IPCC's second bite at the warmist cherry

The Commons Blog has posted its own short assessment of the Second IPCC/UN Working Group's Summary for Policymakers, released in Europe over the weekend and in NZ this morning.

Although the Summary for Policymakers has some useful and apt things to say about the need for adaptation, it is flawed by the fact that it:

• Overstates negative impacts and understates positive impacts of climate change
• Overstates the level of confidence that should be attached to the impacts on both human systems as well as "natural" systems (because the latter are also affected by human actions)
• Fails to examine the impacts of climate change in the wider context of other stresses affecting humanity and the rest of nature
• Fails to examine the relationship between climate change and sustainable economic development more fully, which could mislead policymakers into opting for policies that would divert resources from dealing with today's urgent problems in favor of policies to pursue longer term, and more uncertain, problems.

Among the several problems regarding the SPM are the following . . .

Download the whole Word document here to see what those "several problems" are.

UPDATE 1: Owen McShane talks sense to Leighton Smith on the new report. Bannning people living and building and enjoying living on the coastline -- and taking any risks involved on their own shoulders -- is not just another sign of the rampant new puritanism, it's just plain dumb. You can hear the first part of the audio here, starting about twelve minutes in, continuing here with part two. [Audio courtesy Newstalk ZB.]

UPDATE 2: The Climate Science Coalition press release calls this latest IPCC Report "dangerous nonsense." Says Dr Vincent Gray on behalf of the coalition,

“Global temperatures have not been rising for eight years. New Zealand temperatures in the last 50 years have gone down with volcanoes and up with El Niños but have no signs of ‘warming’. Christchurch has not warmed since 1917. The sea level in Auckland has been much the same since 1960.

“The claims of the IPCC are dangerous unscientific nonsense,” says Dr Gray

UPDATE 3: Lubos Motl at the Reference Frame blog summarises the political pressure on each of the three UN/IPCC Working Groups, and points out:

1. "Their pre-determined task is to "prove" that most of the recent climate change is man-made, despite any scientific evidence that shows the opposite."
2. Working Group 1 [WG1], is the group that studies the so-called science behind the claims of man-made climate change. "It is necessary for WG1 to prove what they're asked to prove, otherwise it would become clear that the very existence of the groups WG2, WG3 is a gigantic fraud - much like the existence of a large WG1, after all."
3. The latest report, issued in New Zealand on Monday, is not in fact a scientific report -- the science behind the full report has still not been released. "WG2 doesn't even pretend to be based on natural science. Just like WG1 that provided us with a demo (summary for policymakers) although many people apparently think that WG1 has already released a report, WG2 only offers us the table of contents, press conferences, and their IPCC WG2 summary for policymakers... Even though the full document is rumored to have 1572 pages (what else it can be than just a worthless conglomerate of myths that hundreds of random people add to it?), we must rely on the summary and press conferences as reported by the media e.g. Bloomberg."
   In other words, what has been released is not the science but the summaries, and without real opportunity for examination of the science.

Is this really science at all? No, it's just politics as usual. Regarding the chief claims of the WG2 report itself, at least as far as those claims have been reported, Lubos is equally scathing:

• "The working group is informing us that species will go extinct even though it is pretty much known that higher temperatures have been historically increasing the diversity of species, especially mammals."
• "They are telling us that there will be many more storms even though rudimentary atmospheric physics implies that storminess should decrease because it is driven by the temperature difference between the equator and the poles and this difference is predicted to shrink because the polar warming should be faster."
• "They are telling us that the poor people may be the hardest hit ones. That's almost certainly the case but what they're not saying is that 99+ percent of their ability to cope not only with a hypothetical climate change but also with the status quo depends on their future wealth and on their access to technology - something that these comrades want to prevent."
  

"To summarize," says Lubos, "what WG2 is saying is mostly a shameful piece of crap but it is a politically correct piece of crap, and that's what really matters these days."

UPDATE 4: In reply to a question in his comments section, Lubos, who would have lived through Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution as a youngster, sees grounds for optimism:

I don't think that the analysis why the GW orthodoxy doesn't hold water is too difficult. It will be understood by too many people by the end of 2008 - because it is discussed at all possible levels - and the virago may likely collapse within a few years.

In 1989, I couldn't imagine how communism could ever collapse because they were in charge of everything and there seemed to be almost no opposing voices except for a tiny minority of 1,000 or so dissidents. It collapsed trivially and within weeks.

The GW orthodoxy is based on too many obvious lies and if there is any flow of information, it is impossible to keep all these secrets hidden from all impartial people.

LINK: Accentuating the negatives: The IPCC Working Group II Summary for Policymakers (SPM) - Commons Blog
IPCC Working Group II report - Lubos Molt, Reference Frame

RELATED: Environment, Global Warming