UN climate report: already out of date and too conservative
Neocon nutball know-nothings
haven't a clue about how conservative scientists already are.
Fresh from winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the
UN’s top scientific panel on climate change will meet in the Spanish port
city of Valencia today to finalise a landmark report on global warming and
how to avoid its worst ravages.
Some voices, including from within the IPCC itself, fear the panel’s grand report will be badly out of date before it is even printed. Others quietly criticise the organisation as being too conservative in its appreciation of the climate threat.
“Over the past several years we have realized … that the speed at which changes can occur — such as ice sheet disintegration and resulting sea level rise — is much faster than IPCC has estimated,” leading climatologist James Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told AFP.
Another weakness of the IPCC, say others, is a tendency to shy away from controversy.
British scientist James Lovelock blames the consensus rule that governs IPCC proceedings, enabling government representatives to meddle with “forthright and inconvenient forecasts” made by experts.
Scientific peer review is so devoted to checking and rechecking data and studies that researchers sometimes need a wake-up call to move them into action based on their own conclusions.
Some voices, including from within the IPCC itself, fear the panel’s grand report will be badly out of date before it is even printed. Others quietly criticise the organisation as being too conservative in its appreciation of the climate threat.
“Over the past several years we have realized … that the speed at which changes can occur — such as ice sheet disintegration and resulting sea level rise — is much faster than IPCC has estimated,” leading climatologist James Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told AFP.
Another weakness of the IPCC, say others, is a tendency to shy away from controversy.
British scientist James Lovelock blames the consensus rule that governs IPCC proceedings, enabling government representatives to meddle with “forthright and inconvenient forecasts” made by experts.
Scientific peer review is so devoted to checking and rechecking data and studies that researchers sometimes need a wake-up call to move them into action based on their own conclusions.
Posted: Mon - November 12, 2007 at 06:09 AM