From Roger Pielke Senior’s Climate Science Blog. There is an Associated Press [AP] news article today by Dina Cappiello, Seth Borenstein and Kevin Freking titled “Poll: US belief in global warming is cooling”.
In this article the reporters perpetuate the myth that
“Though there are exceptions, the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that the primary cause is a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.”
This is not true and is a case of the media seeking to make up news.
We have already documented that a significant minority of climate scientists do not consider greenhouse gases as the primary cause for global warming, and, more generally, cause climate change; e.g. see
Brown, F., J. Annan, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Is there agreement amongst climate scientists on the IPCC AR4 WG1?
and
National Research Council, 2005: Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties. Committee on Radiative Forcing Effects on Climate Change, Climate Research Committee, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Division on Earth and Life Studies, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 208 pp.
In the coming month, we will be presenting another article that documents that the AP authors are erroneous in their claim “that the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that the primary cause is a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.”
If the reporters want to be balanced in their presentations, rather than lobbyists and advocates, they would persue the validity of their claim. So far, however, they have failed in this journalistic role.
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As to scientific organizations that say it isn’t real? or at least that it isn’t a crisis
The Polish and Czech national academies of science? The Japanese geophysical Union? Many scientific societies in Russia and Eastern Europe? I think if, as you say, you educated yourself you could find a lot on the other side, just not in the US or Western Europe where taking any non pro AGW position would cost the societies big time in terms of federal cash.
Here in the US the thought police who control funding are so intrusive that scientists even have to use assumed names to prevent important research with which they are only slightly affiliated from losing funding.
By the way I can name off the top of my head at least 4 prominent climate scientists who lost their positions because their data did not support the “consensus ” they made the mistake of not lying.
Jody (20:45:32):
“I’ve stated and cut ‘n’ pasted a number of scientific organizations that support AGW.”
Scientific organizations do not necessarily represent their members’ opinions.
“I’ve asked several times for “evidence” that this is false”
Here are 31,478 American scientists who have signed a petition questioning anthropogenic global warming, including 9,029 with PhDs:
http://www.petitionproject.org/
Here’s More Than 700 International Scientists who Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9
Here’s a list of some of the most knowledgeable climate experts in the world who are various degrees of skeptical:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
It’s past the witching hour here in my part of the world so it’s time for me to go give my woman some lovin’. However, I thank you all for the discussion and the many sites to look into. Rest assured I’ll be back to play tomorrow once I get done golfing…and drinking to a climate that’s indicative to playing year round.
Jody,
Your list of the faithful was needlessly long.
You could have simply said “America”.
Since the leadership represents the people and the leadership believes, the people believe.
My guess is that the phrase “vast majority of scientists” in the context of the article is sort of like the “vast right-wing conspiracy” alluded to by some half-vast politicians.
Jody,
You are a newcomer, and like everyone, you arrive here with your own preconceptions. I venture to say you haven’t spent significant time at Dr Pielke’s site, or at Lucia’s Blackboard, or at Climate Audit. Please do so, and you’ll find that what you read in the media about AGW isn’t reflecting reality. The case has become clear that climate models are currently deficient in long term climate predictions, which are the primary basis of the IPCC conclusions. If you keep an open mind (and don’t waste too much time at Open Mind), you’ll be much better informed.
I may share your desires for energy independence, but I favor doing so by all technological means at our disposal, including drilling for gas and oil, nuclear, oil and gas from coal and shale, and a contribution from wind and solar to the extent that they can compete economically. The CO2/AGW case is totally unconvincing to me, as I think it will be be to most people who can adopt an objective view point. The climate sensitivity to CO2 increases is at the very lowest edge (or below) of all projections on which the IPCC and all the organizations you cite have relied.
Jody:
You say that the “Royal Academy of Sciences” (really the Royal Society) agrees that “climate change is happening due to CO2 from mankind”. Er … not quite. The following is at the top of its web page on “climate change”:
“International scientific consensus agrees that increasing levels of man-made greenhouse gases are leading to global climate change. Possible consequences of climate change include rising temperatures, changing sea levels, and impacts on global weather. These changes could have serious impacts on the world’s organisms and on the lives of millions of people, especially those living in areas vulnerable to extreme natural conditions such as flooding and drought.”
