I'm not a fan. I find many elements of the organization to be over zealous and convinced of their own righteousness, which is something that always leads to bad decisions.
What are your thoughts on this organization?
They've done more good than harm, but yeah they have a lot of issues.
Early on in their existence, I concur that they did more good than harm.
Now, unfortunately, they're a self-parody without realizing it.
Not to mention ex-Greenpeace people seem to be the only ones allowed in the final pass editing of IPCC summaries for decision makers, and have spread like bacteria through most government climate groups. It is certainly impressive that a devoutly antidemocratic org has gotten this much influence.
Do you have a list of former/current Greenpeace members who now hold government offices?
I found like one person in the IPCC, Bill Hare. That was it.
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Not to mention ex-Greenpeace people seem to be the only ones allowed in the final pass editing of IPCC summaries for decision makers, and have spread like bacteria through most government climate groups. It is certainly impressive that a devoutly antidemocratic org has gotten this much influence.
You have drifted off in to Conservative Bizarro world again. None of the above bears any resemblance to actual reality.
See what I mean, Irontruth?
Don't know if any of it is true (should be easy to check) and this article could just be part of the RW conspiracy/Conservative Bizarro world that has taken over these gaming forums.
Considering the article is from a pro-fracking blog that lists Hare as a sinister "lead author" of sections of reports he's 6th on a list of 8 authors for... I'd say there's more than a small amount of spin going on there.
I loathe them because they are antidemocratic, have insinuated themselves into a variety of decision-making organs, because they got their success through various lies, and because they seem to be the origin of much of the religious sheen that covers so much of climate debate these days.
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Don't know if any of it is true (should be easy to check) and this article could just be part of the RW conspiracy/Conservative Bizarro world that has taken over these gaming forums.Considering the article is from a pro-fracking blog that lists Hare as a sinister "lead author" of sections of reports he's 6th on a list of 8 authors for... I'd say there's more than a small amount of spin going on there.
No, I don't care about the content or even the source - it took me 5 seconds to find an article with names.
Checked the names - they are connected to both Greenpeace and IPCC (Rajendra Pachauri, Richard Klein).I don't care about this fight...but before someone makes a politically dismissive statement at least make an effort to verify.
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Don't know if any of it is true (should be easy to check) and this article could just be part of the RW conspiracy/Conservative Bizarro world that has taken over these gaming forums.
That article mentions three people as having ties to Greenpeace... out of the thousands of people who contributed to the IPCC reports.
So, yeah... that article, plus basic math, confirms that claims of Greenpeace running the IPCC decision making process are completely unhinged.
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I'm happy to check on the people under question; more posts to follow.
First, Richard Klein:
So, even discounting the last item on the list, the guy isn't exactly a lightweight - certainly I don't see him holding the posts he does by throwing firebombs and sinking whaling boats. As far as him being a Greenpeace mole, here's his response to being dragged into some kind of conspiracy theory:
You should not be surprised if IPCC authors don’t want to engage in discussions with you because you’ve already decided for yourself what to think and how to judge.
What I said is ‘I am aware of various publications by, say, IUCN, WWF or even Greenpeace that include proper research, conducted by researchers […].’ I did not say ‘I support the uncritical inclusion of advocacy statements taken from promotion materials.’
I was not involved in SRREN and I don’t know the publications cited there. This is not my field and therefore I cannot comment about this particular situation. But as a matter of principle I maintain that referring to 'grey literature' is not and should not be out of bounds in IPCC reports. There are procedures for how IPCC authors should handle grey literature, and moreover, citing does not equal endorsing.
As for my alleged bias, I am happy to discuss anything I’ve written but that would require you to read it first. I’m not at all excluding the possibility that I am biased in one way or another, but I do not accept your sweeping allegation that I must be biased towards green activism simply because I am an IPCC author.
The only references I see to him being a "Greenpeace activist" all lead directly back to Donna Laframboise (usually quoted verbatim), who authored the article that Aux linked.
