WWF-Russia rolls out scare-machine in advance of IPCC’s AR5

Last December, on the heels of a pronouncement from former United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) head honcho, Yvo de Boer, I had asked the question: Where’s the scare in AR5? The UNFCCC is the “main client” of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

de Boer had told an Australian newspaper that:

his conversations with scientists working on the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested the findings would be shocking.

“That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,” Mr de Boer said in the only scheduled interview of his visit to Australia. “I’m confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum.”

This wasn’t quite the equivalent of Andrew <we are the vote> Weaver’s 2007 “barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles“, but it was close.

As far as I know, de Boer declined to answer the question. And in the meantime, the dedicated alarmists have been doing their best to pretend that the mounting evidence of failed projections of IPCC reports past doesn’t matter – and they seem unable to meet the challenge of coming to grips with the almost daily collapse of yet another of their Big Green Dreams.

I don’t know if there’s any rivalry between Greenpeace (for whom Weaver might well be considered a PR agent), and WWF; but if the claims of Alexei Kokorin, head of WWF-Russia are to be believed, one might conclude that Korkorin Kokorin has actually surpassed Weaver in the over-the-top Big Scares ‘R Us department.

There’s a Norwegian NGO (that I’d never heard of before) called Bellona. Someone from Bellona interviewed Kokorin [h/t GWPF]. To my ears this sounds an awful lot like “next chorus, next verse, a little bit louder and a whole lot worse”:

Climate experts to announce global climate time bomb will go off by 2040, says WWF’s Kokorin

MOSCOW –The upcoming fifth climate change report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is believed to reveal new, and gruesome, scientific data: Natural and anthropogenic factors contributing to global climate change will escalate in the 2040s, causing ever more devastating effects on the planet. The “climate time bomb” is set to go off – unless humankind does something about it.

Andrei Ozharovsky, 21/05-2013 – Translated by Maria Kaminskaya

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading international body for the assessment of climate change, is working toward a future release of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), due for finalization in 2014. Compared with previous reports, the IPCC site says, “the AR5 will put greater emphasis on assessing the socio-economic aspects of climate change and implications for sustainable development, risk management and the framing of a response through both adaptation and mitigation.” Last week, the report was sent out from Geneva for closed-access perusal by the governments of the IPCC member states.

[...]

The climate time bomb

Bellona: Can we speculate as to what will be said in this report?

Alexei Kokorin: The main thing that is expected to be there is data saying that the climate “time bomb” may blow up sometime around 2040. Whereas earlier it was believed that man’s impact on the climate was gradual, and that the situation was deteriorating in a gradual way, now – in contrast to the previous report, which was being put together seven years ago – much more information has been obtained on ocean cycles and other natural fluctuations. Scientists have realized that today, in the 2010s, man’s impact is being mitigated by natural cycles that are offsetting the impact made on the climate by man. This situation will hold for about another twenty years. But it is completely clear that after that, this mitigation will yield to escalation.

We are having a sort of a breather now, but soon enough, we’ll see an onslaught of both – both natural and man-made processes that are causing the rise in temperature.

And temperature will surge dramatically. Yes, temperature rise will then slow down again, sometime in the 2070s, but it will soar up again after that. Understanding this is what makes this new knowledge principally different from what was known seven years ago.

A “respite given by nature”: a lucky break to turn the crisis around

Bellona: What must be done in this situation?

Alexei Kokorin: When you’re told that in the past fifteen years, the temperature of surface air on the planet has not been rising, this should not in any way be construed as proof that humankind’s impact on the climate has ceased. Scientists know it hasn’t. They know it’s because of how natural fluctuations are superimposed on the impact made by man. This is just a respite that nature gave us. And we must use this respite not for wishful thinking and inaction, but for reducing emissions, because after this respite, a double effect will ensue. [emphasis added -hro]

I suppose it’s possible that Kokorin was not quite as alarmist in his responses as “direct action” activist Bellona’s report indicates – and/or that nuance got lost in translation.

When the Second Order Draft of Working Group I (WGI)’s report was leaked last year, as I had noted in my post, Dr. Judith Curry had remarked that:

“The extreme overconfidence of many of their conclusions is bewildering”

One would think that – particularly in light of the InterAcademy Council’s recommendations – the IPCC might have at least learned one lesson. And, who knows, perhaps they have. If Kokorin’s claims are actually found in the report, it will certainly be interesting to read the Lead Authors’:

traceable account of the steps used to arrive at estimates of uncertainty or confidence for key findings.

Then again, perhaps this will turn out to be a false alarm from Kokorin whose “speculations” may well be nothing more than echoes and embellishments of de Boer’s.

Oh, well … time will tell;-)

The (un)sustainability of all climate all the time

[04/23/2013: Please note update, below -hro]

A few days ago, I was taking stock of the many framings of climate. I was also wondering about the various and sundry footprints with which enviro-activists are so concerned. Here, thanks to wordle, is an illustration of what I found:

I very quickly realized that I had forgotten “climate disruption”, so please imagine it included in the above; and I’ve no doubt that there are others I might have missed. But what I had never heard of until yesterday was “climate insecurity”.

There’s a chap by the name of John Ashton who recently delivered [h/t Tom Nelson] a rally the troops speech to the somewhat self-beleaguered of late, U.K. Meteorological Office (fondly known in climate concerned circles as the “Met Office”).

Climate insecurity (whatever this is supposed to mean) is obviously very much on Ashton’s mind, as he mentioned it no less than three times during the course of his 4,986-word peroration, which he had entitled, “Climate Change and Politics: Surviving the Collision”. Oh, and his total “climate” count was no less than 42, and included such memorable turns of phrase as “climate-exposed business sectors” (perhaps he had the UNEP’s B4E in mind?) and “climate diplomacy”.

