Andrew Bolt Reveals Stupidity Again. Millions Unsurprised.

EoR recently noted how Andrew Bolt loves to cherry pick and quote mine to support his contention that global warming was created by a sinister cadre of only a handful of scientists.

EoR noted how a single, out of context sentence, had gone viral on the denialosphere and how, in actuality, it didn't support the deniers' plaintive wailings at all.

Now the author of that in-press review has now issued a 'correction and clarification':

Three things should be clear from this. First, I did not say the ‘IPCC misleads’ anyone – it is claims that are made by other commentators, such as the caricatured claim I offer in the paper, that have the potential to mislead. Second, they have a potential to mislead if they give the impression that every statement in IPCC reports is ‘signed off’ by every IPCC author and reviewer. Patently they are not, and cannot. Third, it is the chapter lead authors – say 10 to 20 experts - on detection and attribution who craft the sentence about detection and attribution, which is then scrutinised and vetted by reviewers and government officials. Similarly, statements about what may happen to the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) of the ocean are crafted by those expert in ocean science, statements about future sea-level rise by sea-level experts, and so on.

The point of this bit of our article was to draw attention to the need for a more nuanced understanding of what an IPCC ‘consensus’ is – as I say: “Without a careful explanation about what it means, this drive for consensus can leave the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism.” The IPCC consensus does not mean – clearly cannot possibly mean – that every scientist involved in the IPCC process agrees with every single statement in the IPCC! Some scientists involved in the IPCC did not agree with the IPCC’s projections of future sea-level. Giving the impression that the IPCC consensus means everyone agrees with everyone else – as I think some well-meaning but uninformed commentaries do (or have a tendency to do) – is unhelpful; it doesn’t reflect the uncertain, exploratory and sometimes contested nature of scientific knowledge.

Mike Hulme, Norwich
15 June 2010

It would be curmudgeonly of EoR to note that all climate deniers appear to agree with every single faked 'fact' promoted by people like Andrew Bolt. So he won't. And why are they ignoring the real threat to humanity?