Climate Science Judged by Scientists with Naked Conflict-of-Interest
SPOTLIGHT: History’s most momentous climate decision was made by people with substantial conflicts-of-interest.
BIG PICTURE: In November 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared for the first time that humans were changing the climate. Its verdict turned on a single piece of then-unpublished research. Four months after the fact, the research was submitted to a prominent journal. Three months later it was published.
The world then learned that 25{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the IPCC personnel tasked with making its most crucial determination were involved with this research. In a naked a conflict-of-interest, these nine people, led by IPCC chapter head Ben Santer, had evaluated the persuasiveness of their own fledgling scientific work – and had judged it sound enough to change history.
Academic journals receive thousands of scientific papers each year from researchers hoping to get their work published. Papers that make it to second base are sent to knowledgeable third parties for evaluation. This system, known as peer review, has many shortcomings. But when it works as it’s supposed to, it slams the brakes on exaggerated claims.
In Searching for the Catastrophe Signal, Bernie Lewin notes that this research was toned-down during the pre-publication process. (If reviewer criticisms are judged to be valid, journals will insist on changes as a condition of publication.)
In Lewin’s words, the title of the published version “heralds no breakthrough finding, but instead only describes a search” for human influence (his emphasis). The accompanying abstract tells us it’s likely that a temperature trend is “partially due to human activities, although many uncertainties remain…” (my emphasis).
In other words, the first time outsiders had an opportunity to take a proper look, they were unconvinced the research demonstrated what the IPCC said it did. Standards in a scholarly journal are evidently higher than at this UN body.
A 2010 review of IPCC procedures identified numerous areas of concern. Among them was the startling fact that, 22 years after it had been established, the IPCC still had no conflict-of-interest policy.
TOP TAKEAWAY: IPCC scientists routinely pass judgment on their own work – and on the work of their scholarly rivals. But we’re supposed to take its findings seriously.
Read more at No Frakking Consensus
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Dr Pete Sudbury
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Sometimes, conspiracy theories are such utter nonsense. Have a look at this film, made by Shell (yes, the oil company) in 1991, four years before the IPCC findings you claim were based on one single unpublished paper. https://youtu.be/0VOWi8oVXmo . Shell subsequently joined the other oil majors in paying a lot of money to people who would cast doubt, or emphasise the uncertainty on what it’s own scientists had told it.
It goes back way before that: in the late ’70s, Exxon’s board was briefed by its scientists on the likely outcomes of continuing to burn fossil fuels. They responded by making their rigs taller, to cope with bigger storms, putting pipelines and shore facilities up higher to cope with sea level rise, and buying up drilling licences in the (still frozen) arctic on the cheap…oh, and spending millions on concealing the information…and, come to think of it, accusing scientists who tried to tell the truth of being self-interested liars.
The Shell film exposes the vast conflict of interest faced by the fossil fuel industries. The fossil fuel industries also have massive amounts of wealth. When you want to find conflicts of interest and cover-ups, it’s a good idea to follow the money, rather than inpugning the motives of people who try and make sue the evidence is as good as we can get it.
Have a great day!
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Squidly
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Oh my, Dr. Dumbass strikes again. I am surprised you didn’t bring up tobacco companies. What’s wrong with you?
I would like to know what happened to Greenpeace. When did they become a terrorist organization? .. When did they turn from protectors of our environment to genocidal maniacs? .. Why does Greenpeace hate brown people?
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Dr Pete Sudbury
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Dear Dr Squidly,
Again, “argument weak, shout!” (or resort to personal and organisational abuse). I didn’t bring up tobacco companies, because, to the best of my knowledge, they have no conflict of interest around AGW, and have never made films about it. did you watch https://youtu.be/0VOWi8oVXmo?
Does Greenpeace hate brown people? I’d be very interested to know the evidence for that.
Have a lovely day!
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Rosco
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Squidly you really should stop using Dr Dumbass – attack the arguments with actual reason – fine.
Your total incompetence regarding the application of Wien’s law doesn’t mean people should mock you either.
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John O'Sullivan
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So, Dr Pete, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re saying the only conspiracy theories that are ‘real’ are the ones coming out of Greenpeace political activists like you??
But if you had bothered to check those 1,000’s of leaked Climategate emails you’d know that Big Green and Big Oil have long been in bed together. The ‘scientists’ admit it in their emails!
The Climatic Research Unit at the heart of the ClimateGate scandal sought funds from Shell Oil in the year 2000.Other e-mail messages obtained from the University of East Anglia’s computers also showed officials at the school’s CRU solicited support from ExxonMobil and BP Amoco….
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/noel-sheppard/2009/12/05/climategate-research-unit-sought-funds-shell-oil
Dr Pete, your level of knowledge on this is ‘schoolboy’ at best.
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Dr Pete Sudbury
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Hi, John,
Sorry, I’d not realised it was expected practice for people using this website to throw insults at each other. If you don’t mind, I’ll leave that bit out: hope that doesn’t get me thrown off.
