Friday, January 29, 2010

The Times of London Accuses Pachauri of Lying

The Times of London keeps the stories coming on the Climategate scandal and the related IPCC scandal. The credibility Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the official UN organization that governments all over the world rely on for their assessment of the risks associated with global warming, and its head is now in tatters. The pressure on Pachauri to resign is mounting. This is shaping up to be the biggest science scandal in history.

Today we read that Rajendra Pachaui, head of the IPCC, knew about the spectacular Himalayan glacier claim being false months before Copenhagen but kept quiet about it and then lied about it.
"The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.

Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.

The IPCC’s report underpinned the proposals at Copenhagen for drastic cuts in global emissions.

Dr Pachauri, who played a leading role at the summit, corrected the error last week after coming under media pressure. He told The Times on January 22 that he had only known about the error for a few days. He said: “I became aware of this when it was reported in the media about ten days ago. Before that, it was really not made known. Nobody brought it to my attention. There were statements, but we never looked at this 2035 number.”

Asked whether he had deliberately kept silent about the error to avoid embarrassment at Copenhagen, he said: “That’s ridiculous. It never came to my attention before the Copenhagen summit. It wasn’t in the public sphere.”

However, a prominent science journalist said that he had asked Dr Pachauri about the 2035 error last November. Pallava Bagla, who writes for Science journal, said he had asked Dr Pachauri about the error. He said that Dr Pachauri had replied: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.”"

Donna Laframboise is going through the Noble Peace Prize winning 2007 IPCC report, which is supposed to be based on peer-reviewed scientific studies and is billed as summing up the state of the question based on science done worldwide for the benefit of policy makers. She is making lists of references to non-peer reviewed articles and papers from environmental advocacy groups.

Here is her list of references to publications by Greenpeace. Here is her list of references to publications by the WWF. More lists are sure to come.

The IPCC report is starting to look like a compilation of rumours, starry-eyed predictions by fundraisers for environental groups, opinions from eco-fascists and everything but scientific research.

If I was a politician or policy maker who relied on this UN body to provide non-political, objective, sober, scientific analysis I would be extremely angry at being taken for a fool. Unless, of course, I had known what was going on all along and simply played along in order to deceive the ordinary people and fleece them financially.

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