or is a triviality to be dismissed without sympathy or attempts to mitigate, but as a society we usually manage.
If we want to talk about software design errors originating at the dawn of computing, let's talk about the way several popular operating systems was written without file-versioning, so files accidentally deleted or overwritten were difficult or impossible to recover. The amount of damage that has done over the years I'm sure dwarfs anything Y2K could have done, and they still haven't completely fixed it.
It's a question of priorities. Our biggest problem is not the weather, but access to clean water, cheap energy, and information. I'm sure there were bigger problems in computing than Y2K. But they're not as dramatic.
Re Y2K hysteria: I'd reiterate everything Robin, stanj, Nullius etc have said - in fact one large financial organisation I know well was spending large sums of money in 1997 to address the problem, which if left unaddressed would have led to a major prod support clusterfcuk come the YY part of the date going 99 -> 00 (and indeed the immediate lead up to it)... but the end of the world, planes falling from the sky and giant ants eating Norfolk meme was completely overdone.
A cynic might observe that the press covered their backs after the event by pretending they'd been misled by greedy IT consultants overegging the pudding. Great stories both ways from their shallow point of view. I suspect CAGW will go the same way.
wow...all these folks forgetting how much time was spent on preventing the y2k meltdown...and it was a lot of man-hours and, thankfully, it worked...does anyone doubt that it was a real
problem?
The Y2K instructional past seems to have provoked a lot of comment.
Who asks we should take that a lesson of potential fear has been missed with no further acknowledgement of its essential uselessness?
I would guess the people who invested some fear back then have some new fear for us to enjoy today -
Notice my lower case - when idiots feel they control they feel they control by capitals ....
It is not complicated ..
Ignore them
with real evidence? my company's billing system would have given all customers refunds when the century hit 00...but of course the y2k problem was overblown
leopard in the basement...give us your favourite y2k anecdote, please....
You've seen it it above ..diogenes.. if you can't remember where, do not worry. I admit it is my fault :) o)
My interest in the Y2K issue was in embedded Systems. Thousands (millions) of PICS and PLCs written in a myriad of esoteric and largely defunct code that at a low-level but vital point determined the actions of many industrial control systems.
The bits that determined whether or not a valve should be opened or shut for example.
Not the high-level stuff that legions of Cobaltists and Fortraners dealt with but the nitty-gritty and low-down dirty details of industrial processes.
Yup, I almost certainly over-emphasied the consequences of getting it wrong in those heady pre-millenium days and scared the bejasus out of too many but,at the time and after studying lots of legacy code, I can confidently state,that at the industrial level, pragmatic engineering damage-limitation practises prevented serious damage to our infrastructure at the millenium changeover!
Y2K was a serious threat and to disparage it as a false threat is to belittle the efforts of thousands of individual efforts. That it didn't materialise as a serious problem is a tribute to the work of honest beavers!
Programmers are people and we get to be as grumpy and ascerbic as anyone else. I've even spent more time in comments explaining why my code will break down in 2100, not being a leap year 'cos it's not exactly divisible by 400, than I could have taken in getting the code right. Is it 'cos I'll be long dead by then?
Probably and that's why a 1985 programmer may not have given a damn about Y2K when he/she would either be dead or long since retired.
Y2K was an issue, it got sorted, and there will be other examples to come. Ignore them at your peril 'cos they may not get fixed unless someone makes a fuss!
Y2k: Largely overblown for the reasons NIV gave, plus the fact that Macs never had a Y2K problem as they always had a 4 digit year. But there was a critical issue for some insurance companies who had policies expiring or being renewed on December 31/Jan 1 2000.
Many people overcharged for their services to correct the Y2K issue. But then many were being fleeced by IT people in many areas. I recall a meeting my cousin attended in London with all and sundry flown from far away to discuss a website for ATM locations for a US bank and the prelim (i.e. first stage) costs were $250k. Or £75k to link up seven computers in an office with software that was on the level of Bento. But fast forward 5-6 years and everything started to change and website costs started to plummet as products improved and those making the decisions in private business finally got computer savvy. Sadly the public sector is eons behind in effectiveness and cost control.
But that is dwarfed by the costs of much of CAGW climate science which are so extraordinary for so little value beyond data collection, that to be deprived of that by stonewalling a la Monsieur Mann is truly annoying.
I am hoping that books like HST and Donna's can encourage real climate scientists who may not be blessed with extraordinary courage or pigheadedness or tenure to clean house and above all to create profit or non-profit businesses which will provide people with good data and get the governments (national and international) to keep their cotton-picken hands out of it. Do we want the climate equivalent of the social services' computer systems or Apple's (plus a zillion competitors)?
Why shouldn't there be four or five or 500 businesses for example that could provide shippers with ocean data and big event organisers with advance forecasts or government agencies with hurricane/tornado/typhoon data for emergency services and of course for energy companies. For a lot less than we are paying now. And leave a (very) few grants in place for pure research on a world-wide scale. After all, regional forecasting is the only thing that will make a difference in our lives. Risk assessments for countries can be done by insurance companies who actually have some background in this. All this endless cash going into GCM's. Cui bono?
Look at Piers Corbyn versus the MET office. Which is better value for money? No private company would touch windmills with less than an eleven foot pole if there were not short term bags of government dosh. Now we are stuck with these monuments to waste. Sorry to go on and on.
Off now to read the rest of The Delinquent Teenager...
We still have the Year 2038 problem to contend with, if we haven't all been swept away by sea level rises.
@RichieRich:
That is the UK price. Tell Amazon you are in the United States or in Europe, then hit "go", then go back and refresh, and the price will change.
Oct 14, 2011 at 6:31 PM | Unregistered Commenterbreath of fresh air
Oct 14, 2011 at 7:00 PM | Unregistered Commentersimpleseekeraftertruth
Anecdotal yes, but ask yourselves why dowsing and kindred techniques never work under double blind testing conditions.
Robert Austin
Having seen that , I now have to regard those people like little children. Of course if they come in from the garden with summat obvious like an aliens crystal claw or summat then I will be their acolyte slave forever ;)
If anyone wants to "believe" - that's great but at least try and put some effort in at least faking it fer fuks sake, show you have something more than the old lady at the end of the road 'sed it, back it wi'summat fer Chriz sakes!
Donna's web site does not give one the option of making comments so I could not thank her for so much excellent work.
Now I can vote with my dollars by downloading her .pdf file at a cost of $4.95. Ker-ching!
Maybe Donna will collect enough money this way to encourage her to write some more!
Donna's blog doesn't take comments (apparently she was getting too much hate stuff)
However, you can find "NoFrakkingConsensus" on facebook if you want to leave comments there.
wow...all these folks forgetting how much time was spent on preventing the y2k meltdown...and it was a lot of man-hours and, thankfully, it worked...does anyone doubt that it was a real
problem?
Its interesting to look at how different countries reacted to the Y2K scare, Italy spent a fraction of what other countries spent and suffered no different from any other. Its not as if Italy was some IT backwater, the company I worked for owned several Manufacturing Plants there and they were well run with the latest manufacturing software, they were probably reponsible for the little the Italians did spend because the US main office was paraniod about Y2K and insisted on all pants following some stupid 2 year plan. The IT manager was pissed off when he read the plan for New Years Eve, he was to be at the Scottish plant over the midnight when he would normally getting totally pissed.
And look at this dire prediction to stay away from Italy during Y2K.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/279929.stm
The BBC scare machine strikes again.
breath of fresh:
Re Italy & Y2K, see page 15 here (and endnote xxxi). Possibly that BBC scare was justified in February 1999 - but they did get on with it and, as I said, there were advantages in starting late.
Nov 1999 do not fly to Italy, so they had 8 weeks left and still had not done enough according to doom-mongers.
http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001iCY
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/506554.stm
Cant remember any planes falling out of the sky.
Much of Donna's work is taking a long hard look at IPCC contributors and drawing attention to their connections with think tanks, like the WWF or pressure groups like Greenpeace. That would be fair comment but Donna never looks at the other side for balance. Has she noted that Pat Michaels reviewer for Working Group III of AR4 was representing the CATO Institute ? It's ironic therefore that Donna's glowing testimonials from both IPCC contributors above both have strong links to think tanks. Ross McKitrick is senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, and Richard Tol is connected to corporate funded think tank the Economic and Social Research Institute.