Don't know if any of it is true (should be easy to check) and this article could just be part of the RW conspiracy/Conservative Bizarro world that has taken over these gaming forums.
That article mentions three people as having ties to Greenpeace... out of the thousands of people who contributed to the IPCC reports.
So, yeah... that article, plus basic math, confirms that claims of Greenpeace running the IPCC decision making process are completely unhinged.
That's my thought, too.
Sissyl wrote:
Not to mention ex-Greenpeace people seem to be the only ones allowed in the final pass editing of IPCC summaries for decision makers.
The Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report lists the following as "core writing team."
Rajendra K. Pachauri (Chair),
Myles R. Allen (United Kingdom),
Vicente R. Barros (Argentina),
John Broome (United Kingdom),
Wolfgang Cramer (Germany/France),
Renate Christ (Austria/WMO),
John A. Church (Australia),
Leon Clarke (USA),
Qin Dahe (China),
Purnamita Dasgupta (India),
Navroz K. Dubash (India),
Ottmar Edenhofer (Germany),
Ismail Elgizouli (Sudan),
Christopher B. Field (USA),
Piers Forster (United Kingdom),
Pierre Friedlingstein (United Kingdom/Belgium),
Jan Fuglestvedt (Norway),
Luis Gomez-Echeverri (Colombia),
Stephane Hallegatte (France/World Bank),
Gabriele Hegerl (United Kingdom/Germany),
Mark Howden (Australia),
Kejun Jiang (China),
Blanca Jimenez Cisneros (Mexico/UNESCO),
Vladimir Kattsov (Russian Federation),
Hoesung Lee (Republic of Korea),
Katharine J. Mach (USA),
Jochem Marotzke (Germany),
Michael D. Mastrandrea (USA),
Leo Meyer (The Netherlands),
Jan Minx (Germany),
Yacob Mulugetta (Ethiopia),
Karen O’Brien (Norway),
Michael Oppenheimer (USA),
Joy J. Pereira (Malaysia),
Ramón Pichs-Madruga (Cuba),
Gian-Kasper Plattner (Switzerland),
Hans-Otto Pörtner (Germany),
Scott B. Power (Australia),
Benjamin Preston (USA),
N.H. Ravindranath (India),
Andy Reisinger (New Zealand),
Keywan Riahi (Austria),
Matilde Rusticucci (Argentina),
Robert Scholes (South Africa),
Kristin Seyboth (USA),
Youba Sokona (Mali),
Robert Stavins (USA),
Thomas F. Stocker (Switzerland),
Petra Tschakert (USA),
Detlef van Vuuren (The Netherlands),
Jean-Pascal van Ypersele (Belgium)
Out of fifty-one names, exactly one is alleged to have Greenpeace ties.
Of course, the actual number of people involved is much greater than fifty-one. The actual Climate Change 2014 report mentions "64 Coordinating Lead Authors, 179 Lead Authors, 66 Review Editors and more than 400 Contributing Authors," of which three are alleged to have Greenpeace ties.
Based on this math, the world is controlled by a secret cabal of African tribal religions, which also make up roughly 2% of the population.
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But as a matter of principle I maintain that referring to 'grey literature' is not and should not be out of bounds in IPCC reports. There are procedures for how IPCC authors should handle grey literature, and moreover, citing does not equal endorsing.
Heh, I've always found that particular 'line of attack' amusing. If the IPCC were to exclude 'grey literature' that would have blocked the objections of McIntyre, McKitrick, and most of the other 'skeptics' who have been cited in their reports. As it turns out, whackadoo conspiracy theories and half-baked 'scientism' are not usually found in prestigious peer-reviewed journals. Go figure.
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Raj Pachauri highlights:
Again, this isn't someone who has spent a lot of time hunting whaling ships -- he's been way too busy. Unfortunately, part of what he was busy with has led him to resign most of his posts and offices amidst a sexual harassment scandal, which makes him an easy target for pot shots. His connection with Greenpeace? There are actually three:
1. He published some unverified stuff about glacier melting in the Himalayas. When it turned out to be wrong, Greenpeace urged him to resign from the IPCC.