The latter is something about which, presumably, Ashton knows a fair bit, because his previous day-job (2006-2012) was that of “Special Representative for Climate Change for three successive UK Foreign Secretaries”.

Along with the requisite alarmism, there’s an awful lot of ponderous, pompous and/or presumptuous propaganda in Ashton’s speech; for example:

[...] here is a challenge that is Promethean. We have stolen the secret of fire for our own use, unleashing punitive forces inherent in the system of which we are ourselves part. Dealing with this is imperative, because if we don’t the consequences could soon become unmanageable, perhaps even jeopardizing the system conditions within which civilization itself can flourish.

And as we look more deeply into the picture, it urges us to summon a response that is transformational, because the entire modern economy is organized around the energy system. Making that system carbon neutral will reconfigure the economy, and the power relations embedded within it. Furthermore we must accomplish this urgently, in little more than a generation, while building resilience to the climate insecurity we can no longer avoid.

Promethean, imperative, transformational, urgent. [emphasis added -hro]

Not unlike the UNEP, Ashton is obviously very big on “transformative/transformational” (eight mentions in his speech at the Met Office). But what is curiously and conspicuously absent is any mention of “sustainable” … as in “sustainable development”.

Ashton is one of three founding directors of a group called E3G, and served as the first Chief Executive of E3G in 2005-06. Ever heard of this group before? No? Neither had I! So here’s the scoop:

E3G is an independent not-for-profit organisation, established in 2004, that works in the public interest to accelerate the global transition to sustainable development.

We build coalitions to achieve carefully defined outcomes, chosen for their capacity to leverage change. E3G founders had been working together and developing their shared thinking for several years before the organisation was constituted in 2004.

[...]

E3G makes things happen. We work to deliver outcomes with strategic significance for the transition to sustainable development. [emphasis added -hro]

UPDATE: Alex Cull notes in a very enlightening comment below, there’s at least one, no doubt, “carefully defined outcome” that Ashton – presumably on E3G’s behalf – was not able to “make happen”. Alex concludes:

Whatever the cause, it looks very much as though Ashton and the Qataris had an irreconcilable difference of opinion and that on this occasion, British “climate diplomacy” did not “catalyse transformational change” but hit the buffers of geopolitical reality instead.

In 2004, Ashton made an appearance in the Climategate (CG2 2428.txt) emails. In response to an E-mail, about “getting the idea into [then Prime Minister] Blair’s mind”, Ashton had opined:

cc: “Mike Hulme” , “John SCHELLNHUBER”
date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 10:47:57 +010 ???
from: “John Ashton”
subject: Re: Moving this forward
to: “Peter Read” , “John Shepherd”

John, John and Mike heard much of my argument at the Tyndall Assembly. But I should clarify it a little in the light of Peter’s message.

The problem at present is not the absence of propositions that offer stabilisation and that are scientifically, technologically and economically, credible. Two such broad propositions are biomass energy and capture and storage: both deserve attention within a portfolio of possible responses.

[...]

That is, I am sure, why [Blair's] recent speech concentrated on putting across, more starkly than he has done before, the scale and urgency of the challenge. Abrupt climate change is a crucial piece of that jigsaw – and you can make more impact with it at present by simply highlighting the danger without going too far into any particular set of responses.
[...] [emphasis added -hro]

His E3G bio indicates that Ashton has a long history of having moved virtually effortlessly through the NGO/Government revolving door:

John is one of a new generation of diplomats equally at home in the worlds of foreign policy and green politics. Before moving outside government to establish E3G in 2005, John had a distinguished career in the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, including founding and leading its Environment Policy Department.

A major theme of John’s career has been China. He speaks Chinese. He was an adviser to Governor Chris Patten in Hong Kong from 1993-7. His first diplomatic assignment, from 1981-4, was as Science Attaché in the British Embassy in Beijing. He also has experience at high level on a wide range of European and global issues, including as a political officer in the British Embassy in Rome from 1988-93.

John was the first Chief Executive of E3G in 2005-06, before returning to the UK Foreign Office as the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change. His role supported Ministers in building a stronger foundation for an effective response to climate change. He had the personal title of Ambassador with direct access to the Foreign Secretary. John played a key role in designing the FCO’s climate change network and strategy, with its focus on climate stability as a precondition for security, prosperity and equity, and on strategic political engagement with the emerging and other major economies. [emphasis added -hro]

One of the other “founding directors” – and the current Chief Executive – is Nick Mabey. If that name rings a bell, it probably should. Mabey hails from the WWF – and he even had a role in promoting Mike Hulme and Joseph Alcamo’s pre-Kyoto “Statement”.

Like Ashton (and many others in this “gently” grown E3G crop of propagandists), Mabey’s bio indicates that he, too, has passed through the NGO/Government “revolving door”:

Nick was previously a senior advisor in the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit leading work on national and international policy areas, including: energy, climate change, countries at risk of instability, organised crime and fisheries. Nick was employed in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Environment Policy Department, and was the FCO lead for the Johannesburg Summit in 2002 [...]

Before he joined government Nick was Head of Economics and Development at WWF-UK. He came to WWF from research at London Business School on the economics of climate change, which he published as the book “Argument in the Greenhouse”.
[...]
Among other appointments Nick is currently on the advisory board of Infrastructure UK, the independent commission reporting to the UK Conservative Party on the design of a Green Investment Bank, and the Advisory Council of the European Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power. [emphasis added -hro]

So, it should come as no surprise that movers and shakers at E3G (which evidently stands for Third Generation Environmentalism Ltd) receive funding from WWF as well as from the U.K.’s Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and Department for International Development. Big Oil (represented by Shell) is also on E3G’s funding roster.

