Chiefly incurious chief scientists

The 2013 report: “New Zealand’s Changing Climate and Oceans: The Impact of Human Activity and Implications For the Future” by New Zealand’s Chief Scientist, paediatrician Sir Peter Gluckman, makes for uneasy reading – if you are completely gullible. It should be of considerable concern that this document promotes the view that, as a result of anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, we are facing dangers from unusual global warming, sea level rise, ocean acidification, extreme weather, melting ice caps and the spread of insect-borne disease. None of these claims is supported by empirical evidence.

The report ignores what is widely known about climate and paleoclimate and is clearly aligned with alarmist statements released by the discredited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Reading through the New Zealand report provides scant evidence that Gluckman and other contributors have examined or taken seriously any of the numerous peer-reviewed published papers which challenge the IPCC on just about every one of its claims. In fact the Gluckman report shows a sycophantic willingness on the part of New Zealand’s chief scientist to embrace the authority of the IPCC without question.

Apparently such a compliant – indeed, political — response is symptomatic of other national chief scientists, past and present. These include neuroscientist Professor Ian Chubb, who was appointed Australia’s Chief Scientist in 2011; physical chemist, Sir David King, appointed the UK’s Chief Scientist in 2000; population biologist, Sir John Beddington, appointed the UK’s Chief Scientist in 2008 and immunologist, Sir Mark Walport who was appointed the UK’s Chief Scientist in 2013. Never mind that all lack backgrounds and expertise in climate science, just heed their voices of authority.

Perhaps it’s because they lack the relevant scientific background that Chubb, King, Beddington and Walport readily accept the IPCC’s questionable science and its alarmist statements. Perhaps they all toe the IPCC line to please their political masters. Perhaps, because they haven’t bothered to seek expert, independent advice from the many scientists sceptical of IPCC dogma, these chief scientist are oblivious that the IPCC has been systematically “massaging” the scientific process for its own purposes since its inception in 1988. They appear unaware that the IPCC has brought shame to climate science and inspired public doubt about the reliability of scientific advice from so-called experts. Climate science and the scientific process have been soundly abused by the IPCC, whilst these chief scientists were either totally unaware of this fact or deliberately looked the other way.

Australia’s Chief Scientist Ian Chubb has already demonstrated his willingness to accept IPCC alarmism without question when he told ministers of the former Labor government what they wanted to hear. Considering the billions of dollars already wasted on the IPCC process and on introduction of questionable “climate mitigation” policies worldwide, taxpayers are entitled to ask why these chief scientist have not exercised due diligence on their behalf?  In the US alone, government estimates of total federal funding of climate change activities have been in excess of 150 Billion USD since 1993.

Why didn’t any of the chief scientist look more closely at the IPCC process, its personnel, secrecy and the unreliability of IPCC statements issued to the media and politicians?  After all, they have had 25 years to investigate this political/ideological organization and its questionable behaviour.

When the IPCC was launched in 1988, most scientists hoped that it would undertake a dispassionate meta-analysis of the climate science literature. It soon became apparent, from only a cursory examination of the IPCC’s technical reports, their Summaries for Policymakers (SPM’s) and notes exchanged between IPCC scientists – the so-called Climategate emails, with their many references to the CSIRO — that this was never going to happen. The IPCC announced, without any empirical evidence, that there is a widespread and dangerous human influence on climate. That the IPCC’s agenda was about demonizing carbon dioxide and industrialization was made clear when it was specifically tasked:

“To assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change.”  (author’s emphasis)

 IPCC contributing scientists, such as Dr Roy Spencer, were awake to this problem long ago, apparently whilst the chief scientist were still slumbering:

“In my experience, the vast majority of the scientists and politicians involved in the IPCC process appear to really believe they are doing what is right for humanity by supporting restrictions on fossil fuel use.”

The IPCC’s 1988 statement of intent, and statements from IPCC contributing scientists, make clear that there was never any serious effort to consider factors other than the human generation of carbon dioxide as a principal driver of climate change. Surely Chief scientist should be able to differentiate between science and advocacy so why did they not distance themselves from this political group?

One is left wondering if any of the chief scientist was ever aware that the intriguing Maurice Strong, founder of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), from which the IPCC was spawned, was unequivocal about his position:

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse?  Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”

Did the chief scientist know that Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation, doesn’t consider scientific facts as being important?

“Even if the theory of global warming is wrong we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”

Did the chief scientist know that other members of the IPCC had admitted that the organisation is more about ideology and wealth distribution rather than a dispassionate analysis of climate science? Ottmar Edenhofer is a senior member of the UN’s IPCC. He was co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III, and a lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007. He made clear the UN’s position:

“The climate summit in Cancun —- is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War.”

He described what the UN intentions are:

“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”

 And

“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”

And

“If global emission rights are distributed – If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there.”

Did the chief scientists know that Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of Environment, was comfortable about climate science being used as a means to her ends?

“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony … it provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equity in the world.”

Were any of the chief scientists aware that the IPCC’s non-scientist Chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri had a non-scientific agenda? Pachauri has never played the role of neutral chairman and has brazenly declared his political/ideological biases about climate change, western lifestyles and his desire to transform the world’s economy by demonizing carbon dioxide:

“Unless we live in harmony with nature, unless we are able to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and adopt renewable energy sources and until we change our life styles, the world will increasingly become unfit for human habitation.”

Pachauri no longer tries to hide his intentions, stating:

 “I am not going to rest easy until I have articulated in every possible form 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.”

 Were any of the chief scientists aware that Pachauri has never welcomed debate over the science and has been petulantly scathing of any criticism from those who challenged the IPCC’s alarmism. He told the Financial Times in 2010:

Those who challenge the IPCC’s alarmism “are the same people who deny the link between smoking and cancer. They are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder – and I hope that they put it on their faces every day.”

Pachauri chided Indian glaciologist Dr Vijay Raina who rightly pointed out the IPCC’s ridiculous claims in 2007 that Himalayan glaciers would all be gone by 2035. Pachauri said that Raina was practicing voodoo science. The IPCC later published a series of errata about their false claim about glacier melt.

Did the chief scientists know that Pachauri’s TERI institute accepted sponsorship money from the India chapter of the WWF and Pachauri recently accepted a “Green Crusader” award from the Indian Chapter of the International Advertising Association.

These are hardly the words and deeds of an impartial and objective chairman of what gullible or duplicitous politicians advertise as a prestigious, investigative scientific body. I wonder if any of the chief scientists were ever aware of Pachauri’s real aims.

Pachauri claimed that the Inter-Academy Council (IAC), established to investigate the IPCC, found the IPCC’s work to be solid and robust. In fact the IAC concluded no such thing. It pointed out significant shortcomings in each major step of the IPCC’s assessment process. Why didn’t any of the chief scientists ring alarm bells when this report was released? Incredibly, IPCC Chairman, Pachauri also has publicly admitted that government bodies influence how the IPCC operates and reports:

“We are an intergovernmental body and we do what the governments of the world want us to do,” he said. “If the governments decide we should do things differently and come up with a vastly different set of products we would be at their beck and call.”

Yes – Pachauri actually said: “We do what the governments of the world want us to do.”

So this is how IPCC “science” operates. In effect, we have an international economic scheme designed to de-industrialize  Western nations and redistribute wealth whilst it promoting itself as an objective scientific body. The chief scientists appear to have  swallowed this hypocrisy hook, line and sinker.

As Edenhofer pointed out, Cancun was not a climate conference, but a disguised sociological confab. Western nations would be asked to provide $100 billion a year by 2020 to the United Nations, with a commitment to pay 1.5% of GDP to the UN annually. This substantial amount of taxpayer’s money would be transferred from the West to developing countries under the pretext of enabling adaption in the face of imaginary catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.

The Copenhagen Draft Treaty, Paragraph 33 of annex 1 reads:

“By 2020 the scale of financial flows to support adaptation in developing countries must be [at least USD 67 billion] [in the range of USD 70-140 billion] per year.”

Paragraph 17 of annex III E, says that developed countries such as Australia should “compensate for damage” to the economies of poorer countries “and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity” allegedly caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

As UN bureaucrat Richard Benedik cynically observed: “A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect.”

I wonder if any of the chief scientists are actually aware of these aims? If so, are they happy to sacrifice integrity for such goals?

If any of the chief scientists had read and understood the IPCC’s technical reports, they would immediately suspect scientific malfeasance the moment they compared those reports with the IPCC’s Summaries for Policymakers. Of course part of the IPCC strategy is to release the politically influenced summaries with their alarmist messages, whilst the more even-handed technical reports are released at a later date when they will be ignored by the media.

IPCC contributing scientist Dr Philip Lloyd:

“I am doing a detailed assessment of the IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science. I have found examples of a summary saying precisely the opposite of what the scientists said.”

And Dr Martin Manning:

“Some government delegates influencing the IPCC Summary for Policymakers misrepresent or contradict the lead authors.”

Dr Richard Lindzen was lead author for the IPCC’s Chapter 7 in 2001. He was clear about the way in which the IPCC used its Summary For Policymakers:

“The Summary For Policymakers misrepresents what scientists say and exaggerates scientific accuracy and certainty…  The IPCC encourages misuse of the summaries and the final version was modified from the draft in a way to exaggerate man-made warming.”

 For instance, in the IPCC’s initial 1995 report we find:

 “No study to date has positively attributed all or part (of observed climate change) to anthropogenic causes.” (Source, IPCC, 1995.)

 And:

“None of the (scientific) studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed (climate) changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.” (Source, IPCC, 1995.)

 And:

 “Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced.” (Source, IPCC, 1995.)

 The contributing scientists made their uncertainty very clear. So what did the IPCC’s massaged 1995 Summary for Policymakers say:

“The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on global climate.”

I wonder if any of the chief scientists are actually aware that this deliberate manipulation has been taking place? I wonder if any of the chief scientists would consider this kind of activity as constituting scientific fraud?

The IPCC’s abuse of peer review was noted by Professor Frederick Seitz who commented in the Wall Street Journal, 12th June 1996:

“In my more than 60 years as a member of the American scientific community including service as President of both the National Academy of Science and the American Physical Society, I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events which led to this IPCC report..”

IPCC contributing scientist Dr Vincent Gray is adamant:

“The (IPCC) climate change statement is an orchestrated litany of lies.”

Lies, it might be added, that remain largely unexposed by those who are handsomely paid to put the truth above all else.