2. A Greenpeace executive director, also from India, stepped down at around the same time Pahcauri did, due to a different sexual harassment scandal.
3. Was featured at some event that Greepeace was also at. Persuant to that, here's an exchange between Pachauri and blog mouthpiece "Babbage" about it:
B: Some people are saying the IPCC is too close to Greenpeace
RP: I think that has no basis at all. The IPCC has had industry, we've had authors from Exxon Mobil. We keep a balance, going by the level of expertise of people, whether they're in Timbuktu or this organisation or that organisation. One must also remember that author teams function as a team; an individual's views are certainly not going to overwhelm everyone else in the team.
B: You wrote a foreword to the Energy [R]evolution, and Greenpeace is on the stage at this event as a stakeholder.
RP: I didn't take any position over it. I think these reports serve a purpose in the sense that they stir up a debate, and to that extent if it leads to intellectual activity I think it's a worthwhile effort and I'd like to see all kinds of organisations get into subjects like this. I'm not endorsing what was written there, nor have I said so. But I certainly feel that such an effort deserves attention whether one agrees with it or not.
B: You don't think there's an implicit endorsement in having Greenpeace up here on stage with you?
RP: Not really. I don't see why. I can share the stage with the devil.
B: But it's clear that you have quite a lot in common with Greenpeace.
RP: But I also have a lot in common with industry.
B: What sort of thing would you point to?
RP: I talk to industry groups all the time, I advise industry groups, I don't think there's any imbalance there whatsoever. And I think being chair of the IPCC it's for me to reach out to every section of society and to encourage debate, to encourage discussion irrespective of where it takes place. And I'm not taking any positions.
B: Are you happy with the IPCC's new conflict-of-interest policy? [adopted at the panel's recent plenary]
RP: Absolutely. I must say that was a very heartening piece of work. People put in a lot of effort to come up with what I think is a very robust policy in terms of conflict of interest.
B: At what point should it start to apply?
RP: It's applicable right away. Of course if you look at conflict of interest with respect to authors who are there in the 5th Assessment Report we've already selected them and therefore it wouldn't be fair to impose anything that sort of applies retrospectively.
B: And that would be true for members of the Bureau [the IPCC's senior personnel, such as chairs, co-chairs and vice chairs] as well?
RP: No, I think as far as members of the Bureau are concerned there's really no such issue. I don't see any problem with applying it immediately.
B: So it would be OK to apply it retrospectively to you.
RP: Oh absolutely, yeah. Why not?
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Slow day for me on the game writing side. I don't even care about this crap.
From the article;
"...is it [the IPCC] simply a sounding board for green activists? The answer is no..."
It then goes on to quote Steve McIntyre's outrage that Greenpeace was not 100% shut out... despite McIntyre himself having featured in the previous IPCC report. Considering that he's a retired coal mining consultant who writes a blog while Greenpeace is a massive organization which actually conducts climate research... should we conclude that McIntyre's involvement proves the IPCC is unduly influenced by coal interests?
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Cool Kirth, so are you going to be doing this for all the IPCC personnel potentially associated with Greenpeace - checking staff, writers and peripherals - all going back to 1988? It will take a while but I like the format you're using.
I want to do a fact-check of at least the ones you and Sissyl linked to. If any of the IPCC authors are actually Greenpeace shills -- much less enough of them to dictate IPCC policy, as Sissyl claims -- that's something people absolutely need to know. Certainly, it would change my views on the subject. But so far I'm zero for two.
EDIT: Aside from his misogyny issues, Pachauri strikes me as an opportunist who signed on for everything he could think of to pad his resume. I'm not sorry to see him go. As near as I can tell, though, Klein, despite being "absurdly young," is a talented and serious researcher -- although I'll have to read more of his non-IPCC work to be sure.
Cool Kirth, so are you going to be doing this for all the IPCC personnel potentially associated with Greenpeace - checking staff, writers and peripherals - all going back to 1988?
It will take a while but I like the format you're using.
For someone who says he has no stake in this issue, you seem really interested in showing that Greenpeace is involved in IPCC.
So far the level of involvement IPPC has from Greenpeace is such that you could probably pick any decent sized relevant organization (Including Exxon lol) and claim they are secretly running the IPPC.
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Cool Kirth, so are you going to be doing this for all the IPCC personnel potentially associated with Greenpeace - checking staff, writers and peripherals - all going back to 1988? It will take a while but I like the format you're using.I want to do a fact-check of at least the ones you and Sissyl linked to. If any of the IPCC authors are actually Greenpeace shills -- much less enough of them to dictate IPCC policy, as Sissyl claims -- that's something people absolutely need to know. Certainly, it would change my views on the subject. But so far I'm zero for two.
I'm actually devils advocating here - don't know the players or the names - just doing a quick internets check without any background or knowledge on the debate and names came up with connections between both organizations.
I'll let the true believers fight this one out.
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For someone who says he has no stake in this issue, you seem really interested in showing that Greenpeace is involved in IPCC.
Disagree. If that were the case, he'd be trying to discourage me from fact-finding, not asking me to do more.
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Cool Kirth, so are you going to be doing this for all the IPCC personnel potentially associated with Greenpeace - checking staff, writers and peripherals - all going back to 1988?
It will take a while but I like the format you're using.
For someone who says he has no stake in this issue, you seem really interested in showing that Greenpeace is involved in IPCC.
So far the level of involvement IPPC has from Greenpeace is such that you could probably pick any decent sized relevant organization (Including Exxon lol) and claim they are secretly running the IPPC.
No, I don't really care - to me the environment (and its fate) is a forgone conclusion.
If it makes you feel better about yourself you can read whatever you want into it - but prior to Sissyl's post I wasn't even familiar with the IPCC..
true story.
Just bored, I should be working on something else.
Edit it while typing: Yes, I like Kirth's formatting and listing on the matter. He can make this (somewhat) boring material actually interesting.
I might even steal his bullet point format for low-stat, modern game NPC layout for games that I run (Chill, Delta Green).
My own personal thoughts on the organization.
I think they are a bit naive at times, and I suspect the money used in their campaigns could be better spent on other environmental issues.
For instance their anti-whaling activities in the southern ocean have mostly focused on preventing limited whaling on baleen whales that for the most part are actually recovering. In contrast, I don't see much more than petitions to help with the Vaquita, which is currently the most endangered marine mammal alive today (less than a hundred alive currently, down from 500+ in 1997). Presumably, Greenpeace (or Sea Shepherd for that matter) could have done far more good monitoring illegal gillnet fishing in the Gulf of California than they did harassing whaling ships over the last few decades.
I also think a lot of there reputation is unearned. Green Peace also tends to be the only quasi-confrontational environmental group most people can recall by name, so any ecoterrorism by any group tends to be linked with them in people's mind. For that matter, campaigns that backfire get more news coverage than their day to day operations.
Bill Hare:
So here we have a guy with essentially no credentials other than pushing climate change, who is an unabashed and long-term Greenpeace director. We'll recall that he was 6th listed of 8 lead authors for certain sections of certain IPCC reports back in '07. So, out of the three names listed as being associated with both, here's one that stands out. Granted, there's no way I see this one guy overriding his other seven colleagues (and everyone above them) to make the entire IPCC a Greenpeace puppet, but his involvement at any level does seem to represent something of a conflict of interest -- exactly the kind that spurred the IPCC conflict-of-interest rules that Pachauli alluded to.
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I'm actually devils advocating here -
Our records indicate that you have requested to play devil’s advocate for either “just a second here” or “just a minute here” over fourteen times in the last financial quarter. While we appreciate your enthusiasm, priority must be given to those who have not yet played the position. We would like to commend you for the excellent work you have done in the past year arguing for positions you have no real interest or stake in promoting.
The blogger that Aux linked to also calls out Gabriela von Goerne, Steve Sawyer, and Sven Teske as Greenpeace activists who have infiltrated the IPCC. Looking at that, their involvement with the IPCC was to be listed -- as Greenpeace members -- among 2,500 people who reviewed the IPCC WGIII Fourth Assessment Report. Not authors of the report, not contributors to the report, not members of the IPCC. People who, among thousands of others (including OPEC members!), read one of the IPCC reports before it was published.
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See what I mean, Irontruth?
All most of us want is for you to have some sort of proof or even a link to the information that you have. That is all. Without it, we have no way to verify what you say. I for one am willing to listen, if you can at least give me a reference point.
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I'm actually devils advocating here -..play devil’s advocate for...
Well, without someone at least attempting a devils advocate this thread just becomes another liberal circle jerk...and we can't have that.
You guys really like reading each clones posts that much?
Wait, don't answer that.
I did this with a drive-by alias.
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How 'bout a reality based Greenpeace controversy?
They're one of the biggest opponents of genetically modified foods. Good or bad?
Personally, I find their position on this ridiculous. Granted, Monsanto is clearly evil... but that doesn't change the fact that GMOs can be safely developed to provide vast health, environmental, and security benefits to the human race. If Greenpeace wants to protest Monsanto for unethical business practices, great. However, painting GMOs as 'dangerous' is anti environmental propaganda IMO. Every bit as bad as the global warming deniers... and hypocritical to boot coming from supposed eco-champions.
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Nearly every serious complaint that can conceivibly be leveled at GMOs is in fact, not a problem with GMOs, but with Intellectual property law and the behaviour of companies.
So here we have a guy with essentially no credentials other than pushing climate changeHe is a physicist with twenty-five years experience in climate science, impacts and policy responses to climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion
[cites huge list of papers pushing climate change]
Like I said.
Another example: I'm a huge fan of University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne. I've read his papers and books, follow his blog, corresponded with him from time to time. And when it comes to fruit fly speciation, he's the go-to guy; there's nobody I know of offhand who's done more or better research on that. If that becomes a major policy issue in the future, I'd have no problem with him being included on a panel. But it would be worth noting that his speciation work is now almost a sideline to his evolution vs. creationism advocacy, and that that's the angle he'd be approaching things from. I'm not deriding the guy -- far from it -- but I am saying that caveat would be potentially relevant. And if he's on a biology panel with Francis Collins, a devout born-again Christian (and past head of the Human Genome Project and current director of NIH), I'd feel like we had a pretty robust panel, in part because of their differences in viewpoints. Collins, who is unarguably a very efficient administrator and major figure, would in no way be bulldozed by Coyne.
So we have Hare, who also is hyper-specialized and championing a specific slant, as co-author with 7 other people, at least some of whom likely have a wider influence in the science world that eclipses his. I don't have a huge issue with his inclusion, despite his bias, specifically because he's not going to be dictating their stances.
Physics does cover things besides smashing atoms and looking for galaxies.
Sure it does. But Hare doesn't do anything else in physics except churning out variations of the same papers. All of his other efforts go to Greenpeace, not to any wider influence in the larger world of physics. So on a panel with a bunch of other physicists, he's not going to be the dominant voice. See edit above, re: J. Coyne.
In short, I'm making the case that, despite Hare's glaring and unmistakable bias, he's not going to be able to actively subvert the ICPP, so there may even be no need to look at potential conflicts of interest or whatever.
Everyone who's doing work in the sciences... generally does "one thing" For Einstein it was relativity, for Hawking, black holes. For Salk it was vaccines. This degree of specialisation is the norm.
See above, again. There's guys who never emerge from their labs, and there are people like Tyson who are leaders and major public figures. The former aren't going to run roughshod over the latter, which is sort of the important point here. And Einstein and Hawking, unlike Hare, were/are major public figures, beyond their lab work.
Put Hare on a panel with 7 other scientists, and he's not the one calling the shots, so his admitted bias becomes less important an issue.
Don't know if any of it is true (should be easy to check) and this article could just be part of the RW conspiracy/Conservative Bizarro world that has taken over these gaming forums.
The problem I have with an article like that, is it's basically claiming that because a guy worked for Greenpeace for X years, his science is no longer valid.
I get the argument that that might mean that person is biased, but when were talking about science, you need to prove that person's bias has influenced their work. Even better, you need to use science to show how their science was wrong. This is basically conjecture and supposition.
Everything he's claiming in the article might be 100% true, but it doesn't matter if the science that has been done is also true, which is something this article doesn't address. It talks about scientists, not science.
I'm all ears for hearing how Greenpeace or the IPCC got science wrong. All I've ever heard though is that their potential biases makes them untrustworthy, therefore we shouldn't bother to look at the science at all.
I really don't have any love for Greenpeace or the IPCC. Seriously, if information comes along that proves without a doubt that their science is bunk and they've been scamming us, I'm all in on storming their houses with torches. The problem is that no one ever debunks their science. Only their motives.
I know I'm going to have to repeat myself again and again, but I really have no interest in Greenpeace at all. I'm not a fanboy, I've never donated and I've always thought they were at best, slightly crazy. I've never read any of their literature, nor have I attended a rally or voted for anyone because they were endorsed by Greenpeace. It'd be hard for me to care less about these guys. They always struck me as a fringe radical group that was clamoring for attention more than trying to actually achieve anything.
I'm going to bookmark this post. In the future, I will respond to posts that claim I'm defending Greenpeace with a link to here. I think they're idiots and a%$~!!$s.
Nearly every serious complaint that can conceivibly be leveled at GMOs is in fact, not a problem with GMOs, but with Intellectual property law and the behaviour of companies.
Protein expression by organisms which have no normal regulatory pathways for those genes having the potential to result in unforseen and possibly dangerous outcomes; is an IP issue?
Nearly every serious complaint that can conceivibly be leveled at GMOs is in fact, not a problem with GMOs, but with Intellectual property law and the behaviour of companies.Protein expression by organisms which have no normal regulatory pathways for those genes having the potential to result in unforseen and possibly dangerous outcomes; is an IP issue?
Can you provide examples specific cases of this having happened, in a manner that could conseivably causes harm?
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It's worth noting that almost 98% of the human genome is non-coding. Humans are overwhelmingly GMO. And to return the favor, we've been intentionally genetically modifying organisms since the Neolithic.
Can you provide examples specific cases of this having happened, in a manner that could conseivably causes harm?Nearly every serious complaint that can conceivibly be leveled at GMOs is in fact, not a problem with GMOs, but with Intellectual property law and the behaviour of companies.Protein expression by organisms which have no normal regulatory pathways for those genes having the potential to result in unforseen and possibly dangerous outcomes; is an IP issue?
Times we have put genes into organisms that don't normally express them? Yea. How many do you want?
It's worth noting that almost 98% of the human genome is non-coding. Humans are overwhelmingly GMO. And to return the favor, we've been intentionally genetically modifying organisms since the Neolithic.
Evolution and even selective breeding (slavery, eugenics, et all) are a far cry from using a retrovirus to add genes into our expression matrix.
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Evolution [is] a far cry from using a retrovirus to add genes into our expression matrix.
I disagree. Most of the human genome is exactly that -- dead viruses. They may provide some resistance to similar viruses (much as we're often trying to do by inserting other ones into grain crops), but they have no physical expression on us. When our ancestors selectively bred wheat with other strains of wheat or even other plants altogether, they were doing more or less the same thing, except a lot more haphazardly.