Readers who have been following the various interwoven threads of this ongoing saga will have noted the (coincidental, I’m sure) inclusion of John [aka Hans Joachim] Schellnhuber in the recipient list of Ashton’s E-mail, above. It was thanks to Germany’s Schellnhuber that the “dangerous” 2°C first entered the propaganda scene. As he told Der Speigel‘s Marco Evers, Olaf Stampf and Gerald Traufetter in April 2010:

a group of German scientists, yielding to political pressure, invented an easily digestible message in the mid-1990s: the two-degree target. To avoid even greater damage to human beings and nature, the scientists warned, the temperature on Earth could not be more than two degrees Celsius higher than it was before the beginning of industrialization.

[...]

Rarely has a scientific idea had such a strong impact on world politics. Most countries have now recognized the two-degree target. If the two-degree limit were exceeded, German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen announced ahead of the failed Copenhagen summit, “life on our planet, as we know it today, would no longer be possible.“

But this is scientific nonsense. “Two degrees is not a magical limit — it’s clearly a political goal,” says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). “The world will not come to an end right away in the event of stronger warming, nor are we definitely saved if warming is not as significant. The reality, of course, is much more complicated.”

Schellnhuber ought to know. He is the father of the two-degree target.

“Yes, I plead guilty,” he says, smiling. [emphasis added -hro]

More recently, Schellnhuber has declared [h/t dennisA]:

04/17/2013 – The preparations for the next climate agreement that is supposed to be reached in 2015 are already taking shape – and civil society [aka NGOs -hro] is being asked to accompany and support the EU’s development/decision process.

On invitation by Connie Hedegaard, the EU´s Commissioner for Climate Action, a number of experts and decision makers meet at a stakeholder´s conference in Brussels today.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, has been asked to hold a keynote on the state of play in climate science.

The conference in Brussels was organized to shape the EU’s input into negotiations on a new international agreement to protect the global climate system.

“This is the starting signal for the hardest stage on the path to the world climate agreement 2015,” Schellnhuber says. “When it comes to the facts of climate change, there has been a lot of confusion in the public debates recently, which interested circles seek to exploit and deepen.

“Now it is up to science to bring light into this darkness and to draw a realistic picture of the challenges ahead for the public in Europe. On this basis citizens can make informed decisions.” [emphasis added -hro

Seems to me that those in the Ashton/Mabey/Schellnhuber circles of influence (not unlike BC's Andrew Weaver) have no qualms about putting the enviro-advocacy cart ahead of any evidentiary horses.

Do they care - or even realize - that the graphic images and icons (polar bears and hockey-sticks) based on flimsy "science" they have constructed to support them are being unravelled almost as fast as they come off the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s just-in-time assembly-line?

It was these flimsy "science" constructions, reconstructions (and rapid deconstructions, thanks to people such as Climate Audit's Steve McIntyre, Bishop Hill's Andrew Montford and Polar Bear Science's Susan Crockford) that were running through my mind when I came across the following video [h/t Digging In The Clay's Verity Jones]. The music isn’t exactly what I would have chosen (so you may want to turn down your speakers), but the images are quite compelling, wouldn’t you agree? ;-)

Alternatively, from a (turn up your speakers) musical perspective, the following [h/t my Dad] offers an equally amusing depiction of “footprints” and these inter-related enviro-activists’ endeavours. Enjoy :-)

The climate consensus coordinators’ cookbook

Almost two years ago to the day, in my very first post, I wrote about Mike Hulme and his involvement in the circulation of a virtual chain-mail prior to Kyoto. In June of this year, during a lecture, Hulme claimed that he had completely “forgotten” about his role until he read the (first release of) Climategate emails (CG1).

Even without the benefit of Climategate 2.0 (CG2), I found it somewhat difficult to give credence to such a claim. And thanks to The Saint’s release of CG2, I can only say that I am even less inclined to believe him. IOW, Hulme’s involvement turns out to be, well, much worse than we thought. Not only did he circulate this “Statement”, but he was part of the triumvirate of Statement Coordinators (Hulme, Joe Alcamo and Rob Swart) who drafted it – and who recruited the “prestige” names as Sponsors.

In all text that I quote below, all emphases are mine. In the interest of brevity, I have omitted the headers and any .sig files – but they are readily viewable via the link to the E-mail I’m quoting, all of which are from 1997. In some instances, for “ease of reading”, I’ve broken up the paragraphs. In each instance I have included the full E-mail, so that no context will be lost.

The first appearance of any reference to this Statement [5323.txt] is somewhat confusing! It includes at the top a June 26 E-mail from Alcamo to Hulme:

Mike,

Thanks for your positive comments.

If it’s OK with you, I would like to take your comments into account in the next version of the statement (Version 5).

In the meantime, I would like to take you up on your offer that you would distribute the current version (Version 4) for comment around the UK. The idea that Rob Swart and I have is to keep the circle fairly small right now so that we can have a good statement agreed upon by some prominent people before we send it out for signing.

Therefore we would like to send the Statement to no more than about 5 or 10 rather prominent people in the climate scene in our respective countries. For example, I will be discussing it in the next few days with Schellnhuber, Grassl, Crutzen and others here in Germany.

Who do you propose to send it to in the UK?

(By the way, I already received comments back from S. Subak.)

Another issue is what you use as a cover letter for the Statement. I think it is important either to send the cover letter you now have (signed by me) or a modified one (signed either by you alone or both of us) because it spells out the aims and intended audience of the Statement.

