Compare & Contrast

The claim --

IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri defending the reliability of the IPCC report in early 2008:

Given that it is all on the basis of peer-reviewed literature. I'm not sure there is any better process that anyone could have followed.

Pachauri on the same subject in late 2009:

IPCC studies only peer-review science. Let someone publish the data in a decent credible publication. I am sure IPCC would then accept it, otherwise we can just throw it into the dustbin.

The reality --

A "citizen audit" by NoConsensus.org examined all 18,531 references cited in the 2007 IPCC report. Their findings released last week said:

A team of 43 volunteers from 12 countries examined the list of references at the end of each chapter. We sorted these references into two groups -- articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals and other references. (Non-peer-reviewed material is often called "grey literature".) Then we calculated the percentage of references that do, indeed, appear to be peer-reviewed. . .

21 out of 44 chapters contain so few peer-reviewed references that the IPCC received an F. The IPCC relied on peer-reviewed literature less than 60 percent of the time in these chapters.

5,587 references in the IPCC report were not peer-reviewed. Among these documents are press releases, newspaper and magazine articles, discussion papers, MA and PhD theses, working papers, and advocacy literature published by environmental groups.

The conclusion --

The IPCC report isn't as advertised--even Senator Boxer now eschews it. It's at least 40 percent advocacy, not science. The only science that's settled is that the science isn't settled.

(via Planet Gore)