Climate scientists are likely to face charges of putting politics before science, following two controversial decisions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier this month.
The IPCC decided for the first time to impose strict geographical quotas on the scientists who author its major assessment reports. There will also be a push to increase the representation of women among its authors.
Controversially, it also voted to increase the role in those assessments of “grey literature”: publications not subject to peer review. Using such material in the last assessment is what led to the “glaciergate” scandal in 2010, when the report was found to have vastly overestimated the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are losing ice.
The panel publishes three voluminous assessments of the state of climate science every six years, the last of which came out in 2007.
Some critics New Scientist spoke to say the changes, which have not so far been publicly announced, will reduce the quality of the assessments by excluding the best scientists and muddying the waters between peer-reviewed and other literature.
Undergraduate politics. There is no sense in their approach.
“Some critics New Scientist spoke to say the changes, . . . will reduce the quality of the assessments”
Quality?
Brilliant. Lower the criteria to the point where they are easily met.
Combined with the fact that “climate change” by UN Definition is “man made” (variability is the word they use for natural changes in the climate) and the IPCC will exist and harass us forever!
‘Geographical balance’ and ‘gender’ are now more important considerations in selecting literature than any of James Lett’s FiLCHeRS critera (Falsifiability, Logic, Comprehensiveness, Honesty, Replicability, and Sufficiency.)
When they say ‘the science is settled’ they are evidently referring only to the ‘political science.’
Look at the bright side of this. The requirement of ‘geographical balance’ will show that many regions and nations do not have sufficient capacity to monitor their climate change and make an equal contribution to the overall effort.
This means we need to invest enormously in ‘capacity building’ efforts, primarily in developing nations, for climate facilities and technology. To accomplish this, we will have to issue nice, lucrative contracts for ‘technology transfer’ to corporations in the most-developed countries, generating revenue.
There’s good green money to be made here. Someone should hire an activist group to ‘study’ the inherent climate technology imbalance and issue recommendations and ‘stark warnings’ to ‘world leaders’.
Business as usual.