Climate Change and Unsettled Science: The Origins of the IPCC

 

By Iain Davis

Offguardian

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Questioning The Bias of the IPCC

When we consider who funds the scientific bodies that provide the IPCC and “climate scientists” with the raw data for the climate models favoured by the IPCC, a political bias is evident.

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The IPCC is biased exclusively toward Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory. The IPCC was established with the following remit:

The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change [AGW], its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.

The IPCC makes no attempt to “understand the scientific basis” for any other natural process that may impact climate change. As far as the IPCC is concerned, AGW theory is the consensus settled science. Assuming an AGW theory based analysis of climate change, the IPCC focuses upon how society should adapt to and mitigate the projected—or modelled—socio-economic impacts. The IPCC is focused upon advising political policy in other words.

The “intergovernmental” IPCC is an overt political, not a scientific body.

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Questioning AGW Theory Related Climate Alarm

The AGW theory modelled predictions of catastrophe are, at best, guesses based upon a single questionable theory and speculative computer models, not scientific fact. As stated by the IPCC, long term climate predictions are impossible.

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Virtually none of the historical, alarming prediction made by the IPCC and other AGW theorists have materialised. In 2005 the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)—IPCC co-founders alongside the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO)—claimed that environmental disasters would create 50 million ‘climate refugees‘ by 2010.

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Moving into the 21st century, the best “climate disaster” data currently available comes from International Disaster Database (EM-DAT) maintained by the Belgium Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). When Professor Roger Pielke Jr. checked the EM-DAT data he found that between 2000 and 2021 the general trend in recorded global weather and climate disasters showed an approximate 10% decline.

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IPCC predictive models stated that global warming would severely reduce snowfall. When Connolly et al. (2019) compared the IPCC models with real world data they found that there had been a slightly larger decline in spring snowfall than the IPCC projected but this was more than offset by a notable increase in winter snowfall.

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The models may be uncertain but, in fact, there isn’t that much uncertainty about Antarctic ice sheet collapse. Assuming the current warming trend continues, research led by field scientists from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Research—who physically inspected the ice sheets to assess their stability—was reasonably certain.

As we are in a warming interglacial period, the ice sheets are melting. The question is how fast and what the impact might be.

Professor Ronja Reese from the Potsdam Institute said:

While a number of glaciers in Antarctica are retreating at the moment, we find no indication of irreversible, self-reinforcing retreat yet, [. . .] our calculations also clearly indicate that an onset of an irreversible retreat of the ice sheet in West Antarctica is possible if the current state of the climate is sustained.

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As shown by Bell et al. (2011), the ice sheets are thickening in east Antarctica. This will potentially counteract any possible sea level rise caused by melting ice sheets in west Antarctica.

Glaciers are retreating just as they once advanced. As they move they tend to grind away whatever is beneath them. “Ice patches” are static and have a complicated relationship with glaciers. During extremely cold periods, such as the Little Ice Age, they can expand and become moving glaciers, or they can be compressed by glaciers moving above them. But virtually all glaciers start as ice patches and ice patches are the last thing that remains when glaciers melt.

The legacy media constantly cites the melting glaciers as evidence of the supposedly “catastrophic” and, crucially, “unprecedented” climate crisis. It uses alarming analogies, for example by comparing meltwater volume with the volume required to submerge a country. Ice archaeology casts significant doubt on the basis for these scary media stories.

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Questioning the Legitimacy of AGW Theory Climate Science

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The greenhouse effect was a largely forgotten scientific theory until 1988 when then director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) James Hansen told the US Senate Energy committee “the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.”

Speaking in 1999, the year the “adjustment” of GISS data started, James Hansen told his GISS colleagues:

Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934. Global temperature, in contrast, had passed 1930s values by 1980 and the world has warmed at a remarkable rate over the last 25 years [following adjustment]. Yet in the U.S. there has been little temperature change in the past 50 years, the time of rapidly increasing greenhouse gases — in fact, there was a slight cooling throughout much of the country.

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Questioning the AGW Theory Sceptic’s Bias

Most well know AGW sceptical scientists, such as the astrophysicist Willie Soon, lead author of Soon et al. (2015)—referenced in Part 2—are regularly accused of funding bias by climate alarmists.

In Soon’s case he received some funding from interests linked to energy companies, such as the Charles G. Koch Foundation. Of course, it is reasonable to consider a potential conflict of interest with Dr Soon’s or anyone else’s work.

Yet these concerns about possible conflicts of interest seemingly only extend to AGW sceptics. Those who advocate AGW theory and climate alarm, such as the Sierra Club, and the American Geophysical Union, also receive funding from the fossil fuel and energy industries, but aren’t questioned.

Fossil Fuel companies are also funding “official” climate change research. Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company on Earth, is committed to “reach net zero emissions by 2060” and is “accelerating the country’s transition to a green economy.” To this end it has invested “more than $186 [billion]” in “collaboration and innovation” to help achieve “sustainable growth” in keeping with “global goals.” Saudi Aramco has made a massive capital investment commitment entirely contingent upon continued acceptance of AGW theory.

