Jennifer Marohasy

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The Fiction World of Rajendra Pachauri: Tony Thomas

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HOW much do you really know about IPCC Chief Rajendra Pachauri and melting Himalaya Glaciers?

‘The Fiction World of Rajendra Pachauri’ by Tony Thomas is an easy to read, informative and insightful piece of investigative journalism available here:

http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/3/the-fictive-world-of-rajendra-pachauri

It includes comment that:

“The IPCC’s Himalaya forecast was based on nothing more than speculation by an Indian scientist, Syed Hasnain, in an Indian eco-magazine in April 1999, recycled into the New Scientist and then into a report in 2005 by the activist group WWF. The grey-lit WWF report was then cited in the IPCC’s draft glacier chapter in 2007…

Six IPCC experts reviewed the draft chapter and none saw anything odd. Twelve reviewers looked at it again in second draft. One of them (from Hebron University) said caustically that two elements in the forecast contradicted each other. Another, (from Newcastle University in the UK) told the authors to look up certain contrary references that cited glacier expansion (the IPCC authors’ brief is to assess the full range of scientific views on a topic). The reviewers’ comments were ignored. None of the total eighteen reviewers found anything untoward about the lone WWF citation for the dramatic forecast…

Later, the second draft was taken up and run in the all-important Summary for Policy Makers. The draft summary was reviewed line-by-line by 190 government representatives (if the politicians’ changes clash with the science sections, the science sections are altered retrospectively). Only one commented, hitting the bullseye: “This is a very drastic conclusion. Should have a supporting reference otherwise should be deleted (Government of India).”

Even then, IPCC rigour was not to be seen. The summary was watered down, leaving untouched the howlers in the source text.”

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. spangled drongo says

    Pachauri is another Peter Gleick hypocrite. The “Cause” must prevail, no matter how much lying and deceit it takes.

  2. spangled drongo says

    He is well chosen for the job of shifting money “from the poor in rich countries to the rich in poor ones”.

  5. toby says

    We should be so proud of the IPCC….they embody all that is noble and good and none so well as pachauri. Seriously youd have to be embarrassed to be defending this mob wouldnt you?

  8. spangled drongo says

    Very good Derek and it’s not OT:

    “but we can start with shit-canning the IPCC and the entire complex arrangement of “remedies” to a problem that may well be completely ignorable and utterly destined to take care of itself long before it ever becomes a real problem.”

    That’s exactly what we are on about.

  9. James Mayeau says

    “This is a very drastic conclusion. Should have a supporting reference otherwise should be deleted.”

    I can’t believe these people get away with questioning the Himalayan conclusions. Who are these upstarts, the Government of India? Who do they represent? Probably funded with “big oil” money. And pontificating about the Himalyas – as if they know anything! They aren’t even climate scientists!

  10. Jennifer Marohasy says

    Can those posting comment try to focus on the subject at hand. I deleted the first comment on this thread because it was more about ‘Luke’ than ‘Pachuari’. I come back 24 hours later and there is more comment about Luke! Ahh. There is no mention of Luke in the blog post and he is mostly irrelevant in the scheme of things. OK. Correction. What he represents is not irrelevant. But if you want to comment on ‘Luke’ as representative of the mainstream view then explain as much and try and provide us with some new insight and/or solution.

  12. Neville says

    Thanks Jennifer now I know why my comment was deleted. But I’m sure it wasn’t more about Luke than Pachauri.

    Btw I’ve always gone out of my way to try and provide some new insight or solution. Then guess who doesn’t like it the most and gets all personal, swearing etc?

    Whether we are commenting about Pachauri’s stupid ideas in this post or the stupidity of OZ trying to mitigate agw there is one abiding fact to consider, there is zero we can achieve by wasting billions $ down the plug hole every year for decades to come.

    Remember the Gillard govt won’t even accept this basic fact and will display their hostility by abusing the messenger every time.
    Another fact is the Gillard govt couldn’t care less about increasing emissions of co2. The only concern they have is to stop Aussies using a piffling tonnage per year and enjoying cheaper reliable energy for industry and jobs.
    In the Quadrant story Pachauri honestly states that his main target is to redistribute wealth from developed countries to the developing countries.

    This has zero to do with science ( can’t even pass a simple maths test) but everything to do with envy and leftwing politics.

  13. Robert says

    Pachauri’s notorious trip back to India from NY by luxury private jet was not to play cricket. It was just to attend cricket practice.

    Okay, okay…he did fly back again for the game. But did all those carping skeptics expect him to let his team down?

    The climate elite really are like Renaissance popes or like the Perons. They dazzle with wealth and waste while appealing to the victim mentality. Amazingly, it works.

  14. MostlyHarmless says

    Like Pachauri, there are many reports and scientific papers I might denounce as “voodoo science”. Unlike Pachauri, I would never do so without at least having read them first. It’s clear to me that he never read the Indian government report he denounced out of hand. The overall findings of that report have now been confirmed by the Colorado land ice study, which found ice loss from Himalayan glaciers to be an order of magnitude lower than estimates extrapolated from a few tens of melting glaciers.

    The WWF source of the ridiculous IPCC glacier section is here:
    http://assets.panda.org/downloads/himalayaglaciersreport2005.pdf

    ..and the careful analysis by Indian glaciologists, the “voodoo science” is here:
    http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/MoEDiscussionPaper.pdf

    It’s clear to me Pachauri shares many character traits with another passionate “climate crusader”, one Peter Gleick.

  15. hunter says

    From Hansen’s Venusian doom scenarios to the IPCC fictionalizination of climate data to “hidd the decline”, to adjsutments of historical records to enhance current claims, to ignoring failed predictions, to the now “fake-but-true defense of Gleick, AGW seems built on a great deal of fiction in general.

  16. Schiller Thurkettle says

    The author of this article doesn’t miss a beat. Reading the whole thing is well worth the time. The widespread use of ‘grey literature’ by the IPCC is noted, along with non-degreed Greenpeacers providing ‘scientific’ documents and then reviewing them; ignoring the recommendations of actual scientists; telling whoppers to judges and legislatures; you name it. I especially liked Pachauri’s admission that climate science played a secondary role in the campaign to change the structure of world trade and governance.

  18. Robert says

    SD, the Guardian reads more and more like an Onion satire of the Guardian.

    “My institute, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), has no links with the Tata group, other than having been established through seed funding from that group…”