The collapse of the UN IPCC's credibility

On matters of global warming, the legacy media grant the UN IPCC the same credibility that Catholics are supposed to give to the Pope when he speaks ex cathedra. At the (UK) Telegraph, James Delingpole, using information developed by Dr. Richard North, reports on today's global warmist scandal and the UN IPCC's now threadbare credibility:

It seems that, not content with having lied to us about shrinking glaciers, increasing hurricanes, and rising sea levels, the IPCC’s latest assessment report also told us a complete load of porkies about the danger posed by climate change to the Amazon rainforest.

This is to be found in Chapter 13 of the Working Group II report, the same part of the IPCC fourth assessment report in which the “Glaciergate” claims are made. There, is the startling claim that:

At first sight, the reference looks kosher enough but, following it through, one sees:

This, then appears to be another WWF report, carried out in conjunction with the IUCN – The International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The link given is no longer active, but the report is on the IUCN website here. Furthermore, the IUCN along with WWF is another advocacy group and the report is not peer-reviewed. According to IPCC rules, it should not have been used as a primary source.

It gets even better. The two expert authors of the WWF report so casually cited by the IPCC as part of its, ahem, “robust” “peer-reviewed” process weren’t even Amazon specialists. One, Dr PF Moore, is a policy analyst ... and the lead author Andy Rowell is a freelance journalist (for the Guardian, natch) and green activist....

But the IPCC’s shamelessness did not end there. Dr North has searched the WWF’s reports high and low but can find no evidence of a statement to support the IPCC’s claim that “40 per cent” of the Amazon is threatened by climate change. (Logging and farm expansion are a much more plausible threat).

So, two environmental activists, both non-scientists, make some wild speculation about the Amazon that is never reviewed by scientists and, maybe, they never even wrote it down. The UN IPCC, which pretends to be a source of "authoritative" "peer-reviewed" "settled" science, then presents this to the media and to the world's governments as if it were fact.

A single mistake like this would be understandable. As WattsUpWithThat has documented, however, the UN's reports are "riddled with non peer reviewed WWF papers."

Global warming alarmism will not go away. The human mind is such that there will always be people who believe in the UN IPCC's prediction of imminent climate doom just the way that there will always be people who believe in Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster.

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