As we’ve already discussed, the “official” AGW climate science is often funded by groups like the BMGF. The BMGF Trust manages the BMGF endowment fund. As you might expect, the BMGF “Trust” is heavily invested in pharmaceutical and agri-chemical corporations, such as Moderna and Bayer. In turn, Bayer is pushing the production of biofuels through its effective subsidiary CoverCress.

Rodrigo Santos, Bayer’s Crop Science Division president, said:

CoverCress is exciting because it has the potential to become an important source for biofuel production.

Bayer is set to profit handsomely from the increasing use of biofuels, and so too its major investors, such as the BMGF Trust. This explains why Bill Gates has long been an investment partner with oil companies in bio fuel development. Yet when DeCicco et al. (2016) looked at the US production cycle of biofuels they found:

U.S. biofuel use to date is associated with a net increase rather than a net decrease in CO2 emissions.

It seems the BMGF couldn’t care less about increased CO2 emissions, yet it is funding the consensus AGW climate science which informs sustainable development and net zero policies. The BMGF Trust are also set to profit from technological solutions to the “climate emergency.” This is not a potential conflict of interest for “the Climate Science™” that anyone seems particularly interested in.

Moreover, the “official” AGW climate science is overwhelmingly funded by tax payers via their governments. Funding projects like the EU’s Horizon Europe will only invest its €95.5 billion budget into research that “helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs). The UN states that SDGs are entirely hung upon the assumption that AGW theory is an established, scientific fact:

Climate change is caused by human activities and threatens life on earth as we know it. With rising greenhouse gas emissions, climate change is occurring at rates much faster than anticipated. Its impacts can be devastating and include extreme and changing weather patterns and rising sea levels. [. . .] Saving lives and livelihoods requires urgent action to address the climate emergency.

Funding initiatives such as Horizon Europe raise the possibility of an enormous scientific conflict of interest for AGW theory science. Like the IPCC, Horizon Europe funding is exclusively biased toward just one scientific theory. But the finger is only pointed at the AGW theory sceptical science.

Influential climate change activist groups, such as Just Stop Oil, are funded by some of the richest oiligarchs on Earth. Extinction Rebellion is funded by, among others, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).

CIFF invests more in “climate change organisations” than in any other lobby sector. The BMGF, the Rockefellers and the European Climate Foundation—the largest single donor—are among CIFF’s leading financial backers.

The European Climate Foundation is also backed by, among others, the Rockefellers Bothers Fund. Having amassed a staggering fortune from fossil fuels and banking, the Rockefellers are now supporting the “climate change activists” calling for a switch away from fossil fuels to “renewable energy.” The Rockefellers are heavily invested in renewable energy and the envisaged low carbon economy.

Climate activists, like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, are campaigning on behalf of oiligarchs. Again, all based upon the continued acceptance of AGW theory.

CIFF, the European Climate Foundation, Horizon Europe and formerly the Rockefellers—who actually still invest via CIFF and the European Climate Foundation—directly fund the global Climate Bond initiative. Climate bonds will enable investors to profit from a new global economic model based upon the mobilisation of “global capital for climate action.” All based upon AGW theory.

The Climate Bond initiative’s partners are multinational banks and investment management corporations including BlackRock, HSBC, State Street, Credit Suisse and Barclays, etc. They report their collective mission:

Climate Bonds aims to educate, inspire, convene, and steer a global collaboration of institutional investors, governments, development banks and industry to shift capital toward low-carbon and resilient investments. [. . .] We are at the forefront of advances in sustainable finance, collaborating with numerous global stakeholders, including governments, investors, banks, and large companies.

The ambition is to create an investment market worth $5 trillion (USD) annually:

Governments must signal clear support for net-zero by initiating a supportive policy environment for transition. [. . .] To reach 1.5°C society must undergo a transition. [. . .] The climate challenge offers a political opportunity to steer the real and financial economy towards a green future. [. . .] Investors have been supporting the transition since 2007, and appetite is growing as illustrated by the rapid expansion of the green bond market.

An entire new global economy is being constructed on the back of AGW theory. AGW theory is the “scientific basis” for the UN’s Agenda 2030 which aims to transform the world:

All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan. [. . .] We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world on to a sustainable and resilient path.

Governments, intergovernmental organisations, global NGOs and philanthropic oligarchs, the biggest polluters on Earth, including global oil and energy corporations, global financial institutions and billionaire investors are exerting their financial might to support the AGW theory “climate scientists.” There is no comparison with the relatively minuscule levels of funding received by the scientists labelled “climate deniers.”

Frankly, it is absurd that climate alarmists accuse AGW sceptical scientists of funding bias while simultaneously ignoring the staggering conflicts of financial interest behind all AGW theory “climate science.”

Why?

At the 2022 WEF Sustainable Development Impact Meeting, Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications at the UN, told delegates that the UN had partnered with several big tech companies—TikTok , Facebook (Meta), Google, etc.—to censor and control what she called “climate change narratives.”

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Via https://off-guardian.org/2024/01/02/climate-change-the-unsettled-science-part-3/