Yes, it was always there but recently, as the editors become ever more self-righteous (= Us vs. the Unwashed), it has become more open and that sure isn’t an improvement. Two items noted in passing:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an important organization with a primary purpose to assess the scientific literature on climate in order to inform policy…
Regrettably, the IPCC WG2 has strayed far from its purpose to assess and evaluate the scientific literature, and has positioned itself much more as a cheerleader for emissions reductions and produced a report that supports such advocacy. The IPCC exhorts: “impacts will continue to increase if drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are further delayed – affecting the lives of today’s children tomorrow and those of their children much more than ours … Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.”
The focus on emissions reductions is a major new orientation for WG2, which previously was focused exclusively on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. The new focus on mitigation is explicit, with the IPCC WG2 noting (1-31) that its focus “expands significantly from previous reports” and now includes “the benefits of climate change mitigation and emissions reductions.” This new emphasis on mitigation colors the entire report, which in places reads as if adaptation is secondary to mitigation or even impossible. The IPCC oddly presents non-sequiturs tethering adaptation to mitigation, “Successful adaptation requires urgent, more ambitious and accelerated action and, at the same time, rapid and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.”
Roger Pielke, Jr., “A Rapidly Closing Window to Secure a Liveable Future” at The Honest Broker Newsletter/Substack (March 2, 2022)
The relentless drum-banging will probably have the opposite effect of the one desired, especially when (as is sure to happen) some emission reduction strategies do much more harm than good and the boosters are running for cover, misrepresenting those outcomes in the name of “Trust the Science.”
And then there are the ridiculous efforts in popular science media to snuff out any awareness of the possibility that the virus that causes COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan lab doing research on making viruses more powerful. How awful of any of us to suggest such a thing! Here’s an intro to a podcast on the topic:
We have featured the work of science writer Matt Ridley on several occasions over the years. Now he is the author (with Alina Chan) of the new book Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19. Brendan O’Neill has recorded a podcast with Ridley to discuss how the Covid-19 virus might have leaked from a lab in Wuhan and how scientists tried to suppress the lab-leak origin theory. Spiked has posted the podcast here. I have embedded it below.
The New York Times continues to flog the alleged natural origin of the plague. Most recently, the Times has promoted “new research” pointing to the live animal market in Wuhan as the origin: “Analyzing a wide range of data, including virus genes, maps of market stalls and the social media activity of early Covid-19 patients across Wuhan, the scientists concluded that the coronavirus was very likely present in live mammals sold at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in late 2019 and suggested that the virus spilled over into people working or shopping there on two separate occasions.” However, “some gaps” in the evidence still remain. “The new [unpublished] papers did not, for example, identify an animal at the market that spread the virus to humans.”
Scott Johnson, “The case for the lab-leak theory” at Powerline Blog (March 4, 2022)
More re Viral
Science writer Matt Ridley thinks science is reverting to a cult. Maybe his next book should be about that.