The vaunted “97% consensus” on dangerous manmade global warming is just more malarkey
by Dr. David R. Legates
By now, virtually everyone has heard that “97% of scientists agree: Climate change is real, manmade and dangerous.” Even if you weren’t one of his 31 million followers who received this tweet from President Obama, you most assuredly have seen it repeated everywhere as scientific fact.
The correct representation is “yes,” “some,” and “no.” Yes, climate change is real. There has never been a period in Earth’s history when the climate has not changed somewhere, in one way or another.
People can and do have some influence on our climate. For example, downtown areas are warmer than the surrounding countryside, and large-scale human development can affect air and moisture flow. But humans are by no means the only source of climate change. The Pleistocene ice ages, Little Ice Age and monster hurricanes throughout history underscore our trivial influence compared to natural forces.
As for climate change being dangerous, this is pure hype based on little fact. Mile-high rivers of ice burying half of North America and Europe were disastrous for everything in their path, as they would be today. Likewise for the plummeting global temperatures that accompanied them. An era of more frequent and intense hurricanes would also be calamitous; but actual weather records do not show this.
It would be far more deadly to implement restrictive energy policies that condemn billions to continued life without affordable electricity – or to lower living standards in developed countries – in a vain attempt to control the world’s climate. In much of Europe, electricity prices have risen 50% or more over the past decade, leaving many unable to afford proper wintertime heat, and causing thousands to die.
Moreover, consensus and votes have no place in science. History is littered with theories that were long denied by “consensus” science and politics: plate tectonics, germ theory of disease, a geocentric universe. They all underscore how wrong consensus can be.
Science is driven by facts, evidence and observations – not by consensus, especially when it is asserted by deceitful or tyrannical advocates. As Einstein said, “A single experiment can prove me wrong.”
During this election season, Americans are buffeted by polls suggesting which candidate might become each party’s nominee or win the general election. Obviously, only the November “poll” counts.
Similarly, several “polls” have attempted to quantify the supposed climate change consensus, often by using simplistic bait-and-switch tactics. “Do you believe in climate change?” they may ask.
Answering yes, as I would, places you in the President’s 97% consensus and, by illogical extension, implies you agree it is caused by humans and will be dangerous. Of course, that serves their political goal of gaining more control over energy use.
The 97% statistic has specific origins. Naomi Oreskes is a Harvard professor and author of Merchants of Doubt, which claims those who disagree with the supposed consensus are paid by Big Oil to obscure the truth. In 2004, she claimed to have examined the abstracts of 928 scientific papers and found a 100% consensus with the claim that the “Earth’s climate is being affected by human activities.”
Of course, this is probably true, as it is unlikely that any competent scientist would say humans have no impact on climate. However, she then played the bait-and-switch game to perfection – asserting that this meant “most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.”
However, one dissenter is enough to discredit the entire study, and what journalist would believe any claim of 100% agreement? In addition, anecdotal evidence suggested that 97% was a better figure. So 97% it was.
Then in 2010, William Anderegg and colleagues concluded that “97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support … [the view that] … anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for most of the unequivocal warming of the Earth’s average global temperature” over a recent but unspecified time period. (Emphasis in original.)
To make this extreme assertion, Anderegg et al. compiled a database of 908 climate researchers who published frequently on climate topics, and identified those who had “signed statements strongly dissenting from the views” of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The 97–98% figure is achieved by counting those who had not signed such statements.
Silence, in Anderegg’s view, meant those scientists agreed with the extreme view that most warming was due to humans. However, nothing in their papers suggests that all those researchers believed humans had caused most of the planetary warming, or that it was dangerous.
The most recent 97% claim was posited by John Cook and colleagues in 2013. They evaluated abstracts from nearly 12,000 articles published over a 21-year period and sorted them into seven categories, ranging from “explicit, quantified endorsement” to “explicit, quantified rejection” of their alleged consensus: that recent warming was caused by human activity, not by natural variability. They concluded that “97.1% endorsed the consensus position.”
