Alec Rawls Leaks IPCC Report: But How Did He Get the Document in the First Place?

There is a bit of a twitter, figuratively and literally, about a leak of a draft report of the Intergovern-mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The final report is due out next year, but this draft was leaked yesterday.

The leaker is a man named Alec Rawls, who is the son of the prominent American philosopher John Rawls. The way he got a hold of the document was to sign up to be one of the 800 expert reviewers of the document.

To be an expert reviewer for an IPCC report, don’t you have to be an expert? How was Rawls vetted to be one of the select persons entrusted to work on this report? As far as I can tell, he isn’t a scientist or someone who has worked on climate issues. On his Linkedin account he says of himself that he is an “Independent Writing and Editing Professional.” (The bit of writer and editor in me wants to correct this to “Independent Writer and Editor,” but that’s another matter.)

            He also lists himself as being self-employed at Rawls Industries, which he says he has owned for over 57 years. If his photo is any indication of his age, he’s had his nose to the grindstone since he was in diapers. I didn’t look long in Google, but I found no trace of a company named Rawls Industries that has been in business for over 50 years.

            He wrote a book, Crescent of Betrayal, that is, well, a little loony. I haven’t read the book, but the summary on Amazon indicates that it is about the memorial in Pennsylvania for the persons who died on flight 93 in September of 2001 and describes the book as showing “how every major element of the proposed ‘Crescent of Embrace’ memorial design is in fact a typical mosque feature, built on an epic scale.” I imagine that I’ll get around to reading it while Elvis flies me around area 51 in a black helicopter.

            As many are pointing out, Rawls, as well as others on the attack the climate science bandwagon, is pinning his hopes of bringing down climate science, or at least the IPCC, on a single sentence that might be construed as implying a greater contribution to global warming from solar flares. The science of climate change and the work of the IPCC stand on their own, and I don’t need to go into that here and now.

            But holy guacamole! Before you’re allowed on a prestigious panel to review a very important document, shouldn’t somebody at least take a look at your Linkedin account and figure out whether or not you have any qualifications to review drafts? Maybe check to see if you have any degrees? See if you’ve ever done any work that would qualify you as somebody competent to work on the IPCC’s report? Maybe just a brief check to see that you haven’t written an entire book that should be shelved in the fantasy section of the library?