The article in the url link below questions the “actual and moral authority” enjoyed by the IPCC regarding the science and, equally importantly, the economics surrounding climate change (Issues: Environmental Sustainability, p171):
“[The IPCC] is a seriously flawed enterprise and unworthy of the slavish respect accorded to it by most governments and the media. In the decisions which have already been made on climate-change mitigation, to say nothing of future decisions, the stakes are enormous. In guiding these momentous judgments, the flawed IPCC process has been granted, in effect, a monopoly of official wisdom. That needs to change and the IPCC itself must be reformed.”
The article is not against the science of climate change, but argues that in order to construct effective public policy in response, we need to have a better understanding than at present regarding the economic implications of the environmental changes we are experiencing:
“Underlying it all is a pervasive bias. From the outset the IPCC network was fully invested in the idea that climate change is the most pressing challenge confronting mankind and that urgent action far beyond what is already in prospect will be needed to confront it. … The IPCC may be right: climate change may indeed be mankind's biggest and most urgent challenge. … But if governments are to get the best advice, they need information and analysis from an open and disinterested source - or else from multiple dissenting sources. With the environmental risks calmly laid out, framing the right policies demands proper political accountability and a much wider range of opinion and expertise than the IPCC currently provides.”
Take care
Dave
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther
The steamrollers of climate science
By CLIVE CROOK
879 words
2 August 2007
Financial Times
London Ed1
Page 9
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/39463a34-40a3-11dc-9d0c-0000779fd2ac.html
