I have been following with interest and concern as a series of articles have raised doubts about methods and credibility of global warming research and reporting by the erstwhile prestigious International Panel on Climate Control (IPCC). I think this Wall Street Journal report gives a fair summary.
It happens that I tend to believe the case for global warming. I believe it less today than I did a month ago. The change is entirely based on the IPCC behavior. Taking the WSJ accusation one step forward, the IPCC appears to me to be an advocacy group posing as a research group and that taints a lot if you ask me.
The closest parallel I can think of is the trial of OJ Simpson. Most people still feel the former football hero was guilty of two counts of murder. A jury, however, found him innocent and those who have looked closely at it think it was because LAPD apparently tainted a ton of the evidence presented.
In short police framed a guilty man.
The connection is this: In order to make a case more compelling, the IPCC has filtered out conflicting data and dissenting opinion. That is no way to get at the truth. That is no way to get the world to shift to sustainable technologies.
It is, however a good way to get objective people to doubt the remaining mountains of data that indicate there is a global change going on and human energy consumption contributes significantly to it.
Even if our cars and our buildings, our jets and our fires are not contributing to the problem, I think there remain extremely compelling arguments to change our energy resources.
We in the west depend upon resources owned mostly by nations they may not much care about our needs. This is not just Americans and Arabs. Most Europeans are more than a little nervous knowing that Russia can turn off the spigot of the energy it provides to Europe and cause grave hardship.
As for the IPCC, data doesn't lie. people do. As an influential organization, I think they have hurt a good cause. Maybe it's a stretch to liken them to LAPD, but it seems to me to be less of a stretch than it shopuld be.
Comments on this entry are closed.