Consensus is irrelevant in science. There are plenty of examples in history where everyone agreed and everyone was wrong.
While I admit to being quite surprised they’d allow him equal time, I doubt he’ll win any converts as much of the readership thinks 97% consensus is a fact, and they don’t really want to hear anything different. Tol writes:
Most of the papers they studied are not about climate change and its causes, but many were taken as evidence nonetheless.
…
Dana Nuccitelli writes that I “accidentally confirm the results of last year’s 97% global warming consensus study”. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I show that the 97% consensus claim does not stand up.
At best, Nuccitelli, John Cook and colleagues may have accidentally stumbled on the right number.
Read Tol’s essay here: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2014/jun/06/97-consensus-global-warming
Jim Hunt says:
That was a lot more than one word!
It was exactly one (1) word, no more, no less: “Yes.” Look it up, it’s right upthread. Why you try to misrepresent everything is something I don’t understand. You have been wrong about everything regarding scientific facts and empirical evidence. As I wrote:
“The alarmist crowd lost the scientific argument a long time ago, and they lost it decisively. So now they… they argue endlessly without addressing any facts, or answering any questions.”
Next, Hunt says:
BTW – Extreme weather events are increasing in my part of the world.
What planet are you from?? I gave seven sources showing conclusively that extreme weather events have been steadily declining. Hurricane activity is at its lowest in recorded history. Tornado deaths and damage are likewise very low, and still declining. And so on.
This is solid evidence that Jim Hunt is mentally unbalanced. I have more measurements showing that extreme weather events are all in decline, but why bother? Hunt believes Mrs Keech’s flying saucer will appear any time, and there is no more hope of convincing him that reality debunks what he believes than there is hope of convincing a Jehova’s Witness that they are wrong, and more than a little nuts.
Hunt cannot understand that, as he says, “Anecdotal evidence of the effects of recent extreme weather events” is not science. Global measurements debunk that sort of fake argument.
Hunt continues:
It has been the wettest winter in the long running England and Wales… Winter 2014 was an exceptionally stormy season, with at least 12 major winter storms affecting the UK. When considered overall, this was the stormiest period of weather experienced by the UK for at least 20 years.
The discussion is over global warming. Your local weather strawman examples are meaningless. You really don’t understand how silly and desperate your cherry-picking of local weather events sounds??
As Alan says, you are revealing your fundamental dishonesty.
Finally, I note that Hunt still has never answered a single question. The reason is because he will be easily and thoroughly debunked. Alarmists always lose the debate when it comes down to real world data. Hunt is no exception.
@dbstealey – Actually the discussion was originally about Richard Tol and the “97% consensus”. See the title. To quote Prof. Tol’s latest “short communication” in Energy Policy once again:
“There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change over-whelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct.”
Meanwhile my helpful comment over in the Arctic sea ice forecast thread has been “snipped” in its entirety. Supposedly I’m “thread-jack[ing] again”. Geesh!!!!
REPLY: No it wasn’t helpful to push your favorite ice volume hobby horse on your website in a forecasting exercise about sea ice extent (ARCUS makes this clear) and yes, you thread-jack. I’m not here to drive traffic to your web-site, especially when you title things like “Debating skeptics is like mud wrestling with pigs” So since that is your attitude (yet you persist here, mainly for disruption) I’m going to put you in the semi-permanent troll bin. Take a 72 hour time out. Feel free to be as upset as you wish – Anthony
Why are you quote mining Dr. Tol’s paper? Lets see the key findings of the paper:
“Abstract: A claim has been that 97% of the scientific literature endorses anthropogenic climate change (Cook et al., 2013. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 024024). This claim, frequently repeated in debates about climate policy, does not stand. A trend in composition is mistaken for a trend in endorsement. Reported results are inconsistent and biased. The sample is not representative and contains many irrelevant papers. Overall, data quality is low. Cook׳s validation test shows that the data are invalid. Data disclosure is incomplete so that key results cannot be reproduced or tested.”