My apologies. Shouldn't have assumed you were the one who downvoted.
> Therefore tend to side with what looks like the better science.
But the point is that the science is highly suspect. When scientists on the IPCC break rank and make themselves pariahs, virtually ruining their careers, that should tell you something.
Reading these two you will see two very different approaches, which reflects much of the debate I see on these subjects, including some of your comments.
The NIPCC report is openly political opening with a complaint about Obama's treatment of climate change as a serious issue. It talks about circumstantial evidence, debate amongst scientists, and has a petition organised to collect signatures. (This apparently gathers signatures from 31,478 scientists of which only 9,021 have PhDs.)
The IPCC report is filled with detailed diagrams and explanations of the science behind global warming. The approach generally seems sensible to someone like me with some understanding of the scientific method, although I am not qualified to analyse in depth. I am sure anybody reading it would learn something about the climate and how we can analyse it.
Now I don't follow the political debate on whether the IPCC is biased by funding or some other supposed disincentives for scientists to report truthfully. On the other hand I do see that there is less obvious evidence of political bias from reading the published reports. If someone wanted to understand the science it is fairly clear to me the IPCC report would be a much better starting point than the NIPCC report.
There are some very clear incentives to "break rank", as you put it. There are significant financial incentives for people who stand to lose from climate change mitigation, for example in the oil industry, to fund people to investigate the case against climate change. Again, I don't really feel in a good position to judge who is right and who is wrong here, but I would expect if the scientific case was highly suspect as you'd say that people would have funded equally convincing scientific reports on the other side. The fact that I haven't been able to find such reports suggests to me that there is not a convincing case against the science to be made.
(Edit: also I suspect the politicisation of climate change debate and the bureaucratic process of the IPCC probably means that the science is less effective than it might otherwise be, and that the communication of this science is less convincing than it could be, to the detriment of the quality of the public debates. As I mentioned in another comment it's quite painful to link to the IPCC report and they prevent people from redistributing it without permission, meaning the format is basically fixed in an unhelpful set of massive PDFs. Sad!)
It's interesting that you cite the NIPCC report, but then downplay it as merely political and circumstantial. And since it has a petition, it must be biased, or much moreso than the IPCC report.
Yet, scanning through the 135-page NIPCC report, I see plenty of "diagrams and explanations of the science," which you noted in the IPCC report. Why, then, do you dismiss it out-of-hand?
> Now I don't follow the political debate on whether the IPCC is biased by funding or some other supposed disincentives for scientists to report truthfully.
This is my entire point. It is absolutely crucial. You can ignore it if you want, but you are missing the full picture, and therefore cannot accurately assess the claims of both sides.
> On the other hand I do see that there is less obvious evidence of political bias from reading the published reports.
I guess you meant "the published IPCC reports." I should think that, if any group wanted to push their political view under the guise of science, they would certainly take care to make their reports appear apolitical. Making your judgment based solely on their own word would be like a judge asking a defendent, "Did you do it? No? Okay, you're free to go." You have to corroborate outside evidence to make a reasonable judgment.
> If someone wanted to understand the science it is fairly clear to me the IPCC report would be a much better starting point than the NIPCC report.
Again, the NIPCC report appears to explain much science as well, so it seems unreasonable for you to dismiss it while holding to the IPCC report.
> There are significant financial incentives for people who stand to lose from climate change mitigation, for example in the oil industry, to fund people to investigate the case against climate change.
You're right. And by the same token, there are significant financial incentives for people who stand to lose from not engaging in mitigation. These range from individual climatologists who have built their entire careers on studying the "crisis" of CAGW (if it were determined that there were no risk, what would their careers have accomplished? What would they do next?), to corporations selling "green" energy products and carbon credits, to politicians who are using "climate change" to effect their political goals. For example, Christine Figueres, UN executive of the Framework Convention on Climate Change, recently stated:
This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution. This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.
Her stated goal here is not to mitigate the potential risks of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (which might or might not necessarily entail changing the fundamental economic model of the world), but to transform the world's economic model. This is explicitly a political goal, not a scientific one. The cart (politics) is leading the horse (science).
> I would expect if the scientific case was highly suspect as you'd say that people would have funded equally convincing scientific reports on the other side. The fact that I haven't been able to find such reports suggests to me that there is not a convincing case against the science to be made.
This depends entirely on how much effort you have put into finding them and your criteria for "equally convincing." In fact, many scientists have found such convincing reports--as you yourself noted, at least 9,000 PhD-holding scientists, and about 21,000 non-PhD-holding scientists, who, by your own admission, are more qualified to judge than you. Therefore, how can you so easily dismiss one side of the argument?
I appreciate your being reasonable in the discussion. Thanks.
Contrary to what you say, I am not looking to downplay the NIPCC report, and have only skim read it and the IPCC report. The reason I mention that it is the best example of a report summarising the case against climate change. It does talk about politics and whether evidence is circumstantial, the IPCC report does not - this does not mean I believe one report is objectively better than the other.
The level of scientific content is significantly less than the IPCC report, although I agree there is some and had I more time to review would certainly be interested to look in more detail. It is reactive to the IPCC report and at a first reading the IPCC report looks significantly more robust and extensive in its coverage. I am open to be convinced otherwise, but based on my (subjective) reading I still find the NIPCC to have a lower quality and depth of scientific reasoning than the IPCC.
Incidentally, the main reason I am dismissive about the petition is that accuracy in science is not the result of a popularity contest. All the scientists I know personally certainly have much more than a PhD, so I am sceptical about the qualifications of the petitioners here. Some no doubt are more qualified than me, however a petition is hardly the way to demonstrate their expertise! In any case I am surprised if there are more convincing reports that these have not been more thoroughly publicised.
As you say, it would be better for the NIPCC people to make their report apolitical, if the problem is really about the science. If it is about the politics then the strongest way to improve their case against climate change would be to improve the science on their side.
Regarding whether the science leads or the politics leads, it is clear to me that both are important. My response highlighted that some of the political problems that you speak about are evidence of likely flaws in the way that the science is done. However, I do not believe that these are fundamental issues. I believe more science rather than less science is the way forward. I totally acknowledge there are incentives on both sides (even if the science should prove to be completely wrong), however it is probably worth remembering that many climatologists are likely highly trained and employable even if climate research funding decreases.
Now even if you feel the science is suspect in parts, I assume you would not want to throw away all of it? It is clear that something is happening to the climate - lack of ice in the arctic being one example, but others such as death of corals in the Great Barrier Reef being another. We also have political choices on how much funding to give to research and economic reform. We live in a polluted world, and it appears very much in our interests to fund research into ways to mitigate climate change and reduce pollution.
I can see that debate on this can be productive, and I would prefer a more open debate than is currently possible. However, this does appear to me to be an area where we are probably underfunding rather than overfunding the scientific (and political!) debate. The consequences of climate change if it proves to be close to the scientific consensus are horrendous, and really one of the most critical issues facing the planet. The benefits of much of the mitigation strategies are large regardless of the science.
> Therefore tend to side with what looks like the better science.
But the point is that the science is highly suspect. When scientists on the IPCC break rank and make themselves pariahs, virtually ruining their careers, that should tell you something.