What do you think?

With best wishes,

Joe Alcamo

This is followed by a June 30 E-mail from Hulme to Alcamo, but appears to have Alcamo’s July 1 responses to Hulme interwoven; however, there are no clear indications of who actually said what. Nonetheless they seem to be in agreement:

Joe,

I can approach a few people over here if you wish, using your cover letter with a couple of amendments and signed by me and you.

That would be great!

One question to be clear about is how is it going to appear in public – as an independent statement or under the umbrella of some organisation?

This is the current idea:

1. You, Rob Swart and I should first consult with a manageable-number of people about the content of the Statement. The three of us would act as “Coordinators” of the Statement.

2. After this fairly small group agrees on the content of the Statement we should try and convince ten or so “prominent” scientists from different parts of Europe to be official signers. The names of these prominent people would appear on the same page as the Statement. Rob and I have not discussed who these ten people should be. Some could be from the original circle that we consult in step 1.

3. After “The Ten” have signed on, we need an enthusiastic organization to carry out the time-consuming task of collecting as many signatures of scientists in Europe as possible, so that we can say “1,865 European scientists, including (the prominent ten) have signed a Statement that says .. and so forth”. I don’t think that either you or Rob or I have the time to do this. For the American statement this job was done by an organization called “Redefining Progress”. Perhaps for us it could be WWF. What do you think.

4. The last step would be to hold a press conference(s) to announce the Statement. For this we would try and get as many of “The Ten” as possible to attend. My idea would be to aim for the AGBM meeting in October, when the debate should be pretty hot, and media interest in anticipation of Kyoto should be increasing.

People here I would think of are:

Martin Parry
Kerry Turner
Melvyn Cannell
Mick Kelly
Michael Grubb
David Carson

What about John Mitchell?

I would also limit number to about five at this point. e.g. In the coming two weeks I will speak to Schellnhuber, Jill Jaeger, Grassl, and maybe two others about the Statement.

Best regards,

Joe Alcamo

On July 2/97, Hulme appears to have sent Version 4 to John Mitchell, who on July 7 replied [2803.txt]:

Hi Mike,
1. Can you send me the message in plain text – I couldn’t read it
[unrelated items -hro]

thanks
John
>
> –=====================_??? ==_
> Content-type: text/plain; charset=”us-ascii”
>
> Dear John,
>
> Please read the attached letter and statement which you will find
> self-explanatory. We would be grateful for your thoughts on the idea, its
> execution and the content of the statement.
>
> Mike
>
> –=====================_??? ==_
> Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=”alcamo.doc”
> Content-type: application/msword; name=”alcamo.doc”; x-mac-type=”42494E41″; x-mac-creator=”4D535744″
> Content-transfer-encoding: base64

One assumes that Hulme obliged, but I have found no record of this in the emails. However, thanks to Base 64 online here’s the decoded text of alcamo.doc. The “specific goals” are, well, interesting:

Re: Statement of European Scientists on Actions to Protect Global Climate

Dear Colleague,

Attached is a draft Statement that has been informally drawn up by Joe Alcamo, Rob Swart and Mike Hulme working in Europe on climate issues. Its main purpose is to bolster or increase support for controls of emissions of greenhouse gases in European countries in the period leading up to Kyoto. The Statement is intended to be from European scientists, and is aimed towards governments, citizen groups, and media in European countries. The statement has specific goals in specific countries:

In European countries where the government supports controls of greenhouse emissions: In these countries, certain government ministries and other climate stakeholders in the country are trying to get the government to retreat on its policies before Kyoto. Here, the Statement is intended to be used by the government and citizen groups via the national media to support its position.

In European countries where the government does not support controls of greenhouse emissions: Here, the Statement is intended to help citizen groups and other stakeholders in the country to convince the government to support controls of emissions.

On behalf of my colleagues, may I request the following from you at this stage:

Your suggestions for changes in text.

Your recommendations for scientists to contact for commenting on the draft.

Having agreed on a form of words by consulting with a small number of colleagues (a process I am co-ordinating for the UK), we shall proceed to invite about 10 key scientists in the field in Europe (e.g. Crutzen, Houghton, Bolin, etc.) to sponsor the statement. Having gained this prestige endorsement, we shall then endeavour to invite as many additional scientists as possible (100s if not 1000s) to indicate their support for the statement which shall then be presented to the media at a press conference ‘ … with the support of “n” European scientists.’

Please reply as soon as possible at the below address. We look forward to your comments.

With best wishes,

Mike Hulme

and

Joseph Alcamo
Rob Swart

Statement of European Scientists on Actions to Protect Global Climate

In 1992 the nations of the world took a significant step to protect global climate by signing the Framework Convention on Climate Change. This year, at the coming Climate Summit in Kyoto*, they have the chance to take an even more important step. It is our opinion that in Kyoto the nations of the world should agree upon immediate and substantive action to ensure the long term protection of global climate by controlling the current increase in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Our opinion is bolstered by the assessment of scientific knowledge carried out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which recently published a voluminous report on its findings. The report noted:

Global mean surface air temperature has increased by around 0.3 to 0.60C since the late 19th century.

Recent years have been the warmest since 1860.

Global sea level has risen between 10 and 25 cm over the past 100 years and much of the rise may be related to the increase in global mean temperature.

The IPCC also maintained that the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate, and that climate is expected to continue to change in the future. These changes will bring with them further increases in sea level, the transformation of forest- and other ecosystems, modifications of crop yield, shifts in the geographic range of carriers of disease of plants, animals and humans, and many other impacts. Some of these impacts may be seen as positive, such as the possible increase in rainfall and crop yield in certain dry regions; and some of these impacts may be adapted to, as in the case of building dikes to protect against slowly rising sea level (where they can be afforded). But many, if not most, impacts of climate change will increase risks to society and nature.

