Swindles, Summaries and The Honest Broker


Another summary for policy makers was released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This one was from working group II: Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. They say bad things are about to happen everywhere, except maybe Canada.

While trawling for news reports on same I came across a still active link to the recent Channel 4 (UK) documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle. The programme hasn't been broadcast in North America and YouTube says they had to delete their copies at the request of the distributors. But there it was, on Google Video, so I watched it.

Obviously a skeptics' perspective, but skeptics should be heard. They are the ones who usually produce inconvenient truths. And even though film and video documentaries are the least trustworthy forms of journalism I was curious to see the faces and hear the voices of several scientists whose contrarian opinions I had only read before.

It was of course the flip side to Al Gore's movie, and just as convincing. In answer to Gore's graph of rising CO2 we get an alternative chart tracing solar radiation. Where Gore decries the influence of the fossil fuel industries, The GGW Swindle points the finger at the self perpetuating nature of the funding gravy train for research into climate change.

At the end of both shows the directors had impressed me without shaking my skepticism about their respective advocacies. I still think global warming is a real concern while still doubting that its effects over the next century will be catastrophic. We are going to have to adapt to a warmer world, even if we find a way to abandon fossil fuels in the near future.

Some of the criticism of and commentary on The GGWS can be found here, here, here, here and here. While Gore is the more careless when it comes to scientific accuracy, Swindle director Martin Durkin is not without faults.

The National Post is running a series on climate change skeptics by Lawrence Solomon of Energy Probe and the Urban Renaissance Institute. Yesterday's essay was on Fighting climate 'fluff' with Freeman Dyson.

I've downloaded today's summary publication (pdf) from the IPCC, but what I'm really looking forward to reading is the actual Assessment report itself, which is apparently still some months away. I don't expect that document to be free from controversy either. As Melanie Phillips points out, here and here, the IPCC editorial process is way too political in ways that raise doubts about the Panel's integrity. The price of achieving consensus is too high and a number of scientists, from opposing sides, are quitting or threatening to quit rather than keeping quiet about their misgivings.

Which brings me to the happy news that The Honest Broker, by Roger Pielke Jr, is now out in print, at least in Europe and the UK. Coming soon, I understand, to a bookstore near me.

Scientists have a choice concerning what role they should play in political debates and policy formation, particularly in terms of how they present their research. This book is about understanding this choice, what considerations are important to think about when deciding, and the consequences of such choices for the individual scientist and the broader scientific enterprise. Rather than prescribing what course of action each scientist ought to take, the book aims to identify a range of options for individual scientists to consider in making their own judgments about how they would like to position themselves in relation to policy and politics. Using examples from a range of scientific controversies and thought-provoking analogies from other walks of life, The Honest Broker challenges us all - scientists, politicians and citizens - to think carefully about how best science can contribute to policy-making and a healthy democracy.

Thanks to Lynne and Max for sending me some of the links mentioned above.



Posted: Fri - April 6, 2007 at 06:04 PM          

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