Strad, of course there are plenty of scientists in both sides of this debate. With hundreds of thousands of scientists, "trace scientists" make a healthy number!
The IPCC might have done way more politics than is healthy for scientists (note: scientists play power games... just like all other trades), but they are only a fraction of the people studying climate.
And while it is healthy to listen to both sides of the debate, it appears that many try to misinterpret anything that can be misinterpreted after "their minds are made up".
Examples from this thread:
They can't predict the weather next week but they want you to believe they can predict weather 20 years out.
They cannot predict "weather" 20 years out, but maybe they can predict "climate" 20 years out.
Statistical thermodinamics come to mind, or maybe Asimov's psychohistory (which is 100% inspired on statistical thermodynamics). I cannot predict if Hamilton will be in the podium next race, but I can predict that he will be in the top 3 at the end of the championship. And if he ends up 4th in the WC, that won't make the prediction "wrong". I cannot predict which second his engine might have a detonation, but I can predict the total number of detonation events over the weekend rather well (or at lest Mercedes' engineers can).
The I.P.C.C. chief admitted that they, the I.P.C.C., were an arm of world governments and serves at their beck and call.
"We are an inter governmental body and we do what the governments of the world want us to do. If the governments decide we should do and if they decide we should do things differently and come up with a vastly different products we would be at their beck and call "
We are an inter governmental body -> We work for governments (100% accurate)
we do what the governments of the world want us to do -> Make reports that can be used for informing policy. There is even a "report for policymakers" in every edition.
if they decide we should do things differently and come up with a vastly different products -> say something more geeky, or something more simplified. Say something broken down regionally. Or maybe just come with the best prediction instead of a range of scenarios. Etc.
we would be at their beck and call -> Because we work for governments, we do a service for governments.
At no point do they say "we will taylor the results to what they want to hear". One could interpret those words like that, but it is not in the words themselves.
Have a few in a group of thousands working very publically over decades been caught lying a few times. YES. Could it be expected otherwise? They are humans.
That brings up how they keep moving the goalposts. First it was greenhouse effect, then it was global warming, then it was climate change.
Those three are descriptions of the same thing in different words. The terminology adapts a bit because, if the explanations are too detailed and complex, it often gets misinterpreted (but is snows in Trump's city), and if it is too simplified and simple, if often gets misinterpreted (but it snows in Trump's city!).
I might be guilty of the same (or rather the opposite) bias, but one gets the feeling that one side gets the benefit of being assumed to "never lie" and not to have any vested interests, while the other side is thought to "always lie".
Rivals, not enemies.
