When I were a lad, the WWF was something to keep me entertained of a Saturday morning: heavily-muscled, strangely-attired and occasionally masked American men throwing each other around in something called “wrestling”. Apparently, things have moved on, there are now some attractive young ladies indulging in eyebrow-raising activities* as part of this “sport” and the WWF has become the WWE, because the World Wildlife Foundation objected to sharing an acronym with charlatans who took something reputable and cheapened it by faking everything, including the results, for a ripped-off audience.

I couldn’t ladle on the irony any more heavily if I tried, though:

A new study, funded by Nasa, has found that the most serious drought in the Amazon for more than a century had little impact on the rainforest’s vegetation.

The findings appear to disprove claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest could react drastically to even a small reduction in rainfall and could see the trees replaced by tropical grassland.

The IPCC has already faced intense criticism for using a report by environmental lobby group WWF as the basis for its claim, which in turn had failed to cite the original source of the research.

So, another ludicrous alarmist claim made under the banner of the United Nations’ increasingly ludicrous “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”, alleged to be “settled science”, turns out to be nothing more than the posturings of a bunch of chancers on the make.

I wonder which of the world’s leaders will eventually call a halt to this charade, claiming that the IPCC needs to go back to square one and start again.

And I wonder whether the IPCC will, in the meantime, be calling on the WWE for its “research”. At least that would be more honest and much more entertaining!

*This does come with a public health warning!

1
blastproof@rocketmail.com March 19, 2010 at 17:19

“‘Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so.’ He has also criticized the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a group of politicized scientists with one-sided opinions and one-sided assignments. ” Václav Klaus, Czech president

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Klaus#Critique_of_anthropogenic_global_warming

2
Antisthenes March 19, 2010 at 18:16

The case for global warming becomes less credible by the day as each inaccuracy and falsehood is exposed. Yet the west, the EU in particular, plow on regardless with their green energy policies. The cost of implementing these policies are not even warranted even if global warming is a fact, which given the contradictory evidence to date is far from certain. Assuming global warming is true, at this point in time we do not know and have no way of knowing if it will lead to some catastrophic disaster or may even be beneficial. Making provision for a worse case scenario could in itself lead to a disaster; economic meltdown and impoverishment of the very people it is supposed to protect. Being more energy efficient and husbanding resources has it’s obvious merits and policies to encourage that are understandable and readily acceptable, going off half-cocked is not. The Chinese in their wisdom and their civilisation has many thousands more years to develop that wisdom than the rest of us are being more pragmatic and using our over enthusiastic embracing of all things green to their advantage.

How often have we seen the unpleasant consequences of making a mountain out of a mole hill? Let us not make the west even more economically unviable than it already is via vie the developing countries by pouring the tax payers money at problems that may or may not exist that have no knowable outcome.

3
blastproof@rocketmail.com March 19, 2010 at 18:40

Remember when we were all being warned of the “New Ice Age” in the 70s? Also in the 70s I saw Olivier’s Richard III on a field trip to Bosworth Field; in an introduction to the film, Olivier (on screen) commented that England was a much warmer place in the 15th century than in the 20th so the location chosen for the battle scene was a parched stretch of pasture in Spain.

4
Joe Public March 19, 2010 at 18:42

IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel for Conning Consumers.

5
Richard B March 19, 2010 at 19:50

“charlatans who took something reputable and cheapened it by faking everything, including the results, for a ripped-off audience.”

I’ve never watched WWF wrestling, but I did watch a small amount in the 60s, and if that was reputable, and the results fair, I’m a small alien from the planet Tharg. Jackie Pallo, Giant Haystacks, Big Daddy, Kendo Nagasaki – scripted, choreographed and pre-arranged, every one. Good fun, but hardly a beacon of rectitude for ‘chalatans’ to cheapen.

Personally, I think they should have stuck with WWF. It would have made for some interesting misunderstandings. Especially with the panda.

6
Richard B March 19, 2010 at 19:51

Oh, and by the way, lovely view. Thank you.

7
Dick Puddlecote March 19, 2010 at 23:17

Superb picture, Thaddeus!

What was it you were talking about, again?

8
Thaddeus J. Wilson March 19, 2010 at 23:58

I forget.

9
Dave H. March 20, 2010 at 10:02

What the last three said.