The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific body under the auspices of the United Nations (UN), established in 1988. It is responsible for assessing the latest scientific knowledge related to climate change, comprising thousands of scientists from all over the world.
It is also responsible for making hilariously inaccurate doomsday predictions.
For example, in 1995, the IPCC claimed that, by 2020, most of America’s beaches would be gone because of rising sea levels.
The IPCC report – or the Climate Bible – refers to the periodic assessments, published every few years, and have been instrumental in shaping international climate agreements and policies, and they are often cited in discussions and debates on environmental issues.
Donna LaFramboise, meanwhile, is a Canadian investigative journalist, writer, and photographer who published The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert.
In the book, she discusses her research into the IPCC, revealing that many authors and lead authors of important chapters of the IPCC reports do not have the claimed qualifications and are not part of the crème de la crème of their subjects. Instead, they are often activists and functionaries of aggressive environmental groups, but are presented as top scientists to the global audience.
Donna also criticises the literature cited by the IPCC, with more than 30% of all quotations coming from unexamined sources or pamphlets from activist groups.
She argues that the IPCC is not a scientific body but a political one with an agenda disguised as science.
- Some of the key people at the IPCC, including lead authors and those in charge of chapters, are mere graduate students.
- Despite claims by the IPCC’s chairman that they only rely on peer-reviewed literature, Donna’s investigation revealed that 30% of the sources listed in the 2007 IPCC report were not published in peer-reviewed journals.
- The IPCC has relied on documents produced by activist groups like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). An example is the incorrect claim that Himalayan glaciers were in danger of disappearing by 2035, which was later admitted to be wrong.
Donna chatted to me about all of it.
