Heartland Institute: Audit of IPCC Procedures ‘a Vindication’ But ‘Too Modest’

Published August 31, 2010

The Amsterdam-based InterAcademy Council (IAC), a scientific body asked to audit UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) procedures, has determined the IPCC has improperly crossed the line of policy advocacy, is not transparent enough, is prone to conflicts of interest, and has made numerous alarmist assertions that are not supported by the scientific record. IAC recommends structural reforms to fix IPCC’s flaws before IPCC’s next report, due in 2014.

The Heartland Institute for years has led criticism of the IPCC’s determination to put politics over scientific rigor to promote the dubious theory of man-made global warming. Heartland has hosted four international climate conferences, established the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), and produced and distributed millions of copies of reports, videos and books – including the 800-page Change Reconsidered, the only comprehensive critique of the latest IPCC report, published in 2009.

You may quote directly from these statements, or for more information contact Tammy Nash ([email protected]) or Jim Lakely ([email protected]) at 312/377-4000.


“The InterAcademy Council report is too modest in its call for reform of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but it is a vindication of what authors affiliated with The Heartland Institute have been saying for the past 15 years. It is unfortunate that it took the academic community so long to recognize and admit the flaws in the IPCC process that led it to commit the greatest corruption of science in the past hundred years.

“Spokespersons associated with The Heartland Institute have been disputing the alarmist claims of the IPCC since 1995. When our perspective was censored by the mainstream media, we circumvented them by distributing accurate information directly to approximately 200,000 of the nation’s policymakers and opinion leaders. During the past five years, Heartland produced and distributed millions of copies of books, videos, and reports and hosted four international conferences on climate change. In 2009, Heartland published Climate Change Reconsidered, an 800-page report written by 38 scientists from more than a dozen countries and containing more than 4,000 references to articles in peer-reviewed journals.

“Opinion polls and recent political events reveal our efforts have paid off: Most people don’t believe global warming is man-made or will be a disaster. Cap and trade is politically dead now and perhaps for years to come. The great global warming delusion is unwinding, and soon it will be largely forgotten. In this context, the InterAcademy Council report is a small but significant step toward sanity.”

Joseph L. Bast
President
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000

“For three years now, scientists at The Heartland Institute’s International Conferences on Climate Change have been documenting IPCC flaws. It is good to see that somebody is listening.

“Until and unless there are fundamental reforms that eliminate the IPCC’s culture of narrow-minded alarmism, politically driven reports, and open hostility to the kind of fact-checking necessitated by the scientific method, the IPCC will remain nothing more than a United Nations propaganda machine. Let’s hope the IAC report motivates such necessary reforms.”

James M. Taylor
Senior Fellow, Environment Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
941/776-5690

The Heartland Institute is a national non-profit research and educational organization based in Chicago, Illinois. For more information, visit the following Web sites:

www.heartland.org
www.globalwarmingheartland.org
www.environmentandclimate-news.org
www.nipccreport.org