scepticism; denial ignores the facts” (p.
71). But what if they are wrong and the
scientific basis is dubious?
Dawson and Pope acknowledge
that science involves working
hypotheses that are believed to explain
actual observations and make useful
predictions. A scientific hypothesis is
“a work in progress; best explanation;
open to revision; approximation to
the truth” (p. 72). Similarly, scientific
models are approximations.
The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change
Nevertheless, they claim the
IPCC uses a ponderous but careful
process of going over the peer-reviewed literature by experts in the
field. Their report “certainly isn’t
some half-cocked, shoot from the hip
statement. It isn’t a collection of sound
bites, and it isn’t funded by special
interest groups” (pp. 72–73). They
think people should be surprised at
how few errors have been found in
their work. Moreover, the authors also
believe there is a “systematic tendency
to understatement”. In the case of
published climate change research,
‘scholarly reticence’ is common (p. 73).
However, their reverence for scientists
and the IPCC is misplaced.
Many IPCC contributors—and,
indeed, lead authors—are not top
scientists, and many have close ties
to activist organisations including
Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund
and the Environmental Defence Fund. 16
In fact, an audit of the IPCC’s 2007
climate bible revealed that 30% of its
18,531 references were to non-peer-reviewed sources, including newspaper
and magazine articles, unpublished
masters and doctoral theses, and
Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund
brochures, and press releases. 17
IPCC insiders have noted:
“There are far too many politically
correct appointments, so that dev-
eloping country scientists are
appointed who have insufficient sci-
entific competence to do anything
useful … . We had half of the [lead
authors] who were not competent.”
Another insider commented:
“The whole process … [is] flawed
by an excessive concern for geo-
graphical balance. All decisions are
political before being scientific.” 18
Despite public perceptions and
claims to the contrary, IPCC procedures
and processes are not transparent. 19 The
IPCC takes research findings at face
value and does not verify that the raw
data actually supports the researcher’s
claims. IPCC insiders have pointed
out that quality assurance and error
identification are non-existent. One
could argue that this is the job of the
peer-reviewed journals in which the
research was originally published, but
peer review does not guarantee the
correctness or truth of the research.20
Moreover, reviewers rarely, if ever, get
access to the raw data and computer
code and algorithms used to process
the data. This is like asking an auditor
to approve a company’s financial
statements purely by examining the
annual report. 21
The IPCC does not always reflect
the latest and best research. IPCC
expert reviewers Nic Lewis and
Marcel Crok point out that the best
observational evidence indicates our
climate is considerably less sensitive
to greenhouse gases than climate
scientists had previously thought.
Although the relevant scientific
papers are all mentioned in the full 5th
IPCC Report (2014), this important
conclusion is never drawn (it is only
mentioned as a possibility), and it is
totally missing from the Summary for
Policymakers. Yet the Summary for
Policymakers presented the ‘likely’
range for climate sensitivity as
1. 5–4. 5°C and did not provide a best
estimate, despite the fact that the latest
research indicates an observationally
based ‘likely’ range of 1. 25–3.0°C,
with a best estimate of 1. 75°C, a significant reduction from the previous best
estimate of 3°C. This is a dramatic
finding yet it was not reported by the
IPCC. 22
Sea-level specialist Nils-Axel
Mörner told a House of Lords
committee that, between 1999 and
2003, genuine sea-level experts held
five international conferences to
discuss the available evidence. They
concluded that sea levels are unlikely
to increase by more than 10 cm by the
year 2100. According to Mörner, the
claims are that sea levels are rising
quickly—or that entire island nations
are in imminent danger of drowning—
are simply not true. 23 Yet these experts
were ignored by the IPCC.
Climate models
The catastrophic predictions of
climate scientists obviously do not
come from direct observation, but from
computer models. But the problem
with computer models, as Freeman
Dyson pointed out, is:
“They do not begin to describe the
real world that we live in. The real
world is muddy and messy and
full of things that we do not yet
understand. It is much easier for a
scientist to sit in an air-conditioned
building and run computer models,
than to put on winter clothes and
measure what is really happening
outside in the swamps and the
clouds. That is why the climate
model experts end up believing
their own models.” 24
IPCC lead author John Christy
noted, “the truth, and this is frustrating
for policy-makers, is that scientists’
ignorance of the climate system is
enormous”. 25 Thus, not surprisingly,
the climate models do not correspond to
actual observations as shown in figure 1.
Over 95% of the models significantly overestimate the amount of
warming. Christy remarked:
“... it is disturbing that ‘consensus
science’ will not acknowledge
that such discrepancies are major
problems. From the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s
beginning, that largely self-selected
panel of scientists has embraced the
notion that consensus on climate
change is the necessary path to