Just thought that should be mentioned.
Well spotted, breath! But these concerns were genuine - and turned out to be unjustified. Re "planes falling out of the sky", no one who understood the issue said that: and see my endnote xxiv.
Seems as a species we cant resist a good scare story.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-end-of-the-world-again-2370936.html
Over the past 2,000 years there have been at least 200 confident prophecies made that the end would happen on a specific date. All, so far, have ended in disappointment and disillusionment.
As a low level programmer of some years I do remember the hype surrounding Y2K. Yes there were real engineering concerns, all fixable or replaceable, but these concerns were transformed into a global scare that ultimately made the IT sector look stupid. There was considerable reputational damage, many felt that they had been ripped off by IT professionals.
Y2K and AGW are comparable because it illustrates how uncertainty over the future can be deliberately misconstrued by those with an agenda to make unneccessary demands in the present.
Mac
I agree with you. Y2K and AGW are both examples of where there is a genuine issue that needs to be addressed, and in a calm and sensible way, but the risks of catastrophe are overstated.
However, just because this overstatement of catastrophe happens, it doesn't mean it's a non-problem. It is necessary to ignore the hype at both ends of the extreme, and look at the whole thing sensibly and rationally and figure out what to do.
Most IT guys were not to blame for the Y2K hype - they knew it was a problem, if not a planes-falling-out-of-the-sky one, and got on with it and solved it.
Same with most climate scientists. We know there is a problem even if it is not as catastrophic as some would like to make out, and we want to get on with understanding it so the world can figure out how to minimise the risks, through some combination of mitigation or adaptation, to whatever extent is appropriate and necessary in both cases.
Richard Betts is, as usual, basically right. But he forgets that in the case of AGW many of the professionals are not getting on with calmly assessing the problem and working out how best to tackle it, but are instead running around screaming about "death trains" and the end of the world as we know it, while simultaneously accusing anybody who asks to actually see their data of being "deniers".
Something has to be done about these people if the whole field is not going to be brought into disrepute; indeed it seems to me that we are very close to the tipping point where the general public completely loses patience. Richard, I admire the way that you distance yourself from the stupider remarks of your colleagues, but I think you underestimate how bad the backlash could be.
On the subject of Y2K my favourite summary is by Ross Anderson at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/y2k.html See especially the comment at the bottom of page 7 of the pdf file.
Hengist, are we reading different books, or have I missed something? In my book I have yet to find any reference to the affiliations of the reviewers, but perhaps I missed it, maybe you can point me to the chapter and I'll dig it out.
Actually I disagree with almost everyone about Y2K. There were risks, but the hyping of the risks didn't come from the IT community putting out dire reports to the press on an organized basis, a la IPCC, it came from the fevered imagination of the press. The company I worked for at the time had a huge Y2K programme, as did our suppliers, and while therer was concern about the kit working, the major concern was about the billing. I to had to spend the millenium in central London armed with a pass letting me drive anywhere in London on the millennium eve, which made me feel v. Important and v.peed off simultaneously. I can remember the rolling reports coming into my computer as midnight moved towards us "nul point" from every location, me dry as a bone, while Mrs Geronimo quaffed champagne with her friends on our balcony, which overlooked Tower Bridge, and chatting amiably with the people who'd perched their children on the wall of the balcony to get a better view of the Bridge at midnight, and having malevolent thoughts about the whole It industry. I've forgiven them since and admit there could have been problems if we hadn't taken precautions, but not massive ones.
TheBigYinJames
WTF are you on about? [snip, unnecessary] WFT has Exxon to do with Kindle? [snip, unnecessary, please do not respond to comments in this way].
"We know there is a problem even if it is not as catastrophic as some would like to make out, and we want to get on with understanding it so the world can figure out how to minimise the risks, through some combination of mitigation or adaptation, to whatever extent is appropriate and necessary in both cases."
