Adversarial process required?
… why should anyone trust them?
The AGW advocates delight in making shrill claims about sceptics being funded by “Big Oil”, which the advocates believe is a perfectly good reason to dismiss much, if not all, of what they say as compromised. But what’s the difference with the IPCC? It is an organisation that is funded by “Big Green”, comprised of governments desperate to appear politically correct, vested interests from academia and business, and environmental activist groups. What goes for one, goes for the other. By analogy, anything the IPCC says must be regarded as equally compromised.
The only differences, as far as I can see, are that:
- Big Green funds the AGW advocates a thousand dollars for every one dollar funding sceptics;
- the IPCC shies away from transparency and open debate, whereas sceptics encourage it.
So even if all the dire predictions of the IPCC were correct, why should anyone believe them? And how is such a problem resolved?
The success of the adversarial process in a court of law relies on cross-examination and forensic analysis by those on the other side of an argument. By forcing a witness to answer difficult questions, and putting to him an alternative set of circumstances, a skilled counsel can drill down to reveal the uncomfortable truth that the witness may be reluctant to reveal. At the moment, the IPCC is a courtroom with a defendant (human emissions of CO2), but no defence lawyers present. All we get is the prosecution case. And the defendant is, unsurprisingly, quickly found guilty.
The alarmist industry, including the IPCC, must engage with those on the other side of the debate, and willingly bring them into the process, instead of excluding, and then demonising them. The IPCC should actively want its reports fact-checked and picked over by those who disagree. It must embrace the cross-examination of sceptics, as such a forensic examination would lend huge credibility to its findings.
But that change is not going to happen in a hurry, and until it does, the IPCC’s predictions are as worthless and compromised as the alarmists claim those of the sceptics to be.
Australian Climate Madness 
Well said Simon.
The United Nations, Governments, vested academic and business groups and the Green Taliban … all as transparent as a brick wall!
“The alarmist industry, including the IPCC, must engage with those on the other side of the debate’
No..thats the last thing they would ever do.
They would lose big time if they allowed “the other side” to correct their bs in the mainstream press.
They win by ignoring us/mocking us/strangling debate/threatening us/hiding data/guarding the journals/excluding papers they dont like etc..
We are basically %$$#@ untll a few generations from now wake up..
Crony capitalists love Big Green. Mutual back-slapping.
“So even if all the dire predictions of the IPCC were correct, why should anyone believe them?”
Because they are correct, perhaps?
As mentioned by Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen, “They (IPCC) are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase.”
Still think their predictions are correct?
If Co2 was supposedly the cause of the IPCC predictions ,then why have they not called for the banning of all fire extinguishers ,as there are millions worldwide full of Co2 and used every day. Unless they can explain the simple things then people will always be skeptical.
The Australian government actually passed a law in 2005 along those lines. They didn’t ban extinguishers outright, but they do require people handling extinguishers in non-emergency situations to have a permit, in order to reduce unnecessary emissions:
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2013C00019/Html/Text#_Toc344983603
Well done on raising this analogy.
There are other elements that are relevant as well as having cross-examination of witnesses.
– In a court of law there are standards of evidence. For instance, analysis of alcohol levels, fingerprints and blood in alcohol have to conform to strict independent standards. Having James Hansen, the father of global warming (until his recent retirement) running GISSTEMP would have invalidated it as evidence. Also the frequent changes to that temperature record would be seen as tampering with the record.
– In Britain in the 1970s the IRA, in moving their campaign to mainland Britain, bombed pubs in Guildford and in Birmingham. The justifiable outrage lead to pressure on bringing the terrorists to justice. As a result of a jaundiced look at the evidence and false confessions, ten men spent many years in prison for crimes they did not commit, and the guilty went free. The parallel with global warming is that activists will pervert the evidence. Scientists, to get the best results possible must be like police officers in investigating heinous crimes – they must remove the moral passion and weigh up the evidence as clinically as possible. It is an inhuman thing to do.
– Hearsay evidence is not allowed. Suppose the prosecution, as their primary evidence, presented a petition from hundreds of police officers which said “We firmly believe the evidence presented by the experienced and expert detectives, and it would be a slur on their good characters for them to be cross-examined.” Also to claim that the defence should not be heard because of their motivated rejection of the evidence, and the defence counsel be disregarded, because they are paid to be biased.
– A piece of evidence is given greater weighting if corroborated by other evidence. I find incredible that those who claim that the rate of polar ice cap melt is accelerating, do not think of reconciling that claim with sea levels that are rising at a constant rate. Nor do they think of calibrating the satellite record against the tide gauges. Nor, when the Pages2K regional temperature reconstructions are used by the IPCC in the WG2 report next year will anyone take a close look at the data for last 50 years where the thermometers show the greatest warming – the Arctic and the regions 1000km to the south of the Arctic circle.