Furthermore, many of these impacts will be irreversible. As the IPCC has reported, vulnerability to climate change is of particular importance to people living on arid or semi-arid land, in low-lying coastal areas, in water-limited or flood-prone regions, or on small islands. Risks to nature will be significant in the many areas where natural ecosystems cannot quickly adapt to changing climate, or where they are already under stress from environmental pollution or other factors.

Because of these risks, we find it important for nations to develop long-term climate protection goals, as in setting limits on the increase of global temperature and sea level. Equally important, we recommend that European and industrialized nations use long-term climate protection goals as a guide to determining short-term emission targets. This approach has been adopted, for example, by the European Union and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

Some may say that action to control emissions should be delayed because of the scientific uncertainties of climate change and its impact. We reply that the risks and irreversibility of many climate impacts require “precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent, or minimize the causes of climate change”, as clearly stated in the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

We also recognize that there are economic arguments for delaying the control of emissions in Europe and elsewhere. However, after carefully examining the question of timing of emission reductions, we find the arguments against delay to be more compelling. First, delaying action could shift an unfair burden for more severe reductions of emissions to future generations. Second, delaying action will lead to a greater accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and therefore make it more difficult to prevent future climate change when action is finally taken.

Rather than delay, we strongly urge governments in Europe and other industrialized countries to accede to controls of greenhouse emissions as part of a Kyoto agreement. We further believe that some of these emission controls can be achieved at little or no net cost through improvements in the efficiency of energy systems and faster introduction of renewable energy.

As to a quantitative goal for controlling emissions, we believe that the European Union proposal is consistent with long term climate protection. This proposal would reduce by 15% the total collective greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized countries (so-called Annex I countries) by the year 2010 (relative to year 1990). Although stronger emission reductions will be needed in the future, we see the -15% target as a positive first step “to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” and to lessen risks to society and nature. Such substantive action is needed now.

*Third Conference of Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto, Japan, December, 1997.

Version: 4

I haven’t yet had an opportunity to compare Version 4 with the “final” version which can be found in Tom Wigley’s too little, too late Nov. 25 reply, which was included in CG1 (and which is where I had first noticed this “Invitation to influence Kyoto”) However, I did do a quick check; the last sentence bolded above survived any further edits and made it into the final version. Quelle surprise, eh?! But I digress …

By August 28, it appears that The Statement was close to being finalized. The following E-mail from Rob Swart to WWF’s Merylyn McKenzie-Hedger (copied to Hulme, Alcamo, Jill Jaeger and Pier Vellinga), in reply to McKenzie-Hedger, indicates that WWF seems to have been their preferred distribution network, because they were, evidently, deemed to be less scary (and more sciencey?!) than other advocacy groups! [0801.txt]:

Dear Merylyn,

I am very happy that you are enthusiastic about the idea of presenting a letter by European scientists to the Kyoto negotiations. What we had in mind was a similar procedure as in the US. After the initial drafting of the letter by a limited number of scientists (done), an ngo with more time/resources would take the letter and start collecting signatures through their network, primarily through email, but possibly also through mail/fax.

I think we have reached that step. What would be needed is WWF distrbuting a message/letter from WWF accompanying the scientists’s letter explaining the plan on their behalf. The letter should be relatively “objective” not to scare scientists that they are used in an unscientific ngo advocacy action.

That is why we have approached you rather than Greenpeace, Climate Action Network or Friends of the Earth. I am sure you have your own network of climate scientists, screening the IPCC reports for IPCC lead authors would be an important second step. The people that are in the process now (like Mike Hulme, Joe Alcamo, Jill Jaeger, Pier Vellinga and others) will also provide you with as many names and addresses as they can come up with.

I’ll talk to Adam Markham about it next week. I propose that we start providing you with names/addresses now. In addition, other ways of collecting signatures may be through leaflets distributed during scientific climate meetings in Europe? Several hundreds of signatures would be the goal, including key people. Unfortunately, sofar we only came up with few names outside Germany/UK/Netherlands.

I think we should actively try to get eastern and southern Europeans on board. I believe Joe’s suggestion was to aim at a release of the letter in a joint WWF/scientists’ press conference at the next AGBM in Bonn, or if that would be too early, in Kyoto. I am not sure to whom the letter should be directed: European heads of state with copies to delegation leaders? Environment Ministers?

My question to you would be: could you give us your ideas on how to proceed (possibly with a proposal for an accompanying letter) next week. You may want to discuss it with Mike Hulme, who is closest to you. I hope others will come up with suggestions/reactions and therefore I copy this mail to them.

Let’s keep in touch. By the way, we are short on UK scientists yet….

Rob

At 06:42 PM 8/26/97 +020 ???, you wrote:
>Adma and I have discussed this and are very enthudiastic. Let us know
>exaclty what you want from us. I’m away for a week. Count us in. Do
>you wan to use our website.

I have not found any relevant correspondence between August 28 and September 21; but one might surmise from Alcamo’s message to Hulme (copied to Swart) on September 22, that Hulme was busy drafting and crafting [1652.txt]:

Mike,

Great work.

I don’t think it is necessary to try anyone else. I think the balls in my court now, and I should make the final revisions to the Statement (based on your suggestions and those of Riordan. I will also draft a letter to “the 10″, along with a proposed list of who these ten should be. With regards to selecting a list of “the 10″, I also would like to wait until Rob contacts Opschoor and other prominent Dutch scientists. This means that I won’t have a draft letter to “the 10″ until later this week –

You mentioned that you are out of the office after Tuesday. How can I reach you by fax or email later in the week?

