IPCC: “Fix it or fold it!”

 Canadian researcher Ross McKitrick says the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is broken and urgently needs either fixing or finishing with.

“Fix it or fold it,” he says.

In a report introduced by former Australian PM John Howard, McKitrick argues that “the IPCC has evolved into an activist organization bearing little resemblance to the picture of scientific probity painted by its promoters and activist allies.”

What are some of the flaws? IPCC report-writing teams are cherry-picked in an opaque process by a secretive bureau in Geneva, with no effective requirements to ensure representation of diverse viewpoints. Environmentalist campaign groups are heavily overrepresented in the resulting author lists. Conflicts of interest abound throughout the report-writing process, whereby select authors are asked to review their own work and that of their critics, inevitably concluding in their own favour. The expert review process has become little more than elegant stagecraft, creating an illusion of adversarial cross-examination while concealing the reality of unchecked author bias. Unlike in regular academic peer review procedures, IPCC authors are allowed to overrule reviewers, and even to rewrite the text after the close of the peer review process…
    My report presents a set of reform proposals that are based on the simple notion that the IPCC assessment process should be made as rigorous as an ordinary academic journal. The surprise for many readers will be how radical the required changes would be.

In his foreword to the report former Australian PM John Howard says:

Professor McKitrick’s report focuses on the reporting procedures of the IPCC. The intellectual bullying, which has been a feature of the behaviour of some global warming zealots,  makes this report necessary reading if there is to be an objective assessment of all of the arguments. The attempt of many to close down the debate is
disgraceful, and must be resisted.
    Ross McKitrick has written a well-researched and articulate critique of the IPCC’s methods.  It deserves careful study, especially by those who remain in an agnostic state on this issue.

Send a copy to your new local MP on Monday.

Unless that MP is Nick Smith. In which case, just hit him over the head with it.

PS: The Climategate revelations continue.