May 9, 2010

Citizen Audit Report is Now a PDF

A printer-friendly PDF version of the Citizen Audit report I released last month is now available. It's 30 pages in total, includes clickable links to supplemental online material, and at 500 kb isn't too huge a file.

There's also an easy-to-remember short URL for the online report:

TinyUrl.com/CitizenAudit
(not case sensitive)

The public has been systematically misled about the nature of the climate bible produced by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This Citizen Audit, conducted by 40 people in 12 countries in five weeks, has exposed one of the biggest myths of all.

The climate bible is unambiguously not based solely on research previously published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Nearly 5,600 of the sources upon which this document relies (30 percent) were found to be "grey literature." Among these sources are press releases, news clippings, student theses, working papers, discussion papers, and advocacy literature produced by green groups.

Speaking personally, I think a compelling argument can be made for the inclusion of certain kinds of grey literature. But we must have truth in advertising.

It is not acceptable for the chairman of the IPCC to repeatedly claim that this report is based solely on peer-reviewed research when that is not the case. If a roofer tells you several times that he has installed 30-year shingles but you climb up, inspect them yourself, and discover they're 25-year shingles will you hire him again?

The crucial question is: If the IPCC can't be trusted to describe its own report accurately, why should we believe anything else it says?

Until someone addresses this issue we'd be foolish to jettison our carbon-based global economy. This is too important a decision to entrust to a body whose integrity and competence is in doubt.

..

>> Climate bible gets 21 'F's on report card

>> The great peer-review fairy tale
>> What's left if we disregard non-peer-reviewed claims?
>> The Stern Review scandal - IPCC breaks 3 of its own rules