If you’ve never heard the name, Achim Steiner happens to be the executive director of the UN Environmental Program, which happens to be the sponsoring body of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. As you might expect, he’s got a vested interest in preserving the power of the IPCC, and so he tries to make an argument to keep its recommendations going in this Toronto Star essay.

Such an argument, in the face of all the evidence of errors, e-mail shenanigans, and everything else that permanently damaged the Panel’s credibility, is probably worth a closer look — if only to show why the IPCC’s supporters are sinking.

Shall we have a look at a couple of the logical fallacies he’s employing?

• The expert mass argument — this fallacy says “X amount of experts says statement A is true, therefore A is true.” There are two problems with this argument: (1) sometimes even a mass of experts can be wrong (see heavier-than-air flight, for example); and (2) sometimes the “experts” . . . aren’t. A WWF activist, for example, may know a lot about climate science, but his advocacy disqualifies him as a neutral voice.
• The extreme opposite examples argument — this fallacy tries to restore credibility through selective citation of examples which may be more in line with popular expectations. The problem with this one is that it deliberately fails to address those points that brought the Panel’s report into disrepute in the first place.

Bottom line: Mr. Steiner’s argument isn’t going to change the popular mind about whether the science is settled or not. It sounds very much like the sputtering defence of a bureaucrat who knows he’s on a losing horse, but has to say something — anything — to save a rapidly disappearing face.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 17:27 and is filed under Environment, Fisking Exercises, International. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.