In a previous post I drew attention to the misleading exaggerated claims about climate change made by the Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Mark Walport in a talk to the public.
Well, he’s at it again. In an interview for the Glasgow Science Centre, he says that there is absolutely no doubt about man-made climate change, and that there is a “dramatic change” caused by human carbon emissions. He uses the vague and scientifically meaningless term “climate disruption” and says “we are seeing more drought”.
In the IPCC AR5 WG1 Summary for Policymakers, Table SPM1 says that there is low confidence in any global change in droughts. In fact the IPCC says that droughts have increased in some areas but decreased in others, and that the AR4 claims about increasing droughts were probably overstated.
Why has our Chief Scientific Adviser not even read the latest IPCC SPM?
What can you expect? He’s a geneticist and should just keep his clap shut. in contrast, most skeptics are engineers & scientists with solid climate-relevant degrees like Physics and Chemistry.
Maybe he’s read it and just doesn’t care to be accurate. You are assuming (1) good faith and (2) commitment to scientific rigor, on his part. Normally I expect these also from such a prominent scientist and top advisor to the govt. In this case, I wouldn’t assume either (no offense intended to you).
You are too polite to call say he “misleads” the public. In my book he is deliberately lying. A CSA should be called to book for deliberately lying.
I’m not sure whether he is deliberately being misleading or not. I suspect he is being fed a lot of hype by activist advisers.
Tamsin Edwards says she knows someone at the Government Office for Science and she has contacted them about some of these questions.