Stern vs Science

Some revealing quotations in an excellent BBC Radio investigation into the Stern Report:

The IPCC is not going to talk about tipping points; it’s not going to talk about 5m rises in sea level; it’s not going to talk about the next ice age because the Gulf Stream collapses; and it’s going to have none of the economics of the Stern Review. It’s almost as if a credibility gap has emerged between what the British public thinks and what the international science community think.
–Mike Hulme, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

Nick Stern: “We’ve drawn on the basic science. We have not tried to do new scientific research. We’re not scientists.”

Simon Cox (BBC): “I just wonder why your figures are differrent if you’ve just drawn from the existing literature, why your figures would be different from the IPCC”?

Nick Stern: “The IPCC is a good process, but it has to depend on consensus. It means that they have to be quite cautious in what they say.”

So Stern has admitted he went beyond the Holy Writ of consensus. It seems it is okay to ignore the scientific consensus as long as you do so from the alarmist and not the skeptical perspective. The fact that Stern has been given a free pass is indicative of the squalid state of the debate. Well done to the BBC for calling him on it.