Climate Science Corrupted by the IPCC

SUMMARY FOR POLICY MAKERS
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established under
the sponsorship of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The UNEP's belief in manmade
warming in the late 1970's led to a stage-managed conference in Villach in
1985, which in turn led to the political decision to form the IPCC.

The IPCC rose to prominence because people with clear bias were appointed to
key positions where they could influence the development of the entire
organization. Bert Bolin, the first chairman of the IPCC was already heavily
committed to the notion of manmade warming having worked previously for the
UNEP, WMO, the Brundtland Report, the SCOPE 29 report (on which the first
IPCC report was largely based) and, very crucially, having documented that
the Villach conference reached a consensus that manmade emissions of carbon
dioxide were to blame for variations in climate. John Houghton, the first
chairman of the IPCC working group that attributes blame for climate change,
was assisted in his assertions by his staff at the UK Met Office and by a
very supportive UK government.

The other key factor for the IPCC was the adoption of the UNEP's methods of
coercing governments and the general public. Those methods included (a) the
use of the environmentalists' catch-all the "precautionary principle", (b) a
penchant for creating models based on partially complete scientific
understanding and then citing the output of those models as evidence, (c)
the politicisation of science through the implied claim that consensus
determines scientific truth, (d) the use of strong personalities and people
of influence, and (e) the manipulation of the media and public opinion.
Directly and indirectly these methods greatly influenced political parties
whether they held government or not
None of these UNEP techniques provide scientific justification of the IPCC's
principal claim, which considered dispassionately, is very weak. Not only is
it based on the output of climate models, that the IPCC shows us are built
according to incomplete knowledge and therefore cannot be accurate, but also
on the opinions of those who use such models as if somehow the models were
credible and scientific truth should be determined by consensus and opinion.

It is long overdue that the IPCC was called for what it is - a political
body driven not by the evidence that it pretends exists but by the beliefs
and philosophies of the UNEP, the IPCC's sponsor, and by the initial holders
of key IPCC positions.

 

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Robert Ferguson, President
Science and Public Policy Institute
www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org
bferguson@sppinstitute.org
202-288-5699