by Dipankar Gupta
Mail Today
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
The sloppiness of the IPCC has given science a bad name and set backefforts to control pollution
IT WAS a stupid act to follow but he did it again and again and again.
Rajendra Pachauri used WWF documents as scientific evidence, not once, but at least twice.... The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report relied on the Wikipedia, student research papers, and, unbelievably, quoted an anti- smoking activist on the disappearing Amazon Forest.
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Truth
It is easy to forgive a Greenpeacenik or an aging hippy; they often know not what they do. Pachauri is not that type. He sinned for he deliberately spoke for science and let it down.
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When science is downgraded by populism, it undermines centuries of hard work: lonely, difficult, and against all odds.
In a real sense, scientists are subversive. They speak the truth and damn the expenses. Science has brought us unfathomable good: we live longer, we have more time for leisure and we dont have to cower with fear at thunder and lightning. Science also teaches us to respect nature, though some of its products have misused it.
But the ill effects of sci- ence can be fought by science alone, and not by political grandstanding.
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Sadly, certified scientists are out of the loop. In a recent BBC discussion with 2009 Nobel Laureates, none of the assembled scientists wanted to talk about climate change. Why? Because there was practically no science in what was being bandied about. It was just a bunch of “ grey material” Palika Bazaar stuff, which should not be dignified as knowledge.
Professor Frederick Seitz, the former President of the United States National Academy of Sciences, said the same thing in a more formal setting, but nobody in the IPCC bothered to listen to him.
...Recently Toyota and Honda found they had produced defective cars. Did they complain about conspiracy or downplay the flaws? No! They recalled every single one of them and lost millions as a consequence. Much earlier when it was discovered that Tylenol bottles were not tamper- proof, its manufacturers swooshed every single Tylenol container off the shelves.
On the other hand, to get an admission from Pachauri is like dragging a pet to the vet. When confronted with the errors, he shifted the blame to his researchers and to the probability theory that with so many facts, its alright to go wrong on a couple. ...
Subversion
It has also given climate skeptics hooting rights.
Their claim that science has been hijacked by “ warmists” the 21st century, speaking in tongues of doomsayers, is suddenly ringing true. ...
... Monckton who delivered the much publicised open letter to Pachauri, minutes before the Copenhagen conference, shares many of Pachauris characteristics, which he actually sniggers at. Pachauri is no climate scientist, he is a Railway Engineer with a Ph. D in Economics. But then neither is Monckton. He has a degree in classics, and in his better days did journalism and Thatcherite politics.
So if Pachauri should be sent back to play with his choo- choo train, Monckton should be singing lullabies to children. Or take the flamboyant, and all too young, Bjorn Lomborg. He is the ultimate “ cool dude”. He actually believes that temperatures are going down and that the Kyoto protocol was hot air. And, yes, he is not a scientist either but teaches in Copenhagen Business School.
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Ice
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What really matters is the emergence of Pachauris Law. It says “ good science drives out bad science with the speed of melting ice cream.” If newspaper reports are to be taken seriously then Pachauri is also turning out to be a half flasher. He opens his jacket to reveal a downmarket label. This act of humility is to still gossip that he wears Armani suits with corporate earnings.
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Will the real scientists please come out? They need to break the ice before it melts away.
The writer is a well- known sociologist who is currently a Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, in New Delhi.
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