However, two-thirds of all those abstracts took no position on anthropogenic climate change. Of the remaining abstracts (not the papers or scientists), Cook and colleagues asserted that 97.1% endorsed their hypothesis that humans are the sole cause of recent global warming.
Again, the bait-and-switch was on full display. Any assertion that humans play a role was interpreted as meaning humans are the sole cause. But many of those scientists subsequently said publicly that Cook and colleagues had misclassified their papers – and Cook never tried to assess whether any of the scientists who wrote the papers actually thought the observed climate changes were dangerous.
My own colleagues and I did investigate their analysis more closely. We found that only 41 abstracts of the 11,944 papers Cook and colleagues reviewed – a whopping 0.3% – actually endorsed their supposed consensus. It turns out they had decided that any paper which did not provide an explicit, quantified rejection of their supposed consensus was in agreement with the consensus. Moreover, this decision was based solely on Cook and colleagues’ interpretation of just the abstracts, and not the articles themselves. In other words, the entire exercise was a clever sleight-of-hand trick.
What is the real figure? We may never know. Scientists who disagree with the supposed consensus – that climate change is manmade and dangerous – find themselves under constant attack.
Harassment by Greenpeace and other environmental pressure groups, the media, federal and state government officials, and even universities toward their employees (myself included) makes it difficult for many scientists to express honest opinions. Recent reports about Senator Whitehouse and Attorney-General Lynch using RICO laws to intimidate climate “deniers” further obscure meaningful discussion.
Numerous government employees have told me privately that they do not agree with the supposed consensus position – but cannot speak out for fear of losing their jobs. And just last week, a George Mason University survey found that nearly one-third of American Meteorological Society members were willing to admit that at least half of the climate change we have seen can be attributed to natural variability.
Climate change alarmism has become a $1.5-trillion-a-year industry – which guarantees it is far safer and more fashionable to pretend a 97% consensus exists, than to embrace honesty and have one’s global warming or renewable energy funding go dry.
The real danger is not climate change – it is energy policies imposed in the name of climate change. It’s time to consider something else Einstein said: “The important thing is not to stop questioning.” And then go see the important new documentary film, The Climate Hustle, coming soon to a theater near you.
David R. Legates, PhD, CCM, is a Professor of Climatology at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware.
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG
The above quote is exactly why the skeptic side lost the war in the eyes of the public. When anybody says “climate change” they really mean CAGW any everybody knows it.
When a television news anchor asked a presidential candidate about “climate change”, we all know she meant CAGW.
When a congressman spoke about the dangers of “climate change”, we all know he meant CAGW.
When the public hears 97% consensus, they understand that scientists agree on CAGW.
When the public hears “Yes the climate is changing, the climate is always changing”, they understand that they are listening to a bit of everyday political double talk, and the speaker is conceding that CAGW is real.
The public believes that the climate has not changed in their lifetime or in their grandparents lifetimes, but is changing now. Therefor it is CAGW, and dangerous. Within this common understanding of the term CC, a bit of blather about some scientific nicety or technicality about “climate always changes” just does not cut it.
Does the public really understand that CAGW is the most hotly contested scientific topic of our time? NO, the public believes there is a 97% consensus on CAGW.
Here we have yet another piece debunking the 97% consensus. I am sure it will be just as effective as the hundred that came before.
When someone says “Climate Change”, tell them “You mean CAGW”, then answer them.
I agree, but couldn’t we turn that misconception upside down if we would just call the warmists, ‘Global Warming Theorists’ and call the doubters, ‘Global Warming Skeptics’?
re: “When anybody says “climate change” they really mean CAGW”
No, that statement is simply wrong – and that’s the whole point of the article. When properly-trained scientists say “climate change”, they mean any and all changes to the climate. Science is a discipline that requires precision in thought and language. If the scientist meant “CAGW”, he/she would have said CAGW.
Politicians and political activists use language is a very different and much less disciplined way. Politicians try to bend the meaning of concepts (and as your comment evidences, they are succeeding) but that is not a trend that we should reward. Of course, the real mess is when people claiming the mantle of scientific authority use the semantic tricks of political activism. That is not Science and should be exposed and denounced whenever discovered.
In the long run, that’s the only good solution to the debasement of language. We have the right (and if you have the training, the obligation) to respond with precision when a simple question is asked. Do NOT distort your own response.
In a survey of American Meteorological Society professional members, one of the questions was: “global warming observed over the past 150 years as mostly human-caused”. They recorded 39.5% of all responses to the over all survey agreed with that statement (see here: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136) and 52% of those responding to that specific question agreed (i.e. some responding to the survey didn’t response to that specific question).
As Dr. Judith Curry asked: Are the 48% deniers?
No mention was made as to whether the warming was damaging or dangerous.
I thought that the 97% had been proven to be more like 0.3% agreement???:
Christopher Monckton
???
The debunked 97% consensus talking point has come from multiple papers over the last few years. The most recent one Cook et al. (2013) which also happens to be the most talked about one was shown to only have 0.3% in agreement. This is stated in this essay (look above). Dr. Legates and Christopher Monckton were both co-authors on the published paper making this argument.
That’s silly to say that only 0.3% of climate scientist agree that AGW is real.
A 97% consensus of climate scientists that AGW is real sounds right to me, don’t see what all the fuss is about..
spaatch, how many papers were rated in Cook et al. (2013) that explicitly endorsed and quantified AGW as +50% (Humans are the primary cause)?
Depending upon how you define “climate scientist”, IMO it’s entirely possible that only a small number of them agree that catastrophic man-made global warming is a threat dire enough to justify dismantling industrial civilization.
Most might be convinced that humans have some effect, at least locally or regionally, on climate. A lesser number, but still possibly a majority, might even believe that human activity is now the main driver of “climate change” or at least significant in its effect. Fewer still, probably less than a majority, might think that people are producing potentially catastrophic climatic alteration, akin to Hansen’s “Venus Express”.
Most scientists in general haven’t studied the question, so don’t have an expert or even informed opinion. A lot of so-called “climate scientists” aren’t climatologists but computer gamers.
*sigh* spaatch, please read again and see what the 0.3% actually refers to, ok?
97% “sounds right to you?” That’s not how science is done…nor how scientific surveys are done.
Gloteaus M. says,
=======================
“Depending upon how you define “climate scientist”, IMO it’s entirely possible that only a small number of them agree that catastrophic man-made global warming is a threat dire enough to justify dismantling industrial civilization.
=========================
Indeed! The theory of CAGW is based on the perspective that human emissions of GHG (Green House Gases) will warm the atmosphere, and cause catastrophic harm to life on this planet. I choose the term CAGW because it best describes the theory.
“Climate Change” is a poor definition, as climate always has and always will change, sometimes that change is beneficially to some, and harmful to others. To differentiate between natural change (The Null Hypothesis) and human caused change, the term “Anthropogenic” is clearly more accurate.
The harmful effects of CAGW are based on the GMT (global mean temperature) of the planet increasing to the point of severe harm to humans and the planet, thus “Warming” is clearly a necessary component of the theory.
If the warming was perceived as primarily beneficial, then there would be no call for International agreements to limit GHG emissions, tax CO2 emissions, increase the cost of electricity through expensive alternative energy, legislate CO2 as a toxin, etc. Clearly it is the word “Catastrophic” that is used to justify demands for societal change and regulations.
But the definition of “climate scientists”, not that is also pertinent. It is likely that the majority of the alarmed “climate scientists” in those deeply flawed scientifically meaningless 97% surveys, are not specialists in the CAUSES of CAGW (attribution), but in the impacts of and remedies for predicted change.
Many, if not most, know very little about studies of atmospheric physics. They may know details about how in such and such region there was a drought, or a flood, and in that region these species were harmed, be it plants, animals, etc, and they then look at the IPCC climate model mean projection (which according to all the observations are off by a factor of at least two to three) that says, “It worse than we thought, these events will increase in the future if we do not tax the air you breath now”.
From there these environmental studies project that frogs will get bigger, or frogs will get smaller, or penguins will get to warm, or polar bears will drown, or forests will burn up, or oceans will rise 20’, or bees will die, or earthquakes will increase (really) ,etc…etc… (This is not hyperbole, as the flawed climate science peer review process has produced papers stating all of the above, and a far longer list of absurdity then written here)
Of the various petitions on global warming circulated for signatures by scientists, the one by the Petition Project, a group of physicists and physical chemists based in La Jolla, Calif., has by far the most signatures—more than 31,000 (more than 9,000 with a Ph.D.). It was most recently published in 2009, and most signers were added or reaffirmed since 2007. The petition states that “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of . . . carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
We could go on, but the larger point is plain. There is no basis for the claim that 97% of scientists believe that CAGW is a dangerous problem.
“dire enough to justify dismantling industrial civilization.” A tad alarmist there, don’t you think? A modest carbon tax is hardly dismantling industrial civilisation.
Sea ice, do not remain ignorant of the political objectives of CAGW…
================
“To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family, tradition, national patriotism and religious dogmas.
“The re-interpretation and eventually eradication of the concept of right and wrong which has been the basis of child training, the substitution of intelligent and rational thinking for faith in the certainties of old people, these are the belated objectives of practically all effective psychotherapy”. (Brock Chisholm, first Director General of the World Health Organisation
==================
If you study this issue you will find dozens more similar quotes from world leaders. Also read books like “Blue Planet in Green Shackle’s” CAGW is perhaps the mot powerful tool in these politicians arsenal.
Do you find it surprising that politicians wish to tax the very air you breath?
Do you think the 1.5 trillion already spent is chump change?
Are you ignorant of what “misallocation of assets” means, not in just economic terms, but in social consequences of statist governments sucking the life blood out of liberty, which also is cause of great harm to free markets?
Are you ignorant that in statist nations where a large portion of GDP goes to the central government cause economic collapse and international conflict and wars? This is not hyperbole. Research “Democide” and Death by Government” to see the thoroughly researched work of a classic liberal.
So the phrase, “dire enough to justify dismantling industrial civilization” is reasonable. Indeed, one prominent UN member stated that this was their goal; a complete fundamental reformation of how modern economies function. If the Parris accords were actually followed, this is what would happen, and the result would be, well, catastrophic.
DavidA, does that mean you are in favor of modest measures, but only disgree with the most extreme?
“Do you find it surprising that politicians wish to tax the very air you breath?” I have never heard that one proposed.
sea ice, modest measures to do what? To reduce the most beneficial trace gas known, responsible for increasing crop growth 15 percent or more since it began to increase from 280 PPM, responsible for feeding almost one billion of the global population and saving millions of acre feet of water. The projected harms of CO2 are not manifesting, the benefits are known.
Seaice, is there no CO2 in the air you breath?
Come on DavidA, get the basics right. There is no proposal I know of that would tax the air that I breathe. Carbon would be taxed at the point of emission of fossil carbon into the atmosphere. Any CO2 I breathe is not adding to the total, and my breating would remain free. There is no policy proposal to dismantle industial society.
The real alarmists are those that say industrial society will be dismantled and the air we breathe will be taxed.
To refute the typical ‘seaice1’ propaganda:
There is no evidence of any global harm from rising CO2. In fact, all the evidence shows that it’s a net benefit.
So we do not need a ‘carbon tax’, which would not change global T by 0.000001ºC.
But it would balloon government bureaucracy by confiscating immense wealth from the productive class — for no benefit whatever. The costs of all goods and services would skyrocket.
seaice! is either a bought and paid for shill, or an economic illiterate. Probably both.
