By Paul Homewood
https://www.ippr.org/research/publications/age-of-environmental-breakdown
As we now know, the BBC has now withdrawn claims in their original report last month, based on the above IPPR paper, that since 2005, the number of floods across the world has increased by 15 times, extreme temperature events by 20 times, and wildfires seven-fold.
The BBC has also added this update:
This does raise the intriguing question who blinked first, the BBC or IPPR.
But let’s see just how the IPPR have changed their report:
This is how the Summary compares:
BEFORE
AFTER
And in the detailed section, on P13:
BEFORE
AFTER
Despite the much greater elaboration in the new version, the difference between the two is quite stunning.
The original gave an almost cataclysmic account of how climate change was wrecking the environment. The new effectively states no more than these facts:
1) That summers are a bit hotter, (but unmentioned is that winters, springs and autumns are less cold, probably a good thing on balance)
2) Droughts are less pervasive in North America than they used to be.
Hardly apocalyptic!
There are, and will always be, regional variations in climate. But there is no evidence that the ones we have seen in recent decades have anything to do with global warming at all.
In short, the original paper claimed climate change as one of its main causes of “environmental breakdown”, the others being extinctions and topsoil loss.
That argument has now been destroyed.
Laughably they now describe the whole basis for their absurd extreme weather claims as “a quick survey”.
If they have really based a large chunk of their paper on a “quick survey”, it hardly inspires much confidence in the rest of it!
But maybe we ought to check one of their other main assertions, that 30% of the world’s arable land has become unproductive:
Strange that, because according to the UN’s own figures from FAOSTAT, the area harvested for crops has been at record highs lately:
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#compare
As for “unproductive”, the actual figured speak for themselves:
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#compare
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the IPPR paper is little more than an incompetent attempt to spin dodgy data in support of a left wing political agenda.
Whatever its motivation, its credibility is clearly holed below the waterline, and the whole thing should now be formally retracted, before it does any more damage to the IPPR’s reputation.
As for those incompetent authors, the IPPR now need to seriously consider whether they can afford to continue to employ them any longer.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
March 2, 2019 at 04:12PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 