Last week I was very critical of a report issued by the Global Humanitarian Forum, run by Kofi Annan former Secretary General of the United Nations. Over the weekend I see that Annan described the report as not being a scientific study:

The research was carried out by Dalberg Global Advisers, a consultancy firm, who collated all existing statistics on the human impacts of climate change. The report acknowledges a “significant margin of error” in its estimates.

Mr Annan said the report could never be as rigorous as a scientific study, but said: “We feel it is the most plausible account of the current impact of climate change today.”

Why can’t the work produced by the GHF be “as rigorous as a scientific study”? Well, one answer is that scientific studies on this topic simply don’t give the desired answers. But if it is not a “scientific study” then what is it?

Keith Kloor who is a Scripps Journalism Fellow here at CU at the Center for Environmental Journalism comments on the excellent reporting by Andy Revkin on the report, as compared to the rest of the overly credulous media which essentially reprinted the GHF press release without obtaining any other perspectives. Keith also noted the absolute silence in the blogosphere on the report:

so far, the questionable assertions and exaggerated nature of the Global Humanitarian Forum report have gone unremarked on by environmental bloggers and pundits. Nobody from this side of the spectrum has accused the press of being stenographers, that’s for sure.

Of course, if it was George Will making a few dodgy claims the blogosphere would erupt in a collective fit of indignation. But dodgy numbers about the impacts of climate change? Yawn.

Perhaps one reason for this can be found in the comments of Andrew Freedman, who blogs at the Washington Post, who seems to suggest that the accuracy and truth aren’t really what matter so much here, it is getting lined up behind the proper politics [Update 6/2: Andrew Freedman adds some clarifications in the comments.]:

. . . as policymakers increasingly consider taking major steps to address climate change, it is becoming more important for experts to detail how climate change is already affecting human populations, and whether it poses a truly mortal threat now or sometime in the future. Whether or not any death can be said to have been ’caused by’ climate change is debatable, but the message that climate change may already be adding stress to society, particularly in the developing world, is well-established.

The methodology of the Global Humanitarian Forum’s report may not be something to replicate, but the general aim of bringing the human toll from climate change into a clearer focus should be.

So it appears that Freedman is saying — Well at least the folks at GHF tried, and if they made a few mistakes, it is OK because it shows both their commitment to the issue and helps to bring the threat of climate change into clearer focus.

To the extent that this view is shared, it explains both the credulity of the media and lack of critique in the blogosphere on the GHF report. More broadly, this attitude explains a lot of the collective behavior seen on the climate issue displayed by the intelligentsia.