Anther excellent article to add to the collection: http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/12/97-articles-refuting-97-consensus.html
So it is really a .3% consensus. But scientists never registered and voted on the AGW conjecture. In reality science is not a democracy. The laws of science is not some sort of legislation. The theories of science do not become scientific fact through a voting process. If consensus was enough to turn a theory into scientific fact then the Ptolemaic system would now be scientific fact because one time it was the consensus belief. So all those who believe that consensus turns theory into fact, must believe that the entire universe revolves around the Earth.
Anthony, I see Cryosphere today is currently showing Sea Ice Area of 13.118 ie over 13 million sq kilometers.
While this will not last I think you should make hay with it while the sun is not showing as 2016 now not the lowest area on record.
NOOA saea ice exten might also need revisiting if when updated it also shows a new max for 2016.
There’s nothing new in this post. We all know the 97% is BS, and unfortunately we also know that it doesn’t matter, since the climate fascists will repeat it ad nauseum as if were true anyway. The science will eventually take care of itself, the truth can only be hidden for so long. Until then, it’s entirely a political issue. Vote early and often.
@Obama_tweet
“97% of scientists agree: Climate change is real, manmade and dangerous.”
This is semantic abuse of the term climate change.
Indeed, it is a kind of trope is called “catachresis” by rhetoricians, where a word or phrase is applied in a way that significantly departs from its perceived correct usage.
It should be obvious to everyone that climate has always been changing. So if Mr. Obama is to be literally believed, then all climate change was caused by Man, even before Man existed. And, according to Mr. Obama, climate change was always dangerous, even before the 20th Century.
So is Obama trying to sound stupid? No, he’s deliberately using the term “climate change” as an ambiguous synonym for “climate_change=CAGW“, instead of “climate_change=natural_variance“.
This ambiguity creates a trap for skeptics. If anyone disagrees with Mr. Obama’s views on “climate change” then they might fall into the trap and be tempted to say: ‘I don’t believe in this “climate change”‘. Then they will likely endure ridicule, for not believing in ‘natural variance’ of climate.
So, because the term “climate change” is ambiguous, it should never be used as a synonym for “climate_change=CAGW“. Instead we should use the term “climate scare”, and thus we avoid the semantic trap and ridicule.
Climate scare is a fraud. Do we have a consensus yet?
Hmm, what is needed as an anonymous way of registering ‘disagreement’ with the AGW meme – broken down by business/government department/academic institution. Idea being people can find out for themselves whether they are in the majority or not…
This would make it very clear how fear is being used to promote a very minority position.
Money, Money, Money. It is all about money. Money has become the powerful force on our civilized Earth. Money provided by agenda driven politicians has bought-out the science of Climatology. And for 15 years billions of Federal grant dollars have bought 10,000 Papers on climate change that have flooded the scientific journals and the media. Scientists and scientific organizations ONLY receive the money if their research will support the theory that the activities of man-kind will lead to devastating climate change results from coastal flooding, droughts, heat waves, floods, super storms, etc. Of course the scientists and their papers support the climate change scare. I am surprised it studies could only find 97% of scientists who had been bought and paid for and that the government funded studies had to manipulate the data to come up with even that figure.
I strongly support the tenured and retired scientists who contribute articles debunking the flood of climate change papers. Their papers very rarely make into Journals but at least we can read them here on WUWT and on the several other skeptical websites (non-of which are funded by the government). And I strongly support Heartland Institute for his annual climate change conferences and other publications and websites that debunk climate change. And, I am very pleased that CFACT has produced the new movie “Climate Hustle”. And I also admire the team of terrific scientists who produce great data in their comments here on WUWT. Hats off to all of us who continue to wait for our checks form the government, Koch Brothers, the fossil fuel industry, etc. We are making some progress in our campaign to inform the public of the truth that there is no crisis of man-made climate change in the offing.
But the truth is very simple. The climate change hysteria will continue until we elect politicians who will turn off the money. For 15 years, billions of dollars in annual funding grants that go only to those who support the climate change scare have lead to about 10,000 climate change articles in scientific journals and a steady stream of news reports flooding the media about the devastating predictions from those Papers. Maybe this November will start the process of defunding this agenda driