Month 10, Day 15: One Of The Good Guys…

Pachauri stays.

It is good news that Rajendra Pachauri is going to retain his position as head of the UN Climate Panel. While Pachauri’s tenure has been marked by controversies, none are of his own making, and he should not be compelled to leave a position for which he is eminently suited because of a spurious publicity campaign. The oft-cited errors in the 2007 IPCC report no more invalidate the bulk of that document than a reportorial mistake in the Times negates the rest of the paper’s news. The barrage of ginned-up “scandals” aimed at reducing the credibility of the IPCC and of climatologists in general has crippled our ability to sustain a reality-based discussion on climate issues (as witness the Republican party’s comprehensively anti-science stance, unthinkable a decade ago). Here’s hoping that Dr. Pachauri can help us wake up to the reality of global climate change before it’s too late.

Warren Senders