Although it is encouraging that the
Royal Society now acknowledges that climate science may not be as settled as it previously implied, the Society’s new report still stands as an embarrassment to science because it fails to offer justifications based on science (and policy analysis) for a number of its (politically correct) statements.
First, it claims in its opening sentence, “Changes in climate have significant implications for present lives, for future generations and for ecosystems on which humanity depends.” But two paragraphs later it acknowledges that, “[T]he impacts of climate change … are not considered here.” Hence, the RS has no scientific (or other basis) for this claim. At most it could say, “ALTHOUGH WE DID NOT CONSIDER THEIR IMPACTS, changes in climate COULD have significant implications for present lives…, IF SUCH CHANGES ARE VERY LARGE.” [Suggested INSERTIONS in the RS’s original language are in UPPERCASE letters.]
For the same reason, the RS’s statement in the very last paragraph (number 59), “However, the potential impacts of climate change are sufficiently serious that important decisions will need to be made”, is unsupported by any evidence.
Equally embarrassing are statements regarding the cause (or attribution) for recent warming. In paragraph 2, it states, “There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity.” But we are talking climate, not weather, and half a century doesn’t even span a one full cycle of the AMO or PDO, nor does it span the length of the Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period, or other historical periods of climatic change.
Click source to read FULL report from Indur M. Goklany