I followed your link. Glad I didn’t read thousands of e-mails to locate it, because it’s not really a shock: 9 years after Shell made the film I referenced, their climate change team discussed a studentship with the UEA, and becoming a “strategic partner”…UEA also seem to have been trying to make links with the “environment”, “climate” “alternative fuels” or similar departments in all of the oil companies. I was trying to work out whether those links got them anywhere, but they don’t have a list of donors (I can’t find one for your website, either). However, with a staff of 20, they certainly didn’t make millions from it. Nevertheless, you do make an extremely good point, which is that polarisation isn’t a good idea, and that at some point, all of us living on this single planet do have to work out how to take it forward. In fact, Hulme himself is quoted later on in your clip, writing:
“…If climategate leads to greater openness and transparency in climate science, and makes it less partisan, it will have done a good thing. It will enable science to function in the effective way it must do in public policy deliberations: Not as the place where we import all of our legitimate disagreements, but one powerful way of offering insight about how the world works and the potential consequences of different policy choices….”
Did you look at the video? Clearly, big oil and big green were once singing off the same hymn sheet. We have to wonder who profited most from the divergence since 2000…but, agreed, coincidence does not imply causality, still less malfeasance….and see https://www.shell.com/sustainability/environment/climate-change.html to indicate that there is a significant re-convergence.
While I’m here, did you see the US National Climate assessment 4th report, recently signed off by the Trump administration? I’d have posted it on your website, to promote informed debate, but I can’t find how to upload anything [I’m not brilliant on website controls…a big “NEW POST” button would be helpful]. Here’s the URL for the Exec Summary. Page 1&2 have the very brief summary. You may / ought to be interested.
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/CSSR2017_PRINT_Executive_Summary.pdf
Given its summary, it looks like even the only climate-denying administration in the world is singing off the same hymn sheet as “big Green”.
Have a lovely day!
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Wally
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” Exxon’s board was briefed by its scientists on the likely outcomes of continuing to burn fossil fuels.”
Fossil fuels?
Try abiotic, just one example:
https://principia-scientific.com/why-electric-vehicles-are-not-renewable-clean-or-green/
more here:
https://principia-scientific.com/?s=abiotic
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Dr Pete Sudbury
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Thanks for this. I’ve just read those references. If you are arguing that human beings haven’t yet worked out what a truly “sustainable” lifestyle would look like, I think you are right on. Our use of the earth’s resources exceeds its power to regenerate them, and we haven’t developed the closed loop recycling systems that would minimise their extraction.
The myth that EVs use twice the CO2 is enduring, and to my knowledge relates to a claim that the extra energy required to make the EV means you could drive an ICE for seven years before you’d used more energy. That is true, if you only drive about 2000 miles a year. An EV uses about 7tCO2 compared to 5tCO2 for an ICE…However, both figures depend on how renewable your power supply is, but the ICE then emits more CO2 for its whole lifetime (half of the EV’s emissions occur before it leaves the factory). Again, though, the power source is critical: if you burn coal, then an EV and an ICE car are about the same, but as electricity switches to lower carbon, the EV emits less and less. I did the maths for my EV, using UK electricity, and worked out that, in energy terms, it’s efficiency was equivalent to about 120mpg, and in emissions, about 100mpg. That’s not close to sustainable, but my car is greener this year than when I did those calculations, because the carbon content of UK electricity has dropped by about a third since then, so I’m up to perhaps 140mpg equivalent on emissions. The ICE carries on pumping out CO2 regardless…
As for abiotic, vs biotic. well, coal has fossils embedded within it, suggesting it might have been laid down in sediments, and of course, rotting vegetation in anaerobic conditions gives off methane (aka landfill gas / what comes out of anaerobic digesters)…but really, the problem isn’t how the stuff was formed, it’s what happens when you burn it: whatever the mechanism of formation, burning that-which-some-people-call-fossil-fuels releases carbon, mostly in the form of carbon dioxide, into the biosphere much faster than is can be absorbed, however green the Sahara allegedly gets. …and of course, Exxon’s Board did call them fossil fuels, and continues to do so…
…and Carbon dioxide does trap infra-red radiation in the earth’s atmosphere, or impede it escaping, increasing the average temperature of the whole atmosphere…
Thanks for that, though.
Have a great day!
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James McGinn
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Dr. Suds,
Our use of the earth’s resources exceeds its power to regenerate them
JMcG:
I used to think this too. Most humans are incapable of comprehending how genuinely large is this planet that we inhabit and how incredibly small and inconsequential human are in comparison. Fossil resources are vast. We have only barely begun to exploit them.
The processes that bring fossil fuels to the surface continue and will continue into the forseeable future. IOW, oil fields naturally regenerate themselves.
We only have the ability to get to resources that are within about 2 miles of the surface. By siphoning off these resources we relieve the pressure that would otherwise stop the continued upward migration of fossil fuels.
Us humans tend to exaggerate our relative significance and influence.
Dr. Suds,
we haven’t developed the closed loop recycling systems that would minimise their extraction.
JMcG:
It’s developed and it is easy. But it’s hard to compete with a process that has had billions of years of a head start. Methane extraction at land fills isn’t economically viable.
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avro707
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Dr.Sudbury.I am sorry to say that your essay appears to be just a list of the usual unfounded assertions from people who should know better.
Perhaps you are unaware that there is no evidence whatsoever to show that CO2,a trace gas,has any affect on the so called global average surface temperature(gast).Gast is a silly idea anyway.
There are many scientists who do not agree with you.Perhaps some more open minded research could help you realise that consensus has no part in the scientific method.
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