Posted by
EFuller on Friday, August 31, 2007 6:33:02 AM
Can you trust UN reports on scientific matters? No. Consider the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Rather than factual scientific documents, they are political documents. Scientific findings they supposedly represent are edited to fit the political message of the summary. This interesting tidbit was revealed on the
Inhofe EPW Press Blog in a post by Michael Asher (emphasis added):
But does the IPCC represent a consensus view of world scientists? Despite media claims of "thousands of scientists" involved in the report, the actual text is written by a much smaller number of "lead authors." The introductory "Summary for Policymakers" -- the only portion usually quoted in the media -- is written not by scientists at all, but by politicians, and approved, word-by-word, by political representatives from member nations. By IPCC policy, the individual report chapters -- the only text actually written by scientists -- are edited to "ensure compliance" with the summary, which is typically published months before the actual report itself.
Looks like the National Inquirer may give a more balance view.
Oh yeah, Asher also reports that in a survey of 528 scientific papers on climate change published between 2004 and 2007 only one claimed that warming would cause catastrophic results!