India Environment Minister Slams UN Glacier Claims

India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh slammed the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) over evidence the UN based its claims that Himalayan glaciers are likely to disappear by the year 2035 solely on a flippant conversation with a single scientist, which was taken out of context.

"The IPCC claim that glaciers will vanish by 2035 was not based on an iota of scientific evidence," Environment Ministe

"The IPCC has to do a lot of answering on how it reached the 2035 figure, which created such a scare," Ramesh added.

Ramesh is certainly qualified to criticize the UN for its unsupported alarmism. In November 2009 the India Ministry of Environment and Forests published a comprehensive, 160-page scientific study concluding there is a lack of evidence that global warming is causing a retreat of Himalayan glaciers. After Ramesh unveiled the scientific study, IPCC Chair Raj Pachauri immediately went on the attack, calling the comprehensive study, performed by scientists with decades of experience studying Himalayan glaciers, “voodoo science.”

As it turns out, IPCC’s Himalayan glacier report did not even attain the standard of “voodoo science.” It was based on no science at all. Ramesh is right to feel vindicated by such a disclosure after Pachauri’s arrogant and vicious attack on real science.

"In fact, we had issued a report (by scientist V. K. Raina) that the glaciers have not retreated abnormally. That time we were dismissed, saying it was based on voodoo science. But the new report has clearly vindicated our position," Ramesh told reporters in New Delhi.