Wave Maker

I made a mistake this morning, going to Glen Reynolds' blog for some news.

In his usual style, he slips us these brief comments and a link. Follow those links and sometimes you get more than you bargained for.

In this case, the link was to a site purporting to offer Free Carbon Offsets, but in actuality offering an avalanche of links on the global warming issue that will take a month to read.

But here is one little piece of information that truly struck me cold. The link is to an extensive and exhaustive document from the office of Senator James Imhoff, and contains references to much scientific testimony and evidence that refutes the alarmists. On page 21-22 of his statement, he says (in rference to the process by which the IPCC's final report was produced):

The flaws in the IPCC process began to manifest themselves in the first assessment, but did so in earnest
when the IPCC issued its second assessment report in . The most obvious was the altering of the
document on the central question of whether man is causing global warming.

Here is what Chapter 8 – the key chapter in the report – stated on this central question in the final
version accepted by reviewing scientists:

“No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the climate change observed to date] to
anthropogenic causes.”

But when the final version was published, this and similar phrases in 15 sections of the chapter were
deleted or modified. Nearly all the changes removed hints of scientific doubts regarding the claim that
human activities are having a major impact on global warming.

In the Summary for Policy Makers – which is the only part of the report that reporters and policy makers
read – a single phrase was inserted. It reads:

“The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate.”

The lead author for Chapter , Dr. Ben Santer, should not be held solely accountable. According to the
journal Nature, the changes to the report were made in the midst of high-level pressure from the Clinton
/ Gore State Department to do so. I understand that after the State Department sent a letter to Sir John
Houghton, co-Chairman of the IPCC, Houghton prevailed upon Santer to make the changes. The impact
was explosive, with media across the world, including heavyweights such as Peter Jennings, declaring
this as proof that man is responsible for global warming.

Agenda-driven science will be the end of us.