Read it carefully. It doesn’t actually say that it agrees with the “consensus” (and, given its history, the RS should know better than most the weakness of relying on consensus). And then it refers merely to “possible” consequences …
Sounds rather to me as though the RS is staying on the right side of political correctness while keeping its position carefully open.
evanmjones (19:06:52) :
Having said that, I do not believe in a “conspiracy”, either. It’s more of a “class action behavior”.
I think there’s a sort of guild-solidarity effect at work, similar to the solidarity of scientists that endorsed fluoridation: because the opposition was effectively demonized as cranks and obscurantists, who hadn’t published in mainstream journals, and therefore all the scientific/progressive elite was easily herded into taking the opposition position.
In the case of AGW, the additional demonization tactic of tainted funding was employed. And only one side of the argument was listened to–no point/counterpoint debate with sceptics was conducted. And the alarmists have been super-slick in their sophistical rebuttals of skeptics’ positions. And the proponents who swayed these scientific organizations into endorsing AGW relied heavily of the endorsements of the IPCC, etc., implying that anyone who refused to get aboard such a shiny bandwagon must really be a mossback. Plus, many people like to jump aboard the latest fad.
PS: It also should be obvious that these organizations rarely spontaneously took the positions they did. Rather, activist warmists within and without their membership put forward, aggressively, a seemingly iron-clad case and stressed that urgent action was vital and that it would be irresponsible and worse not to stand up for science and foresight, rather than being complicit in denial, selfishness, and psuedoscience. The skeptical opposition, such as it was, was unprepared and unorganized and less “motivated” to combat this.
And the politically savvy and well-funded activists within green organizations were skilled at this sort of engineering of consent, and in infiltrating the leadership posts of scientific organizations. It’s only recently that skeptics have got their act together, aided by the Internet and a cooperative climate. (Most of those scientific-organizations endorsements occurred ten years or more ago, I suspect, when the hockey stick looked unassailable and the models hadn’t been falsified.)
From what I can tell Jody is NOT interested in facts or historical perspectives … only some alphabet soup of organizations. Even when presented with the obvious fact that none of those organizations would have disagreed with a prediction of high sunspots for solar cycle 24, you see no change in position. This is evidence that the person already has their mind made up and the appearance of looking for evidence is superficial.
It was inevitable, that as soon as an article is posted on the subject of consensus, then somebody will attempt to use consensus as an argument for AGW. I for one am tired of these same old straw men arguments, but nonetheless I will try to address them.
Exhibit 1: A list of learned societies has been posted by the defense, purporting to show a rock solid consenus. Suppose I put to the chairperson of the Ecology society the following question: “What evidence do you cite for your AGW hypothesis?”
Probable reply: “We have no expertise in that area. However, it is a fact that all scientifc societies support the AGW hypothesis, so it must be true.”
I then put the same question to the board members of each and every society and obtain a similar reply. I therefore reach the conclusion that each society is merely an echo of every other society, each believing that the other’s have reached the independant conclusions of which they testify. I call that a delusion, in much the same way as primitive people believed the echo’s they heard in caverns were the voices of spirits.
Exhibit 2: The defense posits the argument that the consensus for AGW is growing stronger with increasing weight of evidence. The truth is the exact oppoiste – consensus has been growing weaker in the presence of increasing divergence between predictions and reality. I can cite lack of oceanic warming as measure by the Argo network, lack of predicted mid troposphere hotspot, lack of correlation between outgoing LW radiation and troposphere temperatures as measured by ERBE and reported by Lindzen, a decreasing rate of sea level rise since 2003 as confirmed by Argo and Grace, the debunking of several “hockey stick” studies, and the strident dissent by more and more scientists.
Exhibit 3: Climate scientists have been compared with medical practioners while skeptics have been compared with acupuncturists. This is an argument born out of either sophistry or ignorance – probably both. If my doctor tells me I have to have my legs amputated due diligence suggests I seek a second – or third opinion. Climate skeptics – who count among their number many eminent scientists – are the second opinion. The second opinion is that I don’t need to have my legs amputated at all.
The sad fact is, with today’s climate hysteria, the warmists not only want to amputate all our legs but tell us we shouldn’t bother seeking a second opionion. I don’t think so!
