Political science

One academic who is untroubled by yesterday's call for adherents to the AGW hypothesis to stop calling their opponents "deniers" is Stephan Lewandowsky, an Australian academic who has a somewhat offensive piece in The Conversation, the chat site for university people.

At a time when Greenland is losing around 9,000 tonnes of ice every second — all of which contributes to sea level rises – it is time to hold accountable those who invert common standards of science, decency, and ethics in pursuit of their agenda to delay action on climate change.

It's an interesting piece, covering a range of areas of interest to readers here, including the Hockey Stick (without mentioning McIntyre and McKitrick!), the travails of Prof Wegman, and the peer review of the Soon and Baliunas paper.

Reliable sources

Scibloggers are all tweeting furiously about this article on the Skeptoid blog. It's a pretty interesting piece, which argues that sceptics should follow the data and warmists should be nicer. There's much to agree with, but the author Craig Good rather shoots himself in the foot by repeated recommending Skeptical Science as an unbiased source on the subject of global warming.

As I have pointed out in the past, Skeptical Science's reporting of some issues I am familiar with are deeply troubling. It is hard to credit the site's failure to even mention that the Hide the Decline dataset had been truncated.

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Not his finest hour - Josh 106

From Booker's latest article

A rising tide of controversy

I've not followed the sea level rise story closely, but my interest was piqued by Morner's lecture at Cambridge a few weeks back. I don't suppose this news will surprise him very much.

The University of Colorado’s Sea Level Research Group decided in May to add 0.3 millimeters -- or about the thickness of a fingernail -- every year to its actual measurements of sea levels, sparking criticism from experts who called it an attempt to exaggerate the effects of global warming.

The story seems to be that the land is rising, increasing the carrying capacity of the oceans. This would effectively reduce the amount of sea level rise expected, and we couldn't have that - hence the "adjustment". The effect of the adjustment appears to be small when put against the projected rises, but is certainly material against the actual changes recorded (although these are, per Morner, wrong).

The Economist on the IPCC

L'affaire Greenpeace continues to stir media interest. The Economist's Babbage column is the latest to weigh in, with this:

...the authors of the IPCC chapter involved declined to evaluate the scenarios they looked at in terms of whether they thought they were plausible, let alone likely. Ottmar Edenhofer, a German economist who was one of those in overall charge of the report, gives the impression that he would have welcomed a more critical approach from his colleagues; but there is no mechanism by which the people in charge can force an author team to do more, or other, than it wants to.

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On the front Lynas - Josh 105

More eyes opening up? Looks like it!

Cartoons by Josh

Quote of the day

[I]f the ‘deniers’ are the only ones standing up for the integrity of the scientific process, and the independence of the IPCC, then I too am a ‘denier’

Mark Lynas deals with criticism head on.

(H/T Barry Woods)

Climate cuttings 55

L'affaire Greenpeace rumbles on. Richard Tol has posted some thoughts here:

That study also assumes rapid technological progress in renewables and none in fossil fuels. That is a silly assumption.

Meanwhile Joe Romm is on Mark Lynas's case. I expect to hear about Lynas's links to big oil very shortly.

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Renewable friends - Josh 104

Cartoons by Josh

Ideological money laundering

This is a guest post by Ben Pile, of Climate Resistance fame.

As everybody now knows, the headlines from IPCC WGIII report on renewable energy appear to have been written by Greenpeace. When the Summary for Policy Makers was published last month, I was one of many who noted the role of Greenpeace, and the extent to which the SPM's authors were involved in the renewable energy industry. Steve McIntyre's discovery has caused further criticism  of the IPCC's letting such overt agendas near its evidence-making for policy-makers, even from the green camp, albeit only because it is such bad PR. But there is yet more to this story.

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Really Useful Reporting - Josh 103

Links and a slightly bigger version here

Plus Lynas

Mark Lynas's willingness to criticise the IPCC seems to have created a great deal of interest. The comments on his blog post are pretty interesting, with Bob Ward on hand to apply the thumbscrews to the waverer and Lynas indicating an interest in reading the Hockey Stick Illusion.

Meanwhile the story has been picked up many others, including the Independent here, and also by Judith Curry, who warns Lynas about what he is getting himself into.

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HSI review at Zone 5

Another review of HSI, this time from an Irish blog called Zone 5.

Montford’s book is essential reading for anyone who interested in a fairer and more objective analysis of this issue, and who can see through the hubris of claiming consensus in such a new scientific discipline and such a politically charged area.

Lynas on the IPCC

Mark Lynas has posted an article on the IPCC/Greenpeace shambles:

The IPCC must urgently review its policies for hiring lead authors – and I would have thought that not only should biased ‘grey literature’ be rejected, but campaigners from NGOs should not be allowed to join the lead author group and thereby review their own work. There is even a commercial conflict of interest here given that the renewables industry stands to be the main beneficiary of any change in government policies based on the IPCC report’s conclusions. Had it been an oil industry intervention which led the IPCC to a particular conclusion, Greenpeace et al would have course have been screaming blue murder.

New consensus: IPCC is dumb

Lots of interest on Twitter re the Greenpeace's involvement in the IPCC renewables report. Both sides appear united in their disbelief that the IPCC could be so foolish after everything that has gone before:

Mark Lynas

Having read the post, I think McIntyre is onto something. Kudos to him for spotting this.

Leo Hickman

Looks like IPCC hvnt learnt lessons

Mark lynas

Might have known concl was dictated by Greenpeace Germany!

Leo Hickman

My sentiments echo McIntyre: 'hoped against hope'. V dumb of IPCC to let this happen after evrythng