Jonathan has said it pretty much, but I'd like to just set you straight on one thing. I do not believe that that it is the climate scientists' remit to "figure out how to minimize the risks through some combination of mitigation and adaptation...". It is your job to identify the risks, and by all means have an input into the solutions, but clearly the solutions, if any are needed, will be mainly engineering and logistical solutions. I don't know of any engineer, although I don't deny ther may be some, who believes we are in any position to reduce our CO2 levels to that recommend by the scientists in the timescales offered by the scientists as the only solution. Remember ot was mainly the Engineers in the RS who called for the propaganda appearing on their website to be toned down. I'd bet my pension that when UNEP forecast 50 million refugees by 2011, they'd not consulted with anyone as to how these people were to be transported, absorbed and accommodated. Climate scientists and their bedfellows in the NGOs are giving the governments solutions to problems that may, or may not, exist, but come perilously close to making the world into what the greens want it to look like. In the meantime our energy bills are being artificially inflated by green taxes, our landscapes scarred by wind turbines, our future energy supplies jeopardised by scientific advice to our politicians and in my (paranoid I admit) view plans are afoot for the government to fund (£7bn) the introduction of smart meters in every home in the country. Let's have a guess why the government is prepared to set aside that sort of money for smart meters during a time of economic crisis, surely the only people who gain from smart meters are the energy suppliers? Why don't they pay for them? There is another, more sinister (and, I admit, paranoid) solution to this quandrun, and that is the green dream of rationing energy, a fall back for when, inevitably, we have destroyed our fossil fuel energy supplies and cannot make the need up with renewable we can ration th kWH to consumers.
Should this scenario come about and democracy still be with us, which is why many in the AGW want it suspended, there willbef a massive backlash, not just against climate science but against all science.
"I've forgiven them since and admit there could have been problems if we hadn't taken precautions, but not massive ones."
Sorry, ther could have. been massive problems but by early attention the solutions wererelatively simple and didn't require taxing the public, although I guess they eventually paid for it, but it nwas many well spent
Why not. But if I was to accept your every word as gospel about the names you mention (hypothetical), it still stands starkly true that the the contributors that you name have clear dimishing influence. In fact, with the exception of Tol, I can't think of a more pavement spitting upon list of deniers ;) You really should examine Steve McIntyre's documentation of his experience of his (a Nobel prize winner ye'know?) conribution to the IPCC on his web site. I haven't had a chance to get more than 8% of the way thru of this, so far, fascinating book, but I wonder if Laframboise touches on this point?
Still, Hengist, there is a book to be written there, why not write it or make your own point in a similar feorensic way to Laframbiose and test if your point is interesting? I suspect that your denier influence thesis is not that engaging ;)
Richard Betts. Well put, but I think it is too late in the eyes of the public. What I don't understand about the scientific process is why are those who would like to disprove a theory not allowed to be involved with those who want to prove said theory? Surely that makes for better science?
Me. Well, I was a default AGWer until the language used by the likes of Monbiot started to alarm me. I then started to take an interest, and do some reading, and what I found regarding the attitude of those who are not on board horrified me. We are told - not only are you wrong, but you have no right to think the way you do. In effect - we are being demonised and dehumanised, and all of us of a certain age know where that leads to. In that in the UK, this also tallies with the language of the Left, this worried me even more. There are many many people out there who have no respect for freedom of speech or thought. Such people are frankly, a danger to us all.
@jonathan jones
'it seems to me that we are very close to the tipping point where the general public completely loses patience'
I already have. I just assume that anybody who is a climatologist is a pathoogical liar. It may be unjust to a few, but it works pretty well for the majority.
Thye've had two years to sort themsleves out after the Climategate scandal and haven't even acknowledged that there was anything even the teensiest bit wrong...let alone scraped out the barrel to remove the rotten apples. And the utterly loathsome T'revor Da Vies continues to try to suppress things
Richard Betts tells a good story of how the real scientists know that its vastly overhyped. But I haven't seen .him or his colleagues saying so in the MSM or on the telly. It only takes a few good men to look the other way...........
You are right Jonathan. But, speaking historically, those who practice advocacy ("death trains", "deniers") justify their actions saying that no one would have even taken 'the issue' seriously, had they not made the noise they made, or sacrificed their own reputations they way they did.
