A heated exchange has just taken place at Twitter between Spiegel science journalist Axel Bojanowski and some of Germany’s leading climate alarmism politicians and ideologues who are pushing for a fast-track green coup d’état.
The row swirls around a critical opinion piece written by Bojanowski – on the roadmap-for-politicians IPCC final Synthesis Report. The Spiegel piece is titled: “Final IPCC Report: At the IPCC alarm comes before accuracy“.
In it Bojanowski identifies a number points where the IPCC misleads the public and needlessly sounds the alarms. At Twitter Bojanowski calls these points “gross problems” that “need to be discussed”.
In summary, the ever inquisitive Spiegel journalist writes that the IPCC final report “should rationally inform of the science – rather it suppresses central contradictions“. He also adds that “the new synthesis report suppresses important scientific findings“.
Bojanowski brings up some gross examples of IPCC factual suppression and how the UN body made glaring contradictions. The first concerns the subject of species extinction. In the 2013 IPCC main report, no predictions were made on to what extent species were threatened, demonstrating that too little is known to make reliable forecasts. But the latest synthesis report claims species have already began dying off due to climate change.
Bojanowski also points out that the latest synthesis report writes of numerous species having been forced to relocate because of climate change. But the main 2013 report writes: “There’s very little confidence in the conclusion that already some species may have gone extinct due to climate change.”
Another misleading claim by the new synthesis report is that today’s climate change is happening faster than at any time from natural causes over the last 1 million years – thus stressing out species. But learned-geologist Bojanowski cites the main IPCC report’s real findings:
At the end of the ice age, as the first part of the UN climate report shows, in large parts of the world climate fluctuations of 10°C in 50 years, i.e. 20 times faster than in the 20th century, took place and large climate-caused species extinctions are not documented.”
The Spiegel journalist also writes how the IPCC is not really being truthful with its predictions for the future. In the new synthesis report for policymakers the IPCC warns of a 4°C warming by the end of the century, and that this will be a formidable threat to species. Here the IPCC even asserts “high confidence”.
However, Bojanowski reminds Spiegel readers what the experts wrote in the main IPCC report (translated from the German):
Climate models are unable to illustrate key processes with respect to species development which foremost impact the susceptibility of species with respect to climate change.”
In a nutshell Bojanowski comes down hard on the IPCC report – for blatantly putting alarmism ahead of scientific accuracy.
Some German activists and Green politcians have reacted irritably to Bojanowski’s article. Green Party honcho Dr. Hermann Ott tweeted:
@GYGeorg …sad! Dear@Axel_Bojanowski, we have discussed so often about climate change – for what?@sven_giegold“
Kind of ironic that the same folks who believe in Darwinism above all else (survival of the fittest, natural selection, adapt or die, etc.) are the same ones saying that species cannot adapt to climate change….
Climate is cyclical, as are most things in life. If they got their snouts out of the research money trough and took a look at empirical, observation data, they’d see that.
taking a look at how wildlife is doing in cities that can be up to 10- 20 degrees hotter than the surrounding countryside I would say they will adapt easily to a 4 degree rise.
Hi Pierre
I think your translation of one tweet of Bojanowsky is wrong: He doesn’t say “we make mistakes”. But: “Ipcc without some critizism would be a sad thing, wouldnt it? Even when the IPCC is missleading sometimes , as partly with the synthesis report, the ipcc needs to be critizised”. Kind of…
Thanks as always for your article!
“IPCC without critique, even if we sometimes make mistakes like for example twse the Synthesis Report, would be sad, would it not?”
My translation:
“Never criticize the IPCC even when they miss the beat like now, wouldn’t that be poor?”
Where is there a contradiction when reading the Ottmar Edenhofer in the Neue Zurcher Zeitung quoted in the first link below? “The globe can be getting warmer or colder, but the idea that the human contribution from burning carbon fuels has anything to do with it is not only IMHO the biggest political and intellectual fraud ever – but so says the IPCC itself: http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.com/2011/10/west-is-facing-new-severe-recession.html.
The ongoing discussion pro and con is becoming akin to the scholastic argument as to how many angels can dance on the head of a needle. Which is, of course, exactly what is intended to achieve a worldwide disorientation away from the actual UN/EU/IMF/IPCC aims of global monetary and energy helotization – and bringing a whole, if not all of science into disrepute. Even the UK Royal Society, inter alia, has become Lysenkoist. viz. http://tinyurl.com/ptgrz34
Besides, an elementary order-of-magnitude calculation – relying on the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics – shows that, even when allowing the IPCC calculation of man-mad global warming by 2100 reputedly caused by CO2, is so trivial when compared to solar input variability alone, as to be totally irrelevant to ‘climate’:
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/eating-sun-fourth-estatelondon-2009.html
Horrible how the philosophy of Post-Modernism and Post-Normal science has infected what good science is. People like Dr. Richard Feynman must be fuming in their graves. Recall Dr. Feynman’s exhortations in his 1974 Cal Tech address:
• “…you should report everything you think might make [your experiment] invalid
• “…details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them
• “…put down all the facts that disagree with [your theory], as well as those that agree with it
THAT, my friends, is part of what real science is all about—honesty. Apparently, the UN, the IPCC, the news media, and many academicians and politicians don’t understand this—or want to know it.
With Richard Feynman, science was about understanding the world around him. He would have loved it if one of his hypotheses was falsified. He would want to know where he went wrong. But he would also see his part in creating a better understanding of the world around him, as by stating a hypothesis in his clear terms it would be possibly to develop the falsifying experiment.
I do not believe that I am misrepresenting Feynman here, as in 1964 he said:-
You cannot prove a vague theory wrong. If the guess that you make is poorly expressed and the method you have for computing the consequences is a little vague then ….. you see that the theory is good as it can’t be proved wrong. If the process of computing the consequences is indefinite, then with a little skill any experimental result can be made to look like an expected consequence.
It is the role of the IPCC to present the case for “human induced” climate change and produce a road map of the future directed and controlled by the UN. The only thing new is that a few people are now questioning this.
If a person expects “science” – she or he should look elsewhere.
[…] In Spiegel Online, Axel Bojanowski says the IPCC has put alarm before accuracy, citing examples where the summary is more alarmist than the main report, in particular on the danger of extinction (comments in English here). […]
Next time you hear “UNPRECEDENTED!” point them to these 2 peer reviewed references. Both show rapid global warming on an ‘unprecedented’ scale. 🙂
and…..
Aha, The Der Spiegel report does contain a major error at the beginning.
Richard Betts has just pointed out to me the first Der Spiegel point is NOT a contradiction .. as one phrase is about species relocation, the other is about extinction.
“stewgreen -I think YOU need to check the facts instead of just accepting what Der Spiegel says! They are making false claims about inconsistencies by comparing entirely different issues and overlooking the more relevant pieces of text.”
– However he didn’t deal with the other 2 points.
So you want to say, the IPCC is right when they say that extinction risk rises ASSUMING the climate models are right AND the species refuses to move? But IF the species DOES decide to maybe move (for instance a few meters into the shade) then it’s A-OK?
Betts has now tacked the 2nd contradiction
“Where does the Synthesis Report actually say ‘today’s climate change is happening faster than at any time from natural causes’ (or words to that effect – I think there’s some translation from English to German and back again going on here)”
Der Spiel says page 14, 25 (I don’t have the SR here to check)
Bojanowski writes: “Die derzeitige und vorhergesagte Geschwindigkeit des Klimawandels verläuft viel schneller als natürliche Klimawandel-Ereignisse während der vergangenen Millionen Jahre, …”
In English: “The current and predicted speed of climate change is happening much faster than the natural climate change during the past one million years, …”
This is entirely consistent with the overall tone of the SR and what alarmists scientists have been howling about since Day 1. Bojanowski was not quoting the SR directly here. There’s no case of mis-translation here at all. Not sure who this Betts guy is, but sounds like Bojanowski’s piece has hit a real nerve in that he exposes the SR as being more a document of activism, and less so an objective scientific summary. EIKE has found 9 major points where the SR has misled, misrepresented or omitted scientific fact. https://notrickszone.com/2014/11/05/eike-ipcc-synthesis-report-in-crass-contradiction-to-almost-every-measurement-and-trend-in-nature/
Betts is the warmist who recently said, one should not overemphasize climate models or think that warmism hinges on them.
Which it of course does a hundred percent.
Betts tries to save warmism by twisting words and denying everything they ever said.
You don’t know who Richard Betts is ? wow he wrote large sections of the report as he is the UK Met Office’s IPCC top guy : dedicated IPCC Lead Author
He occasionally makes an appearance at BishopHill, but not usually when he can’t win.
– If I had time I’d check thoroughly through that Der Spiegl article and see what stands up and what doesn’t. Maybe someone here does have time.
Thank Pierre ..great work .. but we if something is flawed we on this side should own up.
“You don’t know who Richard Betts is ? wow he wrote large sections of the report as he is the UK Met Office’s IPCC top guy : dedicated IPCC Lead Author”
Met Office and IPCC associations are not possitive attributes.
Richard Betts is however in my limited observation often responsive to query and curteous when treated in kind.
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[…] https://notrickszone.com/2014/11/04/spiegel-slams-at-ipcc-alarmism-comes-before-accuracy-ipcc-gross-p… […]
I propose that these Climate Alarmist be named napthaphobs: those who are fearful of petroleum.
The IPCC reports are increasingly recognized as being irrelevant to the real world climate trends.
The temperature projections of the IPCC – UK Met office models and all the impact studies which derive from them have no solid foundation in empirical science being derived from inherently useless and specifically structurally flawed models. They provide no basis for the discussion of future climate trends and represent an enormous waste of time and money. As a foundation for Governmental climate and energy policy their forecasts are already seen to be grossly in error and are therefore worse than useless. A new forecasting paradigm needs to be adopted. See
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
This post provides forecasts of the probable coming cooling based on the 60 and 1000 year periodicities ( Figs 5 and 15 in the link) clearly seen in the temperature data and using the 10 Be and neutron record as the most useful proxy for solar “activity” on recent millennial time scales .
We are just past the peak of the latest 1000 year cycle and the simplest working hypothesis is that we are about to repeat the general temperature trends from 1000 AD on. It is of interest to note when considering the immediate future the substantial variability about the 50 year mean trend shown in Fig 9 in the linked post. Fairly abrupt NH cooling spells are quite possible if not likely.