Amazon recommended The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert, by Donna Laframboise, to me. That is, their algorithm picked the book as one they thought they could convince me to buy from them. They were right. Fair enough. I bought it as a Kindle download, and paid $4.99 for it. I hope the author gets $4.98 of it, as she deserves it. It is a remarkable research and organizational effort. Proper words of praise are elusive.
I was at first puzzled by the title. I knew what she was referring to, but it did seem hyperbolic, or at least "cute." After reading it, I'm not sure what else she could have called it.
We all already had learned that the IPCC (as a UN sponsored agency) had a controlling political agenda, and suffered the usual bureaucratic ineptitude. We also knew they had some amateurs (how many times did we hear "newly minted PhD" with reference to Mann). We also understood their use of a cherry-picking selection of sources of information, their hostile approach to non-conforming reviewers and papers, and a penchant for some rather absurd interpretations. They first of all were just not doing very good science. And we suspected that many in the IPCC (to include their apparent comic-relief-porn-writing chairman!) were working for their own self aggrandizement as well as likely their own fame and fortune.
But was it all a teen-age "Dog and Pony Show" gone bad? Apparently so.
The author has written a scholarly tour de force. Without her going too far into the details, it is extremely well organized and documented (with the links in the electronic version making it twice as valuable in this regard).
One minor quibble. Donna Laframboise (like many authors discussing the politics and manipulations of the alarmists rather than the science), perhaps underestimates her own well-developed critical thinking skills relative to the lack of same in the general opposition. As such I don't think that the issue of so many of the IPCC writers (reviewers - not doing original science) being shallow in their credentials is as important as the fact that they were poorly selected, often selected from NGO's with stated agendas, and just did a lousy job. Similarly, in regard to peer-review or lack thereof, the issue is whether or not the paper is conscientiously and honestly crafted, and not how it was (or was not) vetted. Much remarkable material is not peer-reviewed (like Matt Ridley's recent RSA lecture). So less regard for credentials and more for substance - please - to paraphrase of all people, Noam Chomsky. I think the point is that it was the IPCC author's near total disregard for the essential function of the comments of the expert reviewers that is the main damning point.
The author's harsh criticism of the IPCC is clearly valid. We had previously sensed their agenda trumping the scientific facts (a conniving pursuit of their political agenda at the expense of logic), and a characteristic (adult-level!) reluctance to change one's mind and admit error. The perspective offered here, of a support framework of a stereotypical "teen-ager-like" approach to insouciantly doing a job, is, I think, new.
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4.7 out of 5
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A very important investigative report on the facts underlying the many myths of the IPCC
Unlike reviewers Gleick and Bowles above, I have actually read "The Delinquent Teenager ...". First, in the interest of full disclosure, I am one who was privileged to read Donna's early and final drafts (as well as one whose own work has been cited in the book).One cannot over-estimate the importance of this book in addressing the shortcomings of far too many so-called science journalists (and other media mavens) who have been content to let the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) rest on its self-anointed laurels for far too many years.Until this book, far too many questions about the IPCC had been unasked - by far too many influential people. Donna has asked these questions, and meticulously researched the answers, which she presents in an eminently readable (and easily verifiable) fashion.As Prof. Ross McKitrick observed in his pre-publication review: "Donna Laframboise shows that the IPCC's actual operations bear little resemblance to its public reputation ... far from being an open network of top experts it has turned itself into a narrow clique of like-minded activists ... [The IPCC's] reports have come to be more like agenda-driven propaganda than competent, objective scientific assessments."A copy of "The Delinquent Teenager ..." should be placed on the bookshelf (electronic or otherwise) of every scientist, politician and government functionary who has (unwittingly or not) ever relied on the authority of the IPCC's assessment reports.
Top reviews from other countries
akagypsy
Climate alarmists are politicians NOT scientists
Reviewed in Canada on June 16, 2020Dr Brian JM Timms
Everybody should read this book
Reviewed in Australia on November 12, 2021
SteffenH
Weltklimarat: Expertengremium oder ungezogener Teenager?
Reviewed in Germany on October 17, 2011