28 Comments

I remember when we began modeling financial data to forecast performance for WS. The models back then were run on Excel. Some of the modeling would be done real time during a meeting, invariably mistakes were made. Maybe back then we had say 500 data points. Certainly nothing like the models today with millions of data points, repeat millions. Very difficult to get good data. To make things work they cherry pick periods to make thing worst. Roger thanks for exposing obvious misrepresentation of what is bad data. How about a white paper from a group of you? How about a show on 60 minutes, this might be the biggest financial fraud ever recorded in history and it must be exposed.

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I think the IPCC is exactly fulfilling its real purpose, to provide cover for various actors.

Why would they disband or restart something that is working so well based on the press coverage?

All I’ve read for a week is climate Scientologists screeching about how the synthesis report says we all gonna die.

Needs to be penalties for fraud at this level, trying to drive us to wasting trillions on nothing.

It’s sort of like Hans Gruber in die Hard where he says you can’t just steal $600mil as they will find you.

What do we do about trillions being stolen and or wasted in plain view??

That’s what this is all about. Money.

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Mar 25, 2023·edited Mar 25, 2023

Hi Roger,

I've written this before (in other words), but please pardon me for repeating. You ask, "Has the IPCC Outlived its Usefulness?" But I think that mischaracterizes the situation, by implying that the IPCC at one time was useful. In your former/current sphere of interest, climate effects on storms/disasters, the IPCC may be useful, or may have been useful.

*My* sphere of interest is predicting CO2/GHG emissions and resulting temperature changes in the 21st century. In that regard, the IPCC has *never* been useful. They have *always* been dishonest. (It has lasted far too long, with far too many people pointing what's wrong and to what should be done, for it to be incompetence.)

If you go to my blog post on the RCP 8.5 scenario:

https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2023/03/is-the-rcp-85-scenario-plausible-was-it-ever-plausible.html

...I hope you'll agree with me that it was an obvious lie to claim that RCP 8.5 was "business as usual"...even in 2011, when the paper introducing RCP 8.5 came out. Not only is RCP 8.5 *not* "business as usual"...it was not even *plausible* for the coal use assumed in that 2011 paper to occur. That's even at the time the paper was written.

I know you've often said that if the IPCC did not exist, "...then it would have to be invented." But that only applies if the IPCC was *honest.*

With respect to analysis of likely emissions and temperature increases in the 21st century, the IPCC has been lying for the *entire* 21st century...mostly by omission, in that they have refused to acknowledge the incredible improbability of the RCP 8.5 scenario, and the nearly identical A1FI scenario before that.

P.S. I should have led with all many things I *agree* with in your post. For example, "Urgent climate action can secure a liveable future for all” is indeed terrible, for exactly the reasons you describe...what does it even mean?

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Superb question, Roger. Two "answers:

a) as a basis for making environmental and related energy policy and its impact on 6 billion people living below the level of those reading this, the answer we believe is a resounding "affirmative"

b) as a learning experience and means of refining the process for international cooperation about the most serious scientific issues related to environment and energy into one that is neutral and credible, not yet.

Try and fix it in good faith first. But if that's not possible, then yes.

Either way, this should be recorded as an example of what happens when any political organization (in this case one whose core agenda is transferring wealth from west to east and from north to south) is given money and influence on a complex scientific issue and the megaphone of legacy media and combined with certain groups with agendas. Which is:

Something on net positive could come from it, but it would almost have to be by accident.

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I have adopted the position that anyone who claims to be concerned about climate change but does not advocate for nuclear power is non-serious. Everything else is shallow politicized hypocrisy. I am extremely sober about the inherent risks of nuclear power, but if climate change is the existential event being advertised, nuclear is the only solution that addresses the carbon issue. None of this assumes I agree with the scenarios used nor the utter lack of clarity around carbon sensitivity, only that if you believe these things, then nuclear power is the only workable solution.

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The argument that is made each climate model that is referenced by a Climate Assessment Report that has thus far been published by the IP:CC falsifies the Law of the Excluded Middle (LEM) and "unit measure" where the LEM is among Aristotle's three Laws of Thought whereas "unit measure" is an axiom of probability theory and assumption of mathematical statistics. Consequently, the runs of these models convey nil information gain to a regulatory official about the conditional outcomes of the events of the future for Earth's climate system, precluding regulation by this official of this system. A deductive proof of these assertions is available to anyone on Earth for critical review and comment by request sent to my email address. (See below).