Best wishes.

Joe Alcamo

On Oct. 3, the Merylyn McKenzie-Hedger, the WWF point-person, confirms the arrangements in an E-mail to Hulme, presumably following a phone conversation with Hulme [3275.txt]:

Mike as we have discussed, and following my chat with Adam, we are of course enthusaistic about your project. As agreed I am copying the details to colleagues.

UEA will get 10 key people to craft a European version of the US science and economist letters. You will get it signed onto. Would like 750 of help from us for that. Then you will send this to heads of state in November. You want WWF to organise a press event around that at a suitable location(s) (London/Geneva/Brussels).

There is money in the UK (SP5) budget here and I will discuss that with Nick Mabey as mentioned. He should be your contact here. Otherwise Lars Georg Jensen in WWF Denmark is a key contact for the TDA.

We will no doubt talk again soon about other things!

>>> Mike Hulme 12/September/1997 10:42am >>>
Merylyn,

Following Rob Swart’s contact with you, I would like to speak about ways we can activate this climate statement, ideally before I leave for Holland on Tuesday. I will try phoning you on Monday or you can contact me at my office:

??? : Monday 9am-2.30pm and 6.30-11.00pm

or home:

??? : Monday 3-6pm or Tuesday am

Thanks,

Mike

On October 2, Alcamo sent Hulme the revised Statement and two draft letters [4540.txt]:

Mike,

I have too much going on and can’t seem to stay on schedule. Anyway, I attach –

1. Revised Statement — down to one page! (partly by cheating on the font size).
2. Draft letter to “the ten”
3. Draft letter to “all”.

Revise the letters as you see fit, although I would be happy to discuss them with you by phone, if you wish. How goes it with the assistance from WWF?

Best wishes

Joe Alcamo

There’s an October 8 E-mail from WWF’s Nick Mabey to Hulme (copied to WWF’s Cherry Farrow) which appears to be a reply to Hulme – and which seems to suggest that communication within WWF is not always up to scratch (assuming that “MMH” = Merylyn McKenzie-Hedger) 0981.txt:

Hi Mike,

A quick reply before I go to the Tory Conference:

1/ MMH did not mention this to me but it seems a good idea in principle – however we should talk about targets etc to make sure Europe needs more movement on the sience side – perhaps an economic approach would be more politically usefull.

2/ Conditional on 1 we have some funding and could do the lauch

3/ If you cant contact me over the next few days talk to Cherry Farrow who runs the press side of the climate campaign about this and I will be in touch with her

Talk to you soon

Nick mabey

PS Could you email me your phone number!

On Oct. 9, from CG1, we have 0876437553.txt from Alcamo to Hulme and Swart, in which Alcamo puts forward the plan for advancing “the cause”:

Mike, Rob,

Sounds like you guys have been busy doing good things for the cause.

I would like to weigh in on two important questions –

Distribution for Endorsements –
I am very strongly in favor of as wide and rapid a distribution as possible for endorsements. I think the only thing that counts is numbers. The media is going to say “1000 scientists signed” or “1500 signed”. No one is going to check if it is 600 with PhDs versus 2000 without. They will mention the prominent ones, but that is a different story.

Conclusion — Forget the screening, forget asking them about their last publication (most will ignore you.) Get those names!

Timing — I feel strongly that the week of 24 November is too late.

1. We wanted to announce the Statement in the period when there was a sag in related news, but in the week before Kyoto we should expect that we will have to crowd out many other articles about climate.

2. If the Statement comes out just a few days before Kyoto I am afraid that the delegates who we want to influence will not have any time to pay attention to it. We should give them a few weeks to hear about it.

3. If Greenpeace is having an event the week before, we should have it a week before them so that they and other NGOs can further spread the word about the Statement. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be so bad to release the Statement in the same week, but on a
diffeent day. The media might enjoy hearing the message from two very different directions.

Conclusion — I suggest the week of 10 November, or the week of 17 November at the latest.

Mike — I have no organized email list that could begin to compete with the list you can get from the Dutch. But I am still willing to send you what I have, if you wish.

Best wishes,

Joe Alcamo

On November 3, WWF’s Farrow sent the following to Hulme. It doesn’t specifically mention the Statement, but it does seem to be indicative of the “assistance” WWF were prepared to provide:

Hello Mike – two thinhs – we can help you with politicians – our two parliamentary (public affairs ) officers here are talking with MPs constantly on this one – adn could come up with a suitable list..ref CLimate action Network – we’re part of that umbrella organisation. I know delia well (she used to be WWF) and is now with them in Brussels.

Obviously, given the money we’ve contributed to the process I would rather that we release the letter to them AFTER the press – that’s how we would normally do it – they will then go ahead under their own letterhead – If you want to retain “neutrality” then it would be better that they pick it up separately than that you release it to them, which would align you with 122 NGOs…but it is right and proper they should have it at some time….

We can help you with the database of journos of course – obvious ones are Paul Brown, Nick Schoon, Charles Clover, Fred Pearce, Geoffrey lean Jonathan Leake etc., and Julian Rush or Andy Veitch at Ch4 news – remember they have to “sell” it to their news editors. which means they need time to write the story too – if you want a real ppiece with real analysis then give them lead in time under an embargo – and remember certain of them cannot be trusted not to break the embargo (we can tell you who!)…we ought to talk at the beginning of next week perhaps?

