Sixteen years ago, on this day, August 30th, 2010,
2010 InterAcademy Council report on IPCC
Microsoft Word – IAC Review of IPCC_prepub.doc
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 390ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the credibility of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change had been going on for quite a while. See, for example, the spectacular efforts around the second assessment report and the work of Ben Santer.
The specific context was that in the run up to the Copenhagen Climate Conference of the Parties in 2009 there had been a hack, presumably by Russians or paid Russian hackers of the University of East Anglia’s emails. This was the so-called “Climategate” scandal, an enormous nothing burger where individual comments were taken out of context. Meanwhile, efforts were made to go through all of the IPCC reports and find whatever weaknesses and errors could be found, this all pushed the Inter Academy Council to do an assessment of the IPCC, which was released on this day.
What I think we can learn from this is the attacks on science by people who proclaim the importance of the scientific method and Western civilization, blah blah, are unrelenting, sometimes quite sophisticated, and – for those who want to believe them – quite effective.
What happened next Attacks on the IPCC still happen, but frankly, the IPCC will go on producing assessment reports until the waters close over our heads, apparently the seventh assessment report is finally going to have some social science in there. Whoopsie do, because most of the social science around climate change that I’ve read is frankly misbegotten, which raises the question, Why aren’t I writing some of it myself, and then heading off to Stockholm for my Nobel prizes?
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
August 30, 1971 – Bob Carr (ex- NSW premier) ‘gets’ climate change
August 30, 1975 – The Science Show does climate change…
August 30, 1986 – Adelaide warned about climate change by Environment Minister Don Hopgood
August 30, 1989 – A global tax on emissions?!
August 30, 1990 -Australian diplomats (probably) tried to water down IPCC recommendations
August 30, 1998 – Fourth International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies