Pachauri Welcomes Independent Review of Embattled Climate Panel
UN climate science chief Rajendra Pachauri welcomed today’s announcement of an outside audit that could help scientists win back public and political support for the battered consensus on human-caused climate change.
“It is critically important that the science we bring into our reports — and that we disseminate on a wide scale — is accepted by communities across the globe, by governments, by businesses, by civil society,” Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said at UN headquarters.
(Solve Climate, March 10, 2010)
A really comprehensive review of the IPCC is the right thing for the wrong reason, but should be welcomed enthusiastically. It is right because a really good “post mortem” of a major scientific report is aways a good idea before undertaking the next step. Having an expert, independent body do a careful and thorough critique will certainly find some things (procedures and processes most likely) that will strengthen the next report. Any worthwhile scientist will welcome that.
The review is being done for the wrong reasons however. The review has been forced on the climate science community by a handful of noisy and rude (even criminal in one instance) climate-change deniers who have organized international harassment of targeted scientists, cherry-picked the IPCC report for evidence not just of errors and oversight, but hopefully for evidence of deliberate deception. This handful of “true believers” in some kind conspiracy amongst the entire climate science community to do something evil (I have never figured out exactly what), has got the almost undivided attention of the media. Scientists who try to defend the IPCC report have often been hooted down and ridiculed.
This handful of denial activists got the ear of the cable TV news and commentary outfits and have been able to completely dominate the conversation about global climate change. Sadly, it appears that the majority of Americans get their science news from these illegitimate sources in spite of the efforts of scientists and science writers to set the record straight.
The review is also undertaken for the wrong reason if anybody believes that it will impress the deniers. The leaders of the climate-denial phenomenon are not interested in the science. They are interested in the denial. They will complain that the people doing the review are scientists too and thus have a vested interest in making their fellow scientists look good. Any publication on the review will be cherry-picked for some flaw in an argument or error in a detail. Nor will any new policies or procedures that the IPCC implements to make their report better have any effect on the deniers. The deniers will eagerly pounce on the next report and ravage it for some little detail that they can find that will get the attention of the talk show hosts. They will harass the scientists for their “latest data” or the computer programs they use in their climate models.
Nothing will change except that we will probably get a somewhat better report. That will be a good thing.
Knowing that the hundreds of climate-scientists represented are from a wide range of specialities and from countries around the globe, knowing that most of the scientists working on the report are highly educated and expert in their speciality, knowing that nearly all scientists are very careful about protecting their reputation as scientists and their standing among their peers, I am convinced that the likelihood that they delivered a mistaken report out of either ignorance or malice is extremely low.
I fall back on my guide through tempests of controversy, Bertrand Russell:
“When the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain.”