And on November 11, the Statement, duly sponsored by the eleven “prestige” scientists (I wonder how much “due diligence” each of them did before signing on the dotted line!) was fired off by CRU’s Tim Mitchell (on behalf of Hulme and Alcamo) to “all cru staff” and to a list of 204 other people with U.K. E-mail addresses – along with a request that the recipients forward it to

“up to three colleagues in your country who are working in climate-related fields, who you think may support the Statement and whom we have not targeted”

And Hulme had completely “forgotten” about his involvement in all this until he saw the CG1 emails.

Amazing. Simply amazing.

A compendium of coups for The Delinquent Teenager …

As Andrew Montford (aka Bishop Hill) noted the other day, Donna Laframboise’s The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert is a very important work. Following an excerpt from Peter Foster’s review in the National Post, Montford wrote:

Getting some MSM coverage can make a big difference to a book. The review in the FP is the first time I’ve come across an MSM outlet reviewing a self-published book, and to my mind this shows just how important Donna’s work is.

I agree! And it is worth noting that Dr. Judith Curry also agrees (and has high praise for Montford’s excellent work, as well). As Curry noted in response to one of the comments (in that now very lengthy thread):

[...] I give Montford’s book The Hockey Stick Illusion a full 5 stars. Montford’s book will stand the test of time in terms of a history of science book about this episode, and it is being cited in scholarly papers (check google scholar). It remains to be seen whether Laframboise’s book will achieve the same stature. That said, Laframboise’s book may be more influential politically in the short term.

And here’s an excerpt from one of the more recent reviews on Amazon.com:

A must read, even if you have been following this insanity for the two plus decades it has been propagated, as I have. You will learn something – many somethings. You will be entertained and disappointed in human folly. You will despair at the absolute waste of money which could have been better spent. You will be appalled at how blinded – no, how STUPID – our elected leaders can be.

The one thing you will NOT be is able to stop until you are finished reading. Fear not – it is concise, to the point and has no wasted word – unlike the now too-many iterations of the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Assessment Reports]

Those of us who are Earth and Atmospheric scientists but don’t toe the alarmist line need many voices to which the public will listen. Here is one such voice which will resonate with non-subscribers to the dictates of the Inquisitorial Polemicist Climate Church.

Buy one for yourself, one each for your State Senator and Representative, one for your kids’ school library, one for your public library – and most important, distribute them. Commit it to memory. You won’t be able to state any rebuttal to climate craziness better than what’s between the covers of this little bombshell of a book.

Unlike Peter Gleick (or, in fact, any of the 9 lame flaming “one star” reviewers who are far outnumbered by the more reasoned – and evidently more helpful – voices of 74 four- and five-star reviewers), the author of the above review, geologist, T. D. Gillespie has read The Delinquent Teenager ….

Someone who shares Gleick’s apparent deficiency in reading comprehension skills (if one is inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and assumes that by now he actually has read it) is the writer of a recent Press Release from the abundantly-funded World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

As Laframboise observed on her blog – and during the course of an excellent interview, yesterday, with SunTV’s Charles Adler – WWF have called the (well documented) charges in her book “ludicrous”. But as anyone who’s read the book knows, and as she reiterates (after putting the WWF writer to further shame, with a summary of <gasp> facts):

That word ludicrous really is apt. The WWF calls my book “a new climate change denial book.” But as the thousands of people who’ve already purchased it know, climate change is discussed only tangentially.

The IPCC as an organization is the real focus of my book. It has been around for 22 years, and has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Yet this is the first time anyone has taken a sustained, critical look at it.

What I’ve found is not pretty.

Here’s the SunTV interview, btw:

Donna Laframboise interviewed by Charles Adler on SunTV 2011-Oct-24 (click image to view video)

In keeping with theme of my virtual trip down musical memory lane, inspired Gleick, it seems to me that WWF (whose interests, vision ‘n “values” far too cosily coincide with those of the IPCC) just might be, well, Running Scared :-)

 

P.S. If you haven’t yet bought the book, you might want to take a look at the second of two excerpts published by the National Post.

ET please call WWF

About a year ago (well circa Sept. 26, 2010 to be precise), there were several reports in the media that the United Nations was to appoint a “space ambassador to greet alien visitors”. One such report appeared in the U.K. Telegraph:

Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist, is set to be tasked with co-ordinating humanity’s response if and when extraterrestrials make contact.

Aliens who landed on earth and asked: “Take me to your leader” would be directed to Mrs Othman.

She will set out the details of her proposed new role at a Royal Society conference in Buckinghamshire next week.

The 58-year-old is expected to tell delegates that the proposal has been prompted by the recent discovery of hundreds of planets orbiting other starts, which is thought to make the discovery of extraterrestrial life more probable than ever before.

Mrs Othman is currently head of the UN’s little known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa). [emphasis added -hro]

This remarkable prospect is one of the few that has had not been linked to the greatest threat to the future of the planet, aka “climate change”. Or so I thought.

In a post today, Donna Laframboise relates the mind-boggling manipulations of Big Green’s (and Prince Charles’) favourite “charity”: the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) aka the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. Unlike many non-profit (charitable) organizations the WWF does not appear to be struggling in the competition for funding to provide services and support to those most in need.

Donna’s focus is on the WWF’s “Climate Witness Program” – and I would highly recommend reading her entire post (and following the links she includes) if you haven’t already done so.

