India abandons IPCC

Simplistic interpretation of events driven not by analysis but by an emotional reaction. I wanted to address the above claim particularly.

Believe it or not, China cares about pollution, global warming, and the environment - certainly enough to realize that they have a serious problem. China is suffering badly because of everything from toxicity to gigantic sandstorms, and the LAST thing the government wants is popular unrest (for any reason). As an authoritarian regime, you would think China would be ideally suited to tackling pollution problems by instituting wide ranging and effective anti-pollution laws, without all the squabbling that happens in democratic countries.

In fact, that has already been happening, from banning plastic bags to investing in sustainable development and the environment as part of the 2008-2009 economic stimulus plan.

The government, although all-powerful, has a certain momentum and so do industry and the economy. I am not excusing the shameless and idiotic ways in which China has let down its people and abused its environment for decades. That is not in question. However the mistakes of the past are being addressed and China is a leader in number of green energy industries.

Plus there is a high level of corruption among communist party officials, and no shortage of money for them to accept. Polluters in China traditionally got a stack of free passes as long as they paid the right people and followed the correct song and dance routine. This is a discussion that has NOT been ignored in China and has resulted in some pretty dramatic action, including the execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, the head of the agency controlling the safety of food and drugs.

Here is an article in TIME that provides a summary of the situation, the challenges, and of course the problems.

China has an enormous demand for energy and they can’t just stop using coal because that is a primary source of electrical power. But they are taking steps to minimize dependence on fossil fuels. Here is a summary which compares China’s goals and progress with those of the US (the latter are not quoted):

There is good and there is bad, but whatever your opinion on the effectiveness of these measures you have to admit there is a heck of a lot more good than is usually acknowledged during finger-pointing sessions.

Well if China has banned plastic bags I’m convinced.

How long?

There is another disturbing pattern, that of calling anyone who questions the science being done a denier or a truther. Guess what, questioning the science does not make one a denier, it makes one a skeptic.

More information that I came across today. Link.

Short story. The IPCC included a claim that global warming would cut African crop production by 50%. It turns out that this claim, which made it into the Synthesis Report released by the IPCC, was originally made by the Institute for Sustainable Development. It was not peer reviewed. Professor Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate impacts team, said that there is no support for this claim.

Then there is another issue, the apparent cherry picking of the Russian climate station data used by HadCRUT. Linky(warning, PDF) According to the Met office this data underpinnedthe IPCC assessment reports.

Is it a conspiracy? I don’t think so. Is it good science? I think not. I am willing to bet that within the next year more information comes to light where either the CRU or the IPCC based reports on non-peer reviewed or just bad papers.

Slee

Not in this case, you are avoiding dealing with the fact that the sources you use are misleading in the extreme. As it was shown already India is not leaving the IPCC.

And? do you notice that it was a scientist from the IPCC that did that? Shouldn’t that mean that indeed they are making amends and accepting responsibility?

In fact the report does mention that the IPCC needs to “tackle its blunders or lose all credibility.” Indeed, that is what they are doing.

And it seems clear that you are basing this on what the frauds at Climate Audit are telling you.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th.php

You already lost that bet.

Sources like climate audit are indeed Climate Thruters. No matter how often they have been shown to be absolutely wrong regarding the proxy “hockey stick” research they continue to mislead people like you.

I have to say here that this was a former IPCC scientist, so I have to take this back, but as I noticed on the Stoat comments regarding this, it is not quite clear what the critics are reporting here. Not to mention that the reporter there even admits that it “**could **be even more embarrassing”.

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/02/anatomy_of_ipccs_mistake_on_hi.php

So far I agree with the author of the post dealing with the early IPCC error and also with this one.

The IPCC guys used also “could” in their 50% and they refer to “deficiencies in yields from rain-fed agriculture” not exactly all “African crop production” as you said. Also, it was not just the only cite as the report said.

I would still have to go for “could be embarrassing” until I see what other sources say.