I’ve had a brief series of posts that I collectively call helpful tips for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). They’ve included Really, Benny Peiser, Really?, Come on, Andrew, you can get this, and Matt Ridley, you seem a little too certain!. Mainly they’ve focused on situations where people associated with the GWPF have managed to mangle some bit of science. Given their focus, you might expect them to do better, but considering who’s on their Academic Advisory Council it’s no surprise that they mostly get it wrong.
The latest saga is, however, a bit more concerning, given that it is something that you might expect a policy foundation to understand. If you’re going to launch an International Temperature Data Review Project there are a couple of things you might consider before actually doing so. Is there actually something to review? Will you get submissions that are worth considering? The answer to the first question is almost certainly no. The answer to the second is almost certainly yes, some will be worth considering, but they’ll be mostly telling us we’re wasting our time; the rest will be from utter nutjobs.
So, the problem with such a review is that you’ll probably end up having to wimp out, given that publishing something that essentially says, we wasted our, and everyone else’s, time is probably not worth doing. As Stoat points out, you don’t really expect much from the GWPF, so complaining is not really worth the effort. I certainly don’t expect them to be honest, but utterly incompetent was a bit of a surprise. It’s one thing to be a policy foundation that misrepresents science so as to support your preferred narrative, it’s another to be one that does so in a way that make you seem completely out of touch with reality.
Come on, at least behave in a way that makes it worth people putting some effort into criticising you. Noone’s going to bother if it becomes patently obvious that you’re a bunch of incompetent buffoons. At least have some self-respect!