And this is true to an extent. How we all perceive 'climate change' is irrevocably a product of relentless and saturation coverage (and they want even more), put on its legs by the advocates.
If the more level-headed amongst us, arrive on the scene saying, "Wait a minute, what is all this fuss?", and "why can't we go about 'calmly assessing the problem and working out how best to tackle it'", it is because we have arrived at the point where we accept that there is a "problem" implicitly. The issue has gained salience and credibility because of the advocacy and campaigning.
This model is practiced in business today. The chief of a prominent social media company describes how he cheated and manipulated tens of thousands of gullible initial customers into parting with their money, took a significant (but not fatal) hit to company reputation, but in the process gained recognition in a crowded marketplace, and swelled the bank balance. "Let the money come in first, we can fix our image later" - that was his idea.
Echoing other posters re Spen - he is of course right that the IPCC assumes that climate change exists - hence their title - the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate CHANGE - not RESEARCH you notice. They exist to get people (I hesitate to use the word 'scientists') to PROVE the theory that climate change is a Bad Thing and is, of course, driven by human-induced CO2....
------------------------
Richard Betts,
There is the problem of 'initial path dependency' wrt the initial overall trajectory of exaggeration and manipulation of the science initiated by the IPCC that intrinsically supported the alarming AGW by CO2 science community.
Their (IPCC) initial path error set them on a path of having no way to climb down without the loss of trust in climate science represented by them. The alarming initial path will cause a loss of trust even in the mildest of the concernists (tepid lukewarmers) who say, like you do, there is a problem but not catastrophic.
Then there is the more basic and more important initial path dependency problem of putting scientific purview into any political body (such as the UN) and especially into one that has such an poor record on corruption and one with a profoundly unaccountable basis. We need to return science of climate back to voluntary associations of independent scientists. If that does not happen, then science will continue to degrade in the climate area.
It is unfortunate that the quote I gave for you above shows a biased mindset. You (and the IPCC) myopically focus on there being a problem with warming the earth, whether human caused or not. That has been to date the dominant approach position of the IPCC; that there is a net problem versus there is objectively the possibility of a net benefit. With the exception of the IPCC and its supporters, there are those who show evidence of a benefit for earth overall wrt to flourishing of life.
John
@geronimo
No she doesn't mention Ridley McKitrick or Tol's links to think tanks, that is my point.
@leopard in the basement
These links are facts not hyopthetical here is a link to the Academic Advisory Council of the GWPF . Here is a link to Tol at ESRI . Here is evidence of McKitrick's Fraser Institute links.
Donna is saying that activists shouldn't be trusted, for testimonials she relies on these activists.
I wonder if these learned names have actually read Donna's book. In Chapter Six IPCC contributors with links to anything green are likened to vampires , I kid you not. Very scientific - not. Perhaps we should call this skeptic alarmism.
Hengist
The links you provide mean something to you that is hypothetically more powerful than you can enunciate in a meaningful, hard working, thesis way that we can all enjoy picking over ; )
You seem to think the links alleviate some requirement for you to show us all about your implied counter thesis (that could have been interesting) that the IPCC had actually been overladen with denier input ;)
Hengist McStone,
If you truly believe there is a big problem with AGW that is supported by science, I suggest that it's not wise to turn this into a "look who got money from whom" battle, despite what skeptics do.
Considering the billions of dollars involved with climate research, this is particularly true if your best argument involves a few hundred thousand dollars spent over two years or a couple of million bucks spent over several years.
If the best you can do is defend the IPCC by saying it's no worse than "activists" funded by big oil, we skeptics have won.
Hnegist
You might at least try to get people's names right, don't you think?
As for the rest, your definition of an "activist" is obviously not the same as Donna's (or mine, come to that).
How does Tol's links with the ESRI or McKittrick's with the Fraser Institute make them "activists". From what I have read they are debating the science and have, as far as I can tell, no special axe to grind.
Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups have some very serious axes to grind and several decades of not really caring very much how truthful or democratic they are in pursuing aims which are not likely to be beneficial to the future of mankind.
If you can't tell the difference then I'm sorry for you.