The numbers game

I've been meaning to post on this for several weeks after repeated comments made on this blog about the thousands of UN scientists who endorsed the climate change report.

Lawrence Solomon, however, beat me to it:

"This is the conclusion of 4,000 scientists appointed by governments from virtually every country in the world," asserted Mr. Rudd, in making his case that the planet is in peril.

Unfortunately for Mr. Rudd, he has made a blunder in citing this number. As he can confirm by contacting the secretariat of the IPCC, the thousands of scientists upon whom he rests his case never endorsed the IPCC's report. Rather, the secretariat will advise him — as the Secretariat advised me when I inquired in 2007 — that the great majority of those scientists were merely reviewers. Worse for Mr. Rudd, those scientists had reviewed only a fraction of the report. Worst of all, far from endorsing the IPCC's conclusions, many of the reviewers turned thumbs down on the IPCC sections that they read and only a handful actually endorsed the IPCC's claims that man-made global warming represents a threat to the planet.

The upshot? Australia has turned its economy inside out largely on the basis of imagined endorsements.

In fact, only around 60 scientists fully endorsed the IPCC's AR4 claim that global warming is dangerous.

The 53 authors and seven favourable reviewers represent a total of 60 people, leading McLean to conclude: "There is only evidence that about 60 people explicitly supported the claim" made by the IPCC that global warming represents a threat to the planet. Sixty scientists among the 130-plus countries that the IPCC cites amounts to one scientist for every two countries.

This is on top of an admission earlier this year that only around "20 percent" of the scientists consulted by the UN IPCC had had "any dealings" with climate issues at all. The vast majority had no more climate expertise than I do. But then again, IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri is a train engineer.

Comments

[CM]

That piece, and the argument in general, is disingenuous.

>>>>....only around 60 scientists fully endorsed the IPCC's AR4 claim that global warming is dangerous<<<<

That implies that the rest of the world's relevant scientists don't agree.

The consensus in respect to the fundamentals is remarkably strong, regardless of how many scientists were involved in each section and stage of the IPCC's last report (which, after all, was just a summary of existing research).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

[Mikenz]

Can we sue Rudd for being a prick and driving down this path without engaging his bullshit detector.
I thought politicians had well honed ones.

[CM]

They usually do and it looks like his was working ok.

[Ron]

So if all these people where right about GLOBAL WARMING, WHERE IS IT? I do not believe anyone that is on any government panel as they have alterior motives same as some who are paid by the other side.

Look at the temps dimwit, if the climate on this planet is supposed to be static we would not even exist, it was the very dramtic climate changes that allowed our species to survive and grow. Get your heads out of the global warming sand... no one believes your lies any longer, and co2 is NOT a polutant, we cannot survie without it, even at much higher levels.
I will believe the geoligists before any dumbass climatologist.
1 volcano in the early 90s, Mount Pinatubo, dumped the equivalent co2 into the atmosphere as 10 years worth of all the cars and plants in the world, FACT, and how many above the seas AND under the seas have erupted since then? We know so little of how this planets systems work, the solar system works or the galaxy ++ work that for these people to say it is a fact that we are causing global warming makes them look un-intelligent and non-scientific.

And CM, what about all the scientists who now disagree, I know you would like to ignore them and say they do not exist, but they do and the people are finally waking up to the lies, this is about power and control, nothing more.