DrCameronJackson@gmail.com
March 19, 2011
IPCC guru was a student when writing ‘authoritative’ reports.
So what is Sari Kovats doing now in her profession having authored as an uncredentialed student authoritative reports on climate change? Is she a recognized leader in her field?
In 1994 was a governmental agency — the IPCC — using her to get a particular opinion?
As she had no Ph.D. or other credentials, Sari Kovats obviously was not a recognized “authority”. What about her research methods? Can anyone fault her on her methodology?
See Sari Kovats’s Vitae below:
Here is her Vitae:
Sari Kovats BA MSc PhD
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Epidemiology
Room 233, 15-17 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9SH, UK
Tel: +44(0)20 7927 2962Get email addressvCard
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Affiliated to: SEHR.
Disciplines: Epidemiology.
Research areas: Climate change, Environment, Public health, Risk.
Background
Sari Kovats is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Teaching
Sari organises the Module “Environment, Health and Sustainable Development” in Term 1, and is a tutor to students on the MSc Public Health.
Research
Sari has researched health issues related to climate change since 1994 and has published widely on the health impacts of weather and climate, including extreme weather events (heat waves) and associated public health responses.
She was a Lead Author in the Human Health chapter in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC as well as contributing to the Second and Third Assessment Reports.
Sari is a member of Scientific Steering Committee of Global Environmental Change and Human Health Project of ESSP (Earth System Science Partnership), and is currently Chair of the Centre on Global Change and Health at LSHTM.
Selected publications
Kovats, R.S.; Ebi, K.L.; Heatwaves and public health in Europe. Eur J Public Health, 2006; 16(6):592-9
Hajat, S.; Kovats, R.S.; Lachowycz, K. Heat-related and cold-related deaths in England and Wales: who is at risk? Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2007; 64(2):93-100
Kovats, R. S. Heat waves and health protection British Medical Journal, 2006; 333(7563):314-315
Kovats, R. S.; Campbell-Lendrum, D.; Matthies, F. Climate change and human health: Estimating avoidable deaths and disease Risk Analysis, 2005; 25(6):1409-1418
Ahern, M.; Kovats, R.S.; Wilkinson, P.; Few, R.; Matthies, F.; Global health impacts of floods: epidemiologic evidence. Epidemiol Rev, 2005; 27:36-46
Kovats, R.S.; Edwards, S.J.; Hajat, S.; Armstrong, B.G.; Ebi, K.L.; Menne, B.; The effect of temperature on food poisoning: a time-series analysis of salmonellosis in ten European countries. Epidemiol Infect, 2004; 132(3):443-53
Kovats, R.S.; Hajat, S.; Wilkinson, P.; Contrasting patterns of mortality and hospital admissions during hot weather and heat waves in Greater London, UK. Occup Environ Med, 2004; 61(11):893-8
Kovats, R. S.; Campbell-Lendrum, D. H.; McMichael, A. J.; Woodward, A.; Cox, J. S. Early effects of climate change: do they include changes in vector-borne disease? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 2001; 356(1411):1057-68
Full publications listing (since 2001)
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“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose reports have motivated governmental action to cut carbon emissions, relied on an uncredentialed student named Sari Kovats for writing and supervising its supposedly authoritative reports. Donna Laframboise of NOconsensus.org brings us the shocking news.
In 1994, Kovats was one of only 21 people in the entire world selected to work on the first IPCC chapter that examined how climate change might affect human health. She was 25 years old. Her first academic paper wouldn’t be published for another three years. It would be six years before she’d even begin her doctoral studies and 16 years before she’d graduate.
IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri says this about how IPCC authors are selected:
There is a very careful process of selection…These are people who have been chosen on the basis of their track record, on their record of publications, on the research that they have done…They are people who are at the top of their profession as far as research is concerned in a particular aspect of climate change…you can’t think of a better set of qualified people than what we have in the IPCC. [bold added]
Academically speaking, Kovats was invisible back in 1994. That anyone connected to the IPCC could have considered her a scientific expert is astonishing.
I’m sorry to say that that was just the beginning. When it came time to write the next version of the climate bible, Kovats received a promotion. She was selected to be a lead author, again for the health chapter – despite the fact that her doctoral studies wouldn’t begin until the year the IPCC report was published.
What do we suppose happened with the next edition of the climate bible – the one that appeared in 2007, still three full years before Kovats earned her doctorate? Was she selected once again to be a health chapter lead author? You betcha.
But by then the IPCC, in its wisdom, had decided she was a scientific expert in other areas, as well. Kovats served as a contributing author for three additional chapters in Working Group 2:
•Chapter 1 – Assessment of Observed Changes and Responses in Natural and Managed Systems
•Chapter 6 – Coastal Systems and Low-lying Areas
•Chapter 12 – Europe
She was also an IPCC expert reviewer.
So how does a neophyte suddenly beome the “top of [her] profession”? The great Andrew Bolt, of the Courier Mail/Herald Sun in Australia has a good answer:
Maybe she just has the right opinions.
