Dr. Spencer – Dump the IPCC

I read this post By Dr. Roy Spencer last night with my jaw in my lap.  He may have written this kind of thing elsewhere,  but I’ve certainly never read it from a climate scientist.  There are so many points made which are absolutely true that I had to ask to repost it here.

There is a beast in the corner of climate science.  A big ugly beast, called the IPCC.   It was designed in my opinion to create and express extreme science for the purpose of a specific type of policy.  It was cleverly built on a foundation incenting and even requiring the exaggeration of science.

There are 3 primary questions the IPCC answers every five years in their reports according to their working groups.

WGI  – Assess the amount and severity of CO2 climate change and whether man is causing it.

WGII – Assess the impact good and bad of CO2 climate change including costs and options for adaptation

WGIII – Assess options for mitigation of climate change, look at the benefits and drawbacks of different policy scenarios.

These groups were established well before the consensus that CO2 causes warming even existed, but think about it, you don’t need question 2 if you haven’t already assumed 1 and you certainly don’t need 3 if you haven’t assumed 2.  What’s more is, if the IPCC doesn’t answer all three of these assessments in an extreme fashion, the group itself would be dissolved.  The more extreme the assessment, the more money they control, and more importantly to their intent the more policy they control.

If any of the following were true, the IPCC wouldn’t exist

WG1 – CO2 only causes only very moderate warming — IPCC closed

WG2 – Impacts of warming are mostly good or moderately bad — IPCC closed

WG3 – The solution to CO2 emissions is simple.  Adaptation and adding more nuclear power generation over the next 50 years, fossil fuels will rise in cost on their own due to scarcity. — IPCC closed.

It’s obvious to me that the plan was in place before the group took the first look at the science, but Dr. Spencer says it better than I.

Reposted with permission below.

Dump the IPCC Process, It Cannot Be Fixed

August 30th, 2010

In a recent opinion piece, Ross McKitrick has argued that the IPCC process needs to be fixed. He correctly points out that, “There is too much conflict of interest built into the report-writing process”.

But I say the process cannot be fixed. DUMP the IPCC process.

The reason why is because the IPCC process was never created to achieve what the U.N. claims, and what most people believe it exists for.

The IPCC was created to use the scientific community to build a case for regulating CO2 emissions. Period.

While you might believe otherwise, climate scientists back in the 1980s did not get together and decide “let’s create the IPCC and investigate the evidence for and against manmade climate change”. Instead, politicians and politically savvy opportunists saw global warming as the perfect excuse for instituting policies that would never have been achieved on their own merits.

Maybe some scientists thought they helped dream up the IPCC to help save humanity from itself. But the process was instigated by politicians and U.N. bureaucrats who misrepresented what they were trying to accomplish. Some people are gifted in their ability to get others to think that they came up with an idea, when in fact they were artfully guided into it.

As someone who watched from the sidelines as a U.S. government employee, I witnessed the mindset, and a few of the central players in action. These are people who think it is their gift to humanity to decide how others should live.

I’m NOT saying that most of the scientists involved in the IPCC effort are of this mindset…although I do find government employees and government-funded researchers (of which I am one) to be rather clueless about what helps, versus what hurts, the human condition.

Darn those pesky unintended consequences!

I am claiming this is the mindset of that handful of politically powerful people who saw a way to accomplish personal goals, and maybe even save humanity in the process. These people never expect that they will ever be required to live under the restrictions placed upon the rest of humanity. They are too important to the process. Sound familiar?

To believe otherwise is to have one’s proverbial head in the sand.

I hate to sound so cynical, but this is how I saw the IPCC process play out. I would personally dread having to be part of that process, because it is only using science and scientists to achieve policy and political goals. I don’t like to be asked to contribute my time when I know I am being used.

In stark contrast to me, John Christy (my boss) has valiantly attempted to change the process from within the IPCC. I think this is a valuable effort, and am glad someone is willing to try.

But I do not see the ultimate goal of the IPCC ever being changed as long as the United Nations and politicians who look favorably upon the UN’s long-term goals are in control of the process and the purse strings. It is as simple as that.