IPCC Report: Science or propaganda?

Hardly anybody who reads newspapers or blogs will have missed the news that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published this week the first volume of its 4th assessment report on climate change. The IPCC tells its visitors that more that 2500 export reviewers were involved, that more that 800 authors and that more that 450 lead authors form more than 130 countries contributed to the report which took 6 years to complete.
I was wondering whether there really are climate change researchers in more than 130 countries, but that is a minor point. The German weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" pointed at a major flaw of the report.
The large number of scientists who are involved in drafting the report could be taken as an indiaction that the IPCC-report is a scientific report. This it is not because its lacks political independence. First, the scientists who contribute to the report have been selected by governments. More importantly, however, the "summaries for policymakers", writes "Die Zeit", are drafted by committees consisting of government reps and juristis, and scientists also. What gets published in the summaries must pass muster by the committees run be government reps and jurists. "Die Zeit" quotes a German scientist: "This is a report of governments, not of science".
It is difficult to see how the goverments that run the IPCC show will learn as much about climate change as they possibly could when govenrments can select the scientists who draft the report chapters. It is a bit like the students dominating faculty search and examination committees. Much of the mass media shows little or no concern about how the summaries - which are the parts of the report which will be read - are put together. Few seem to notice that the IPCC-summaries apparently lack scientifc credibility. If "Die Zeit" is right, the summaries are government propaganda, irrespective of the number an honesty of the scientists who have conributed to it.

RAEM
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