IPCC Chair Seeks Asbestos Bath for Critics

Raj Pachauri, the embattled head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), shocked global warming analysts yesterday when he told reporters he wished IPCC critics would rub asbestos on their faces every day.

“They are the same people who deny the link between smoking and cancer,” said Pachauri. “They are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder – and I hope they put it on their faces every day.”

IPCC is supposed to be a dispassionate, highly professional organization of global warming experts examining scientific data with the highest possible objectivity. Pachauri’s stated desire to see IPCC critics suffer bodily harm is yet another in a long list of IPCC scandals and appalling behavior that have come to light in recent months.

In the wake of climategate, glaciergate, Amazongate, fundinggate, and other recent IPCC scandals, Pachauri’s position is now clearly untenable. Replacing Pachauri, however, will do nothing to change the scandalous and biased IPCC culture if deep, fundamental reforms do not take place. Indeed, it could well be argued that IPCC itself is no longer salvageable.

University of Arizona climate science researcher William Sprigg, who headed the internal technical review of IPCC’s first report, has called for the creation of an alternative body of objective experts that does not marginalize “skeptic” participation, that is outside United Nations control, and that can serve as a respected alternative voice for global warming research. Dr. Sprigg does not count himself as a global warming “skeptic,” and his call for an alternative scientific body is a breath of fresh air that may help end the negative spiral of nastiness and unscientific behavior among a significant portion of the global warming research community.