Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Commentators discuss the results of a report that says the body set up to advice governments on climate change, the IPCC, needs stricter checks to prevent damage to its credibility but is "successful overall".

[subscription required] that the IPCC did not get more criticism:

"Enormous and expensive policy changes have been based on the flawed work of these scientists. Yet there is apparently to be no investigation, blame, suspension or withdrawal of papers, just a gentle bureaucratic fattening of the organisation with new full-time posts...
Μύ
"Frankly, the whole process, not just the discredited Dr Pachauri (in shut-eyed denial at a press conference yesterday), needs purging or it will drag down the reputation of science with it. One of the most shocking things for those who champion science, as I do, has been the sight of the science Establishment reacting to each scandal in climate science with indifference or contempt."

Canada's the response too timid, asking for more to be done to change the IPCC:

"It is hard enough for lay people to understand climate change. To describe it with scientific accuracy is a monumental task, involving studies of forests and deserts, diesel and manure. And because climate change is perhaps the greatest public policy challenge of our time, it needs a peerless research infrastructure to match. Many of the IAC task force's proposals - to codify conflict of interest guidelines, on how to choose lead authors (the senior scientists who take the lead in drafting IPCC chapters), to explicitly say that a range of scientific viewpoints has been considered, and to create a strong executive committee to guide the IPCC's work - are all overdue. But the task force shied away from bolder moves that would boost public confidence."

The the report shows it is time to move on from "Climategate":

"Climategate has succeeded in demonstrating that scientists are not infallible and that they can be idiosyncratic and petty. But the clear weight of scientific evidence and the expert consensus show that global warming is undeniably getting worse.
Μύ
"The challenge now is for the world and its leaders - prone as they are to procrastination and denial - to muster the political will to act."

The the report extremely damaging:

"We have argued that a conservative case for preserving the planet's scarce resources should support much of the action demanded by concerned scientists, regardless of whether the case for man-made global warming can be proved. But it becomes difficult to keep an open mind on such issues if the findings of a purportedly scientific document cannot be trusted."

the case of Harvard's evolutionary pschyoclogist Marc Hauser, who was reported for fraudulent evidence his own graduate students, to argue there isn't a conspiracy within science:

"Here we have a case where a single investigator could not keep his own graduate students from blowing the whistle on misconduct. And a case where the home institution - Harvard University, the very bastion of academe no less - acted on the report of the lowly whistle-blowers and launched a thorough investigation of a faculty heavyweight. And somehow, some in the climate-skeptic camp would have us believe that the whole climate science community, involving hundreds of scientists and all their graduate students and technicians, have been falsifying data and no one, not even a single student or technician, has come forward with a substantive and actionable complaint."

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