Sorry to go back to analogies again, but due to the huge importance of energy to the global economy, telling the world that they need to cut back in emissions is as well received as telling your wife that she needs to lose weight, and that she needs to cut out chocolate.

The exact relationship of a block of chocolate to weight is yet to be established, but there is no doubt there is a relationship.

The IPCC will bear the brunt of the denial, and any perceived impropriety will be seized on as a failure of the science.

The balance between filtering the information so that is sufficiently simple for general consumption (which is open to accusations of concealment) or providing all the raw data (when no one understands it) is difficult.

The IPCC has no chance of pleasing everyone. If we are to replace it then the question is with what.

A recent article on Alternet Environment is well worth a read
http://www.alternet.org/story/145838/how_the_mountain_of_climate_change_evidence_is_being_used_to_undermine_the_cause?page=entire
Comparing the fossil fuel Lobby's campaign to the OJ Simpson trial is an interesting take on the problem.
RPG and Hasbeen no one is asking you to change your opinion about climate change - in fact none of our opinions matter. This is one of the realities of science. The Inquistion got Galileo to recant but unfortunately for the Vatican Mother Nature overruled Mother Church and hence we are stuck with a heliocentric solar system.
What I suspect is a far greater problem for the IPCC is the influence that politicians have on the way the findings are reported.

baygon, thanks for the analogy - I agree, the warmists and IPCC may well get their way and convince governments to make stupid decisions, and mother nature will deal with the folly in her own way, by ignoring the rantings of warmist scientologists, and continue to warm or cool regardless of the dickerings of primitive scientists, which today's scientists will be in 50 or 100 years.

The scientists make mistakes, the ones who review their papers make mistakes, so it DOES MATTER that mistakes are found because it shows the human side of the science is fallible, as much as blowhards demand that mere little errors hardly matter, they do matter.

It shows we don't know as much as we should and are being arrogant that what we know is adequate to recommend changing the world according to their predictions, no thanks, I'm not gambling ona bunch of prima donnas who are clearly attracted to money.

I don't think your opinion or any other person on OLO matters either, it's just a forum of opinion, no world shattering events take place here, yet some people clearly puff up and demand everyone either agree or ship out, eh - what pompous twats, full of p*ss and wind.

jm, with his hypothesis is a bully, trying to intimidate skeptics with his personal logic, to back down and cease to infuriate him/her by being skeptical when he has INSISTED we are NOT TO DO SO!

He/she has a hyposthesis, so there!

If you call yourself a jedimaster, obviously you have personal powers in line with what, a mob of "superhumans" in a movie? Still not a complete master, as people still seem to withstand the jedi mind control eh .. maybe just a jedi, or is the ego bruised by such a demotion?

rpg
Your utterances are totally offensive and have no have place in any civil discourse.If you think that OLO is of no consequence,then why don't you use somewhere else to empty your bile and venom.

I offered an idea as an hypothesis- or don't you like words with more than one syllable? You can agree with it or refute it- it's an idea- it's not a person. I- and I am sure others,would like to know WHY you think that our ideas are wrong- we are here because we are trying to learn. Tackle the idea- not the man (or woman). That's why I am alarmed at denialist behaviour- it seems to be of a pettern, similar to patterns that we have seen or learnt about from past eras- eras of intolerance, abuse, fear, superstition- from the witches of Eastwick to Joe McCarthy, from Socrates to Galileo to Arthur Koestler's semi fictional character in "Darkness at Noon".

Please tell me how you can bully someone with hypotheses and logic. The last time I saw that happen was in Monty Python's "Argument" sketch (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Argument_Sketch).

You have no idea who I am, and as far as I am concerned that doesn't matter one bit- it's my IDEAS, and your IDEAS that count here- not who we are- that's why we use pseudonyms. Mine is just a play on my initials. It's no more presumptuous than for someone to call themself Baygon (does he kill ants in his spare time? or bushbasher (does he knock down trees for the fun of it?).

Opinion, surely, is another name for hypothesis or conjecture- an idea about which we have a hunch, but the data isn't available to provide any great certainty. We put it out there on line-to see if others support it or refute it with there data and observations. We can be robust and ribald, witty or profane, but surely, unvarnished abuse has no place here. This is not the Spanish Inquisition-or is it? Then nobody expects....

Amicus

Re: << A spokesman for the UNEP (and WMO) has indicated that an announcement will be made next week that would offer a “credible and sensible review of how the IPCC operates”. I am not sure of the legalities.

Would you be satisfied if "a major scientific society or a coalition of National Academies of Science" conducted the review? >>

Do you have any substantive comment to make about this ->

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34036&Cr=climate+change&Cr1=

The InterAcademy Council (IAC), a scientific organization bringing together experts from around the world, has been tasked with reviewing the IPCC’s processes and procedures to strengthen the quality of its reports.

The review will be led by IAC co-chairs Robbert Dijkgraaf, who heads the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, and Lu Yongxiang, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“It will be conducted completely independently of the United Nations,” Mr. Ban emphasized today.

Mr. Dijkgraaf said today that the IAC seeks to “assure nations that they will receive sound, scientific advice” so that “governments and citizens alike can make informed decisions.”

Scientists will be selected to serve on a voluntary and unpaid basis to prepare a draft report on their findings, which will then undergo an intensive peer review by other scientists. “Only when the IAC board is satisfied” will the final report be issued, he said.

Characterizing the task as “forward-looking,” Mr. Dijkgraaf said that there are “no preconceived conclusions.”

The IAC, he said, has been asked to look into issues such as data quality assurance and control; procedures for correcting errors; and analyzing the IPCC’s communications strategies.

qanda - I'd give a reserved agreement to that review panel, however "The IAC is client-driven and works on a project-by-project basis". That concerns me.

Who retains them to do this review and what are their motives? Is it to get a clear view of what's going on, or to exonerate the participants?

So if the UN or the IPCC retains them to do a review, I'd like to see the goals of the review and the guidelines, as well as the list of who will staff it.

I'm suspicious of this area as there have been cover-ups and collusion and I expect more, because there's BIG money involved, that always skews judgment. Consider, if it modifies judgment, if Big Oil or Tobacco pays people, then it stands to reason that Big Green will do exactly the same, moreso since there is more money involved. In Australia alone $800M in the next year in research grants in this area is up for grabs I read somewhere.

You guys could buy and sell Big Oil, no one would notice.

I see today the CSIRO is now wading in, just "offering information, that's all", that's new - previously they had been a cheerleader for AGW and the ALP's stance.

I no longer believe, since all the money that is involved, that you can get a fair or objective view or outcome, there is just too much money at stake and too many people have hitched their wagons to this.

Time will tell, but I fear the disinformation campaign against anyone who is not a nodding believer is going to get big and ugly now, unlike anything we have seen before.

The world will continue to warm, since we are still coming out of an ice age, but we have the greedy who want their bit - NOW! (so they have a very good reason to blame mankind and of course, offer solutions ($)

This area of science now has a credibility issue, that your problem, not mine. Clever arguments and framing of debate, will not overcome it, openness will, in time.