When the IPCC appointed me to the role of Expert Reviewer of the manuscript for its recently published Climate Assessment Rep;ort 6, I read the latest edition of this manuscript Based on what I had read I advised the editors of this document that to publish it without major revisions would be misleading to anyone who read it as it falsely implied that the LEM and "unit measure" were satisfied by the argument made by the model though were actually falsified by this argument. When these editors ignored me by proceeding on a path toward publication without the needed revisions to the manuscript, I wrote to the Chair of the IPCC and chief statistician of the United Nations in protest but neither of them responded to my letter. Thus, this thoroughly misleading document was published by the IPCC for public consumption and under the imprimatur of the United Nations.

When I participated in a conversation with fellow Expert Reviewers, we found that we unanimously had found the IPCC to be devoted to pushing the narrative of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming though this narrative was unsupported by the facts.

Terry Oldberg

Engineer/Scientist/Public Policy Researcher

Los Altos Hills, CA USA

1-650-941-0533

terry_oldberg@yahoo.com

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We could have mentioned 100 more. He’s one of them. We haven’t read the book, but we’ve heard him on podcasts and read some of his work.

Two thumbs up. We agree.

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Thank you Dr. Pielke for helping to keep us informed about problems with the IPCC reports, which are so massive and technical that they are impenetrable for most (including scientists from other fields, including me). Not only is the IPCC still pushing the implausible scenarios, but these scenarios have become deeply lodged into State and local climate change reports and maps (and now dashboards https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/4e653ffb2b654ebe95848c9ba8ff316e) that are informing local governments and being used to implement draconian strategies. Because of trickle down science lags, these alarmist reports based on implausible scenarios will inform decisions for many years. The climate literacy of local officials and citizens involved in these initiatives & strategies is quite low, in part because of misleading IPCC synthesis reports. Unfortunately, this is leading to unfounded assumptions about real climate risks and ignorance of the costs of rapid transitions to renewables. Here are a few examples:

2) https://coloradoclimatechange.com/ 2) https://www.routtclimateaction.com/the-climate-challenge/ and 3) https://rockymountainclimate.org/extremes/extremes_1.htm

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As I understand the IPCC this is the report that is basically written by public relations hacks or activist scientists, or both. Stephen Koonan has found this part of the IPCC especially disappointing. This is the height of arrogance it seems to me. As you said, a lot of this is fraught with "we've got to do something dammit!" but the reports are empty of what. Meanwhile one of our major political parties (sounding just like this report you are critiquing) are fully prepared to wreck our energy system, and spend billions doing it. For what? Because we've gotta do something, and we're the ones to do it. Mediocre technology options that will saddle the future with billions/trillions of debt and an obsolete technology that doesn't really do anything about carbon and getting in the way of future adaptations and technology. We are such know-it-alls that we should leave our future generations with this. And, we want to impose this on countries all over the world too, many of them still developing and trying to bring a better life to their own peoples. This will be disasterous for our foreign policy too. Those countries will reject us and begin to align more and more with, for example, the Chinese, who will be happy to provide energy sources for them.

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"...which asserted at he attribution of losses to greenhouse gas emissions.."?? Maybe "...which asserted AN attribution of losses to greenhouse gas emissions.."??

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"...economic losses as down..." should be "...economic losses are down..."

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Good update. Thank you. Unfortunately, the lack of integrity at the IPCC with regard to how it chooses to report on climate issues has the opposite affect on the behavior that is needed to address our challenges. Very frustrating.

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On further reflection, an organization like the IPCC, that is under the umbrella of the UN is not reformable. Everything that the UN does is driven by the politics of scarcity and over population.

In addition as long as the scientists, economists and analysts that comprise the ipcc are willing to sacrifice their integrity for political and job security purposes, any hope for reform is doomed to fail.

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Yes! The IPCC has outlived it’s usefulness.

How much did it cost to produce this horrific report?

Why do scientists of integrity not speak out about this nonsense?

Judith Curry came to this conclusion 5 years ago.

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Perhaps this is why thinking Americans consider climate change a hoax. They leave out anything that does not support their thesis. Your book which I just finished pointed this out 10 years ago and if anything it’s gotten worst.

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Thanks Roger. I find the IPCC reports helpful to read, but as a lay person I am certain that I miss quite a lot because I lack context on the nuances in modeling approaches used, what was NOT included in a section, etc. Your work is a great help in this. Are you aware of other intellectually honest writers in the business of summarizing the climate science for non expert readers, even (and perhaps especially) if they ultimately draw different conclusions than you? It seems like an ecosystem of public facing experts with differing viewpoints but a shared sense of integrity is what’s needed here.

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