Big Picture News, Informed Analysis

Canadian journalist Donna Laframboise. Former National Post & Toronto Star columnist, past vice president of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

Meet ‘One of the World’s Foremost Climate Scientists’

Andrew Weaver: climate modeler, Green Party deputy leader, Greenpeace promoter.

January 25, 2013

IPCC Author Becomes Green Party Apparatchik

A lead author of the IPCC’s ‘hard science’ section is a Green Party candidate and deputy leader.

October 26, 2012

The Journal of Climate & the IPCC

We’re supposed to trust the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s conclusions because it relies on peer-reviewed scientific literature. But many of the people who run scientific journals also write IPCC reports. This is a circular, incestuous process.

August 23, 2011

Canadian Scientists and the World Wildlife Fund

When hundreds of Canadian scientists – and 12 science bodies – joined a World Wildlife Fund ad campaign they undermined their own authority. They became politically-motivated actors in a political discussion.

July 29, 2011

Fixed: the IPCC’s Climate Model Evaluation Game

Each IPCC report includes a chapter that evaluates climate models. Is this written by disinterested parties who take a cold, hard look at the strengths & weaknesses of these analytical tools? Nope. It’s authored by people whose livelihoods depend on climate models.

May 3, 2011

Andrew Weaver vs Tim Flannery

Two activist scientists, both committed to the climate change fight, have starkly different views of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. One says it’s the most “rigorous scientific process” in which he has been involved. The other says it isn’t good science, but “lowest-common-denominator-science.”

February 16, 2011

Why Good Judgment Matters

Data is collected, recorded, adjusted & interpreted not by disinterested robots but by people. Because highly-educated individuals can look at the same data and come to different conclusions, the degree to which a person’s judgment can be trusted becomes a central concern.

November 28, 2010

Politicians Dressed in Lab Coats

When a forensic pathologist testifies at a murder trial he describes bruises, lacerations & bullet holes. He does not decide whether the accused is guilty. Nor does he opine to the media about how such murders might be prevented.

So why do climate scientists think it’s their business to prescribe solutions – rather than telling us about their data and only about their data?

September 12, 2010