Can the IPCC speak with academic authority?

If you read my post a few days ago on strange goings on at the BBC, you may remember that Jo Abbess, the climate activist, had various quite eye-catching things to say. This in one of them:

Several networks exist that question whether global
warming has peaked, but they contain very few actual scientists, and
the scientists that they do contain are not climate scientists so have
no expertise in this area.

The view that only scientists – and climate scientists at that – can express valid opinions on global warming is common among warmists. Or it is when anyone outside the charmed circle on which the IPCC smiles criticises research or asks awkward questions. And there are so many questions to ask, about predictions of future climate derived from computer models, the role that water vapour plays in controlling atmospheric temperature or what influence the sun has on natural climate variation. It is all too easy to dismiss unwelcome arguments by belittling the questioner’s qualifications in the hope that no one will notice that the substance of what is being said has not been considered at all.

This is very strange when you think about it. Do you really need to have a degree in economics to ask perfectly rational, and perhaps even perceptive, questions about the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s budget? Should patients with no medical training be completely uncritical of the treatment that they receive from doctors? Do you need a degree in sports management to assess the chances of Manchester United winning the FA cup? But one is expected to believe that climate science is different, a world in which only initiates should be listened to or believed. And where your qualifications are more important than what you say.

Some unkind souls at the Climate Audit Message Board have been doing research of their own, not into the causes of global warming, but into the qualifications of some of the people at the very top in the strange world of climate change. These are the results:

On another site, the “qualification” of global warming skeptics was raised.

These required qualification in physics, “climate science”, or a related field in order to have a relevant voice in the climate debate [the warmists say].

But how about the very top of the IPCC?

Here we have as Chair: Rajendra K. Pachauri, PhD in Industrial Engineering and Economics.

We also have 3 Vice-Chairs:
Richard Odingo (Kenya), graduate degree in Geography
Mohan Munasinghe (Sri Lanka), Engineering, PhD in Physics, Economics
Yuri A.Izrael (Russia), PhD in Physics, Climate Science

Courtesy of Maxa

And then this:

Yvo De Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Committee on Climate Change has “a technical degree in social work”.

Courtesy of Audrey Levin.

What more can one say?