One of the links I followed was to the “Climate Witness Interview Form” that “Climate Witness” wannabes are required to complete before their “testimony” can be “peer-reviewed” by a “scientific expert” – who may or may not have been recruited by the WWF from the exalted ranks of “experts”, or at least those so designated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

After scrolling through and randomly selecting a number of these “Ciimate Witness” stories, I must say that I was very impressed with the level of comprehension of the English language they must have acquired in order to “complete” the “Interview” (considering that English is highly unlikely to have been first language of most “witnesses”). Even though I have a reasonably good command of the English language, I must confess that even I probably would have been stumped by their

3. Consequences of Changes: Human Health [...]
Leptospirosis
Schistomes/B ilharzia [and]
Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome

But this simply pales in comparison to “Interview” item “4. Impacts to Industry Sectors [...] U. Activities of extraterrestrial organizations and bodies“. I kid you not. Here it is in full digital context:

Forget about calling home ET, just call WWF

Is it beyond the realm of possibility that WWF – an organization not without considerable influence in the United Nations’ panoply of environentally activist organizations, task groups, panels etc. – might have checked a few boxes (on various interviewees’ behalf) in order to provide some “confidential data” which would “support” the need for the appointment of an “ambassador to greet alien visiors” – and that even the UN found the WWF/Climate Change/ET connection to be a non-starter? Nah … must just be coincidence!

Biodiversity loss … TEEB on the march

As I wrote yesterday, there’s a new kid on the UNEP generated alarmist block: “unprecedented loss of biodiversity seriously compounded by global warming”.

Looks like the Guardian was first to jump on the biodiversity bandwagon with an editorial:

Biodiversity: Variety as the spice of life Conservation is quite literally vital. This is a challenge that calls for serious science, serious action – and serious money

This has been the International Year of Biodiversity and a UN gathering in Nagoya, Japan, is getting under way, charged with launching a 10-year strategy to avert the collapse of fisheries, conserve the Amazon rainforest and check the spread of invasive species.

The auguries are not good. [...]

Quelle surprise.

On this side of the pond, it was no surprise to see that the CBC (which has been studiously keeping its eyes wide shut to anything and everything that does not favour the alarmist cause) trumpetting:

Report puts price tag on environment
“The economic cost of ignoring environmental degradation is far greater than the costs needed to fix it in the long run, a groundbreaking report published with the support of the United Nations said Tuesday.

The report, entitled “Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature” was written by Pavan Sukhdev, a banker who heads the UN’s green economy initiative.

It found that nature provides trillions of dollars in “free” services to the global economy every year, and having to account for all of those services being removed would significantly reduce the world’s economic output and cost far more.[...]

Frankly, I’m surprised that the CBC hasn’t run this Official Video of the International Year of Biodiversity:

Then again, AFAIK, CBC didn’t run Franny Armstrong’s “No Pressure” video, either. But I digress …

So, the new kid on the UNEP alarmist block is the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Quite a mouthful, eh? Let’s go with the “official” acronym: IPBES. Or you could use their less bureaucratic, logo-friendly, ipBes

In case you were wondering how this new kid came into being … needless to say, it did not spring out of the blue; there were many meetings before it acquired a Propercase Name, but it seems to have begun as a “concept note” via a process called “E-Peer Review“:

In March 2008, a concept note was prepared by UNEP detailing the needs and rationale for an intergovernmental multi-stakeholder platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services, based on a request from the international science committee of the International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity process and the partners of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment follow up strategy. The document was made available as an information document to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at its ninth meeting, held in May 2008. Subsequently, an open peer review process was undertaken electronically for six weeks. In total, 588 comments were received from 30 countries and 27 organizations. The concept note was revised accordingly for consideration at the first ad hoc intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder meeting on an intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services, held in Putrajaya, Malaysia from 10 to 12 November 2008.

The revised concept underwent another E-Peer Review … and somewhere during the gestation period, there were some “intergovernmental and multi stakeholder meetings”, and on June 11, 2010 (in celebration of what would have been my parents’ 66th wedding anniversary) IPBES graduated from lowercase to Propercase.

What I’m not certain about is whether or not there is a difference in UN-speak between a “Panel” (as in IPCC) and a “Platform” (as in IPBES). But you’ll never guess who’s been chairing the IPBES meetings (I believe there have been 3, so far) … Robert Watson (predecessor of IPCC Chair, Rajendra ‘hell no, I won’t go’ Pachauri) What an amazing coincidence, eh?!

Which brings us to TEEB In the words of Study Leader, Pavan Sukhdev:

“By some recent yardsticks of sustainability, our global ecological footprint has doubled over the last 40 years to the point that, if the whole human population consumed at this rate, we would need 4-5 planet Earths just to keep up, just to sustain us.
[...]
“[O]ur study on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity is compiling, building and making a compelling economics case for the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity. The study is drawing on expertise from around the world to evaluate the costs of the loss of biodiversity and the associated decline in ecosystem services worldwide, and to compare them with the costs of effective conservation and sustainable use. The intent of the study is to sharpen awareness of the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services and facilitate the development of effective policy, as well as engaged business and citizen responses.

“We have the opportunity to reframe economics and policy for the 21st Century” [emphasis added-hro]

Good news, folks: Maybe we won’t have to worry about our carbon footprints anymore – unlesss they roll ‘em into our “ecological footprint”. But, wait … there’s more. At an August lecture in Sydney, Sukhdev indicated that what the world needs now is to put “nature on the balance sheet” He has a charming mantra: “What you do not measure, you cannot manage“. I have a hunch that we’ll be hearing this mantra (his word, btw, not mine!) quite often. It fits right in with TEEB’s “biodiversity offsets or other schemes to mitigate and/or compensate…”.

Amongst the luminaries on the Advisory Board of TEEB, one finds (inter alia) Lord Stern, “IG Patel Professor of Economics & Government and Chairman of LSE’s new Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment” and Ms. Yolanda Kakabadse, “Trustee of the Ford Foundation and President of Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) International”.

What a perfect marriage of faulty economics and zealous ecology.