To Jody, Thank you for coming and trying to ascertain the truth. I discovered Climate Audit about four years ago and through a great deal of struggle have been able to begin to read the graphs. The equations still are Greek to me. I have been reading WUWT plus Lucia, Jeff ID, etc for about 3 years. I still know next to nothing.
We are talking about a monstrously complex system whose overall trends are very very difficult to grasp. Do you look at ice cores, tree rings (dendrochronology another science in its infancy), ocean temperatures, clouds, surface temperatures (three major sources of measurement achieved through both surface station temps and satellite temps, night time versus daytime temps, hurricanes, or volcanoes, etc etc etc etc to know what’s up with earth?? The complex statistics elude me, and yet they are fundamental to grasp the argument. So I rely on logic and the common sense and human nature and the few principles that I have gleaned about statistics such as the margin of error, where you start and stop the measurement and the importance of underlying data.
I would posit that 90% of the members of the the scientific bodies do not understand a fraction of the science. You seem to be going back to one issue that appears to be very logical – so many scientists and scientific organisations support AGW. And its corollary: if all the federal money is supporting AGW why can’t the skeptics go to the fossil fuel companies for research money?
I would in turn make the following appeal to your logic. If the science is settled, why call the skeptics deniers/denialist scum etc.? Denier is such a harsh and ugly word – it has resonances of the n word – and just as I would discount the ideas of people who use that word, I would discount the ideas of people who call those who are looking for evidence ‘deniers’. Take any big enviro website such as Open Mind, Dot.earth and any of several blogs on BBC or the Guardian or the Huffpo. Cut and paste all the pro and con posters into two word docs and then read them. I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that the skeptic side will be 25% snark and 75% facts, and the pro AGW will be 75% snark and 25% facts. Why, if the science is settled, would you not expect the reverse to be true? Why are the pro-AGW people allowed to indulge in vicious name calling with no rebuke?
In addition to deniers, the accusations largely consist of not caring about the planet, not caring about our kids and grandchildren, being in league with the oil companies, and not wanting to change our planet-destroying- lifestyle. The oil companies did support a few sceptics, but that was 10 years ago and the it was a PR fiasco. They soon learned that it was far better to support carbon credits where they could make money and get credit for saving the earth.
The vast majority of people in the developed world want to save the planet. That is why there is far less waste of resources, pollution, and more clean air, water and protection of animal and plant species there. We are just arguing about the best way to do that. Why should just one side have the moral high ground?
Ask yourself: why does Gore’s lifestyle so clash with his speech? He left the White House with a net worth of $2M; he is now worth over $100M made from ‘saving the planet’ activities.
Most people avoid confrontations in their social life. So do most academics. Most skeptics prefer to keep their mouths shut, keep their job, and have a friendly beer with friends.
Most politicians were educated at a time where statistics was hardly or not studied by 90%+ of the people graduating from the top schools. I went to school at roughly the same time BC: before computers. CGM’s and indeed, climate science didn’t exist. Can you see why policy might devlop without much science?
Apply your logic to this connudrum: If all the controls were implemented, all the Kyotos and Copenhagens were signed, there would be an INSIGNIFICANT amount of change in the temperature. This is their own data! That is illogical.
The skeptics say: we need better, more accurate information about temperature data collection and we need for the scientists who are writing peer reviewed papers to release their underlying data. That is the rule of science. For it to be science, it has to be falsifiable and without the data, there is no science.
We don’t know whether this trend of the past few years will hold or not. We know the sun is quiet but we still have so many holes in our knowledge about how that affects the world’s climate, that we can only make rough guesses. But without that additional knowledge of the sun and clouds (to name just two), we cannot come up with solutions because we as yet don’t know the problem.
I have faith that just as mapping the human genome led to an explosion of ideas, so accurate climate data will lead to good solutions. We are not there yet, and we are shooting in the dark with the current solutions. The solutions tried so far such as biofuels have been disastrous. Wind and solar produce at best 3% and are hugely expensive and NOT environmentally friendly.
We can tackle many problems today such as lack of clean air and water for almost 2B of the planet. We have some good solutions. We don’t do enough of that – why?
The skeptics say: we don’t know much, there are big gaps in our knowledge, the temperature data has in many cases been collected badly and there is huge room for error; let’s learn more before going off half-cocked. The pro-AGW say: we have to do something now and those who disagree ‘stand in the way of preventing climate catastrophe’. They won’t debate and try to keep their data secret. Which seems more scientific to you?
Sorry for going on for so long, and again I freely confess that I am one of the great mass of people who have no science background. I find that sites such as CA and WUWT et al help me learn more about the science of climate than do the pro- AGW sites.
Michael Chrichton said it best: “Consensus is the refuge of scoundrels and collectivists”.
Not only is the argument of a “consensus of scientists” a lie, based on a faulty and long-debunked “study” done by a history professor named Naomi Oreskes, but the entire idea of argument by consensus is both faulty logic and simply not the way science works. It is, however a convenient and effective argument used to try to sway public opinion, and in fact to simply shut down any debate. The MSM have painted themselves into a corner though, and now that the truth is coming out, already being in a downward spiral, it will be their death knell.
ABSTRACT. An online poll of scientists’ opinions shows that, while there is strong agreement on
the important role of anthropogenically-caused radiative forcing of CO2 in climate change and with
the largest group supporting the IPCC report, there is not a universal agreement among climate
scientists about climate science as represented in the IPCC’s WG1. The claim that the human input
of CO2 is not an important climate forcing is found to be false in our survey. However, there
remains substantial disagreement about the magnitude of its impacts. The IPCC WG1 perspective is
the mean response, though there are interesting differences between mean responses in the USA and
in the EU. There are, also, a significant number of climate scientists who disagree with the IPCC
WG1 perspective…
The questions used in the opinion poll are listed below in Table 1. The methodology is described in
the online supplement.
From the initial response, we conclude that:
1. The largest group of respondents (45-50%) concur with the IPCC perspective as given in the
2007 Report.
2. A significant minority (15-20%), however, conclude that the IPCC understated the seriousness of
the threat from human additions of CO2.
3. A significant minority (15-20%), in contrast, conclude that the IPCC overstated the role of
human additions of CO2 relative to other climate forcings.
4. Almost all respondents (at least 97%) conclude that the human addition of CO2 into the
atmosphere is an important component of the climate system and has contributed to some extent in
recent observed global average warming.
[When giving an abstract please cite the source. ~dbs, mod.]
Sorry, I was quoting “Brown, F., J. Annan, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Is there agreement amongst climate scientists on the IPCC AR4 WG1?” which you mention above.
They also say that no one (0%) polled agreed with the following statement: 1. There is no warming; it is a fabrication based on inaccurate/inappropriate measurement.
Human activity is not having any significant effect on Climate. The data on which such
assumptions are made is so compromised as to be worthless. The physical science basis of AGW
theory is founded on a false hypothesis.”
Interesting wouldn’t you say?
If appeal to authority is required to form your opinion, Jody … try this.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
‘Scientific consensus’ is an oxymoron. According to dictionary.com consensus simply means an opinion or position reached by a group as a whole. Science isn’t conducted by making agreements or taking opinions. It’s a process of backing up hypotheses with demonstrable facts. A consensus by its nature can’t be scientific. If the term is intended to mean a majority opinion of scientists and is used to claim it proves a scientific theory the argument is a logical fallacy called ‘an appeal to authority.’ Even if every scientist in the world save one believes in some theory and that one has the appropriate facts, he can prove the rest wrong. In fact, the effort to do that (being skeptical) is what drives science forward.
I have to say I’m disappointed with this article. It quibbles with someone saying there is a broad consensus, then provides no numbers to dispute it. What I would like to see from both this article and the one it is responding to is to know what population they are seeing as a vast majority or significant minority. As best I can tell, neither side knows what the total population is, nor has anyone measured it in a meaningful way. Until I see population measurements, I can’t know what they are talking about.
Secondly, as has been noted several times above, science isn’t about consensus, its about facts, which seem in horribly small supply. To make the point, how much did consensus contribute to Galileo’s success when he published his ideas in 1610 about the sun being the center of the solar system and not the earth? I’m guessing that the majority consensus favoring an earth centered system was much vaster than the alleged majority favoring AGW. It was him versus pretty much everybody else. So I think a debate about where a majority or minority is positioned on ideas doesn’t advance knowledge of the actual subject itself, but rather is a big distraction.
I am a skeptic of AGW. The big red flag is that people are arguing that consensus means something when truth is dependent on facts. The models that purport to support AGW theory predict effects that haven’t been observed when they should be present, ie the current cooling trend and layers of the atmosphere that should be warming up but aren’t. Usually that means the model needs to be reevaluated, and it is clear that the proponents don’t know what they are talking about. As other bloggers have said, “I’ll believe there is an emergency when the proponents of AGW start acting like its an emergency.” They talk like its important, but don’t act like it.
*******
maz2 (16:40:11) :
Almost exactly 100 years ago, Albert Einstein posited the equation E = mc2 in his “Special Theory of Relativity.” The equation suggested a new way of describing the origins of chemical energy and suggested another source of energy that at that point was unknown in history – nuclear energy. Nuclear power made its unfortunate debut in history 40 years later in the form of an atomic bomb. But 100 years later, Americans have not quite yet absorbed the larger implications of Einstein’s equation – a new form of energy that can provide almost unlimited amounts of power with a vanishingly small impact on the environment.
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2469
******
A good link. I’ve mentioned energy “density” before.
Any reasonable & well-informed “environmentalist” should be supporting nuclear energy, as its environmental footprint is smaller than fossil-fuels, and far smaller than low-density stuff like solar, wind, etc, etc.
But they won’t. Another example of doublethink.
JohnG: “If the term is intended to mean a majority opinion of scientists and is used to claim it proves a scientific theory the argument is a logical fallacy called ‘an appeal to authority.”
Not if the scientists are experts on the subject. The fallacious appeal to authority occurs when the claimant attempts to extend the authority of the chosen expert beyond his expertise.
For example, we can accept the views of Richard Dawkins on evolution – or at least the aspects he has studied – as authoritative, but his views on, say, the existence of God, are no more authoritative than any other amateur.
On the matter of the AGW scientific consensus, the consensus refers to the agreement within climate science, as outlined in the peer-reviewed, published literature and summarised in IPCC reports. The consensus is not just a matter of counting heads.
Attempts to draw a distinction between “consensus” and “facts” invariably fail since for human beings the facts do not exist as free-standing objects independent of minds. Every fact that may or may not bear on a subject has to be considered by a human mind, and some facts will be included, others rejected.
Pointing to the rejected facts and claiming that they are superior to the consensus simply begs the question – the admissability of these facts is the point at issue.
“Not if the scientists are experts on the subject.”
Even if the scientists are “experts” on the subject, appealing to them because they are “experts” on the subject is a logical fallacy.
The appeal should be to facts that everyone can see objectively. And by everyone I include all of us WUWT commenters. We have had enough of people hiding things behind names, obscurities and lies.
Andrew
Andrew: “Even if the scientists are “experts” on the subject, appealing to them because they are “experts” on the subject is a logical fallacy.”
The appeal to authority is an informal argument, so it doesn’t follow the more rigorous rules of formal logic.
The issue is whether it is reasonable to appeal to the authority of someone who is regarded as an expert. My answer is yes, because nobody can become an expert on everything, so from a practical point of view, the appeal to genuine authority is justified.
That said, it needs to be accepted that the expert’s views are provisional and not absolute.
One must, however, also take into account the track record and trustworthiness of the expert(s).
How legitimate is a paper that starts off
“An online poll of scientists’ opinions shows that, ”
Come on people…. seriously… that is how you attempt to disprove the consensus of scientists?
The real consensus is in literature, research and publications.
NOT ONLINE POLLS
REPLY: Then complain to the paper that made it, and the AP writer that botched it, not us. -A
The author of this article must have missed the Methods section of their referenced research paper…
“It is important to recognize that we are not presenting the results as representing anything other than the views of those who responded as we have no way to assess the relationship of the responders with the total relevant population. We view this article as the preliminary analysis of the active climate research community, a motivation for a more rigorous statistical polling, and a focused set of questions for the climate community to discuss.”
They sent emails to people and relied on the recipients to respond.
Of the 1807 emails sent out, they received 140 responses.
This is called a sampling bias that is made worse by a low rate of response.