Signs of Life, and Change, in Climate Inquiry - Dot Earth Blog - NYTimes.com

One early test of Dr. Field’s — and the panel’s — resolve to be more transparent and inclusive is a special panel report on managing the risks from climate extremes being initiated next month. Dr. Field, as a leader of the panel’s bureau on climate adaptation and impacts, was involved in overseeing the creation of that author team.

Here’s the test. Roger A. Pielke Jr., a researcher at the University of Colorado with a long publication record on climate and disaster trends was one of the 31 experts nominated by the United States to be an author of that study, but was not among the 13 chosen. While he has been an aggressive critic of the panel’s practices on his blog, and a frequent target of energy and climate campaigners, Dr. Pielke’s research record in this particular field stands on its own.

[Earth now so overheated that schools in Gore's home town of Nashville only had seven snow days this year]

In order to make up two snow days, Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) will be expanding the school day. The school day will be expanded by 30 minutes so that MNPS won't have to tack extra days onto the school calendar this summer.
...
According to the Tennessean, MNPS factors 5 snow days into each year's schedule. This winter's unusually high amount of snowfall caused schools to be closed for 7 days, two more than had been scheduled for.

- Bishop Hill blog - Josh 4

[Cartoon: The 5 Stages of Climate Grief]

Fixing the Global Climate Science Process - Council on Foreign Relations

[Pielke Jr] Third, while the IPCC has a mandate to be "policy neutral," its reports, and its leadership frequently engage in implicit and explicit policy advocacy. IPCC leaders often take public stands in support of or opposition to certain policies on climate change. The IPCC reports, particularly Working Group III, reflect a particular policy orientation that is decidedly not "policy neutral." To cite one example, the IPCC has concluded that the world has all the technology that it needs to achieve low stabilization levels. However, this conclusion ignores a significant body of work suggesting that the work does not in fact have all the technology that it needs. The panel's mandate to be "policy neutral" is an admirable goal, but has not been met in practice.

Unless the IPCC brings its institutional policies and procedures into the twenty-first century through a wholesale institutional reform, it will continue to come out on the losing end of challenges to its legitimacy and credibility.

John R. Christy John R. Christy, Director of the Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama; Contributor (1992, 1994, 1996, and 2007) and Lead Author (2001) for the IPCC Reports

Many of the IPCC problems are rooted in how these reports are developed.

At present, each government nominates hopefuls who are then placed into a pool from which the IPCC bureaucracy selects a set of lead authors. Both steps in this process are clearly influenced by the political views of the governments and the IPCC itself. These selected lead authors are given powerful control by being vested with final review authority and thus are able to fashion a report that supports their own opinions while marginalizing countervailing views. This is not how the real uncertainties and difficulties of climate science may be established and communicated to policymakers.