The clue is in the name I = Intergovernmental. The "I" is not for Interscience.
Their method of operation is also political. In my part of the world, politicians claim to be democratic but instead of canvassing the populace directly they set up a "representative" committee. Half may favour plan A and half plan B. That way you need only a biased chairman to make all decisions a foregone conclusion. That is how we ended up at war with Iraq. In that way they can claim full adherence with the "democratic process" while ensuring that their dictats have a good chance of success. (If they fail, they play double or quits until they get the "right" answer.)
The IPCC have access to all the science. They select some scientists to carry out the review. There was a study that recommended that these people should not have vested interests. So they incorporated that into their procedures to claim the "Brownie Points" but they do not enforce it. So an instrument of bias is already there. As a final step, they remove all the scientists so the politicians get the final vote. At that stage, any non-politically correct views can be dumped.
Still the process is claimed to be open so presumably we can check what the scientists said without prompting as reported in the Zero Order Draft (ZOD) with the final results? Well no, actually, we cannot. In spite of everything being publically funded, even with a Freedom of Information request we still cannot see the ZOD. See the link.
Why would the science need to be kept hidden? I cannot think of a good answer - certainly not one concerning only scientific issues.
Who has ever maintained that it was not a political body? Since it is part of the UN and does not employ climate scientists or conduct or fund scientific research, what else would it be?
I take the statement that the IPCC does not recommend policy as referring to its official published reports and statements - and not to the personal statements of the people who work there.
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I didn't say that they were trying to be anonymous or speak off the record. They don't feel that they have to be - because they don't.
On the other hand: How many Hansen's are there? It's damn few - and I remember when there was a 97% consensus among climate scientists that there was insufficient evidence for AGW and that the certainty of Hansen's conclusions exceeded the strength of the data.
Actually, I remember a time when no scientist I knew - knew of - or had ever heard of - agreed with Hansen. I only said 97% instead of 100% because there probably were some, somewhere, that agreed with him.
By the early 1990s, I personally knew three people who agreed with Hansen - all three were (and remain) idiots. They may have been right - but, not because they knew what they were doing. The number of pro-AGW scientists increased slowly until the 1997-98 El Nino - which made the data sing like jailbirds - and it was scientists following (not leading) their data that produced the scientific consensus.
I really don't think they are a political body. One has to understand that they are run by the United Nations. The United Nations are Government Global Elites who think that they know better. The IP CC is made up of Scientific Elites (not necessarily scientists) that were given power to investigate CO2 emissions and what "effect" they actually have on temperatures and the Global climate. To perpetuate and justify their cause they must come up with evidence that CO2 emissions are causing an effect, otherwise there is no purpose for them.
"Another topic that is close to the hearts of research scientists is the classification of regional climate changes: Up to now, science has been unable to determine the causal relationships between global warming and local environmental phenomena such as the series of summer droughts in Spain. Only when we have conclusive proof that the fountain in our back garden has dried up due to global climate change will the right policy decisions be made at the local level. People are more willing to take steps to protect the climate if they are directly affected and can identify the concrete causes.
The task is to understand the entire chain and classify the changes according to their causes, so that we can statistically attribute them to the rise in greenhouse gases. This is a complicated scientific problem, but it must be addressed if we want to prove that such changes, including extreme events such as flooding or drought, are connected to global climate change."
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I've looked closely at, and between, these lines and I don't see how anyone can possibly call them "political advice". I just see someone talking about the well-known scientific challenge of linking climate change to local events.
Yes the IPCC is being political. They select lead authors who will keep things towards the political line they wish to pursue. In ClimateGate e-mails, we see an admission that Kevin and I will keep those papers out even if we have to redefine the meaning of peer-reviewed literature. This was to keep out consideration of papers that went against the 'consensus' view. The focus on answering skeptic arguments is also clearly political.
Some1. it is clear that that doctor is not being policy neutral.
InterGOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change. Hmmmm.....Nope nothing political sounding about that.
Gary F suggests:
"and it was scientists following (not leading) their data that produced the scientific consensus."
I just have to wonder if that was the Bristlecone data or the data that Hansen manipulated these supposed scientists were following. In fact it is just gibberish anyway. The consensus is nothing but a cultist fantasy IMO.
Of course it is a political body funded by the United Nations.
It's science has failed completely, in that their projections, based on their climate models has shown no resemblance to reality, and the climate policies based on their suggestions have at great cost, have resulted in zero reductions in CO2, in fact CO2 continues to rise at ever greater rates.
The whole issue of climate change needs rethinking, as obviously the path we are on now is failing miserably.
Easy...it requires only the suspension of critical thought. This is always the objective of emotional arguments; to get the audience to buy into an idea without subjecting it to critical review. This is why the global warming advocates are so enamored of ad hominem arguments, demonizing the opposition, appeals to fear, appeals to pity, and appeals to social proof. If the target audience can be sufficiently emotionalized, they will not question the validity of what they are being told.
So, by your own reasoning, if your doctor told you that you need to quit smoking because it will have a negative impact on your health in the future, your doctor is just being political? Should your doctor show you measures that you could take to help you to quit smoking, your doctor is just being political?
I can give you better examples of political motivation than this:
1. The questions you are prone to asking here.
2. The responses you are prone to giving to questions here.
The IPCC states, and this has been highlighted numerous times by the head of the IPCC Rajendra Pachauri, that it does not recommend policy, that it is not a political entity. To prove this, it clearly states: "The work of the organization is therefore policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive." http://ipcc.ch/organization/organization.shtml
Policy neutral is a pretty clear statement. The IPCC summarizes climate science and presents reports to governments (i.e. the actual political entities).
And yet, we have Thomas Stocker who is Co-Chair of Working Group 1 which is the attribution and observation part of the IPCC report. Here in an interview he states:
"This is a complicated scientific problem, but it must be addressed if we want to prove that such changes, including extreme events such as flooding or drought, are connected to global climate change."
That sounds like political advice to me. And:
"The clearer our statements are, the clearer it becomes that measures must be taken if we want to keep climate change under control..." http://www.sdc.admin.ch/en/Dossiers/Dossier_Climate_change/Interview_with_Thomas_Stocker
Again, clearly not policy neutral. On top of that, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele who is an IPCC vice chairman gave a talk called: Climate Change: We Cannot Afford Business as Usual. Plus, has has been a member of the Club of Rome and you should be aware that they are certainly not policy neutral; quite the opposite.
And the head of the IPCC has made all sorts of "suggestions" like Obama's CO2 emissions targets “need to be strengthened” among other things like eating less meat.
What rational person believes the IPCC is not a political body when their highest ranking members are making public statements like that?
By its own admission, the IPCC is a political body. They simply use/cherry-pick certain scientists to "legitimize" their political agenda.
It is the UN, of course it is a political body but there are 200 scientists sorting the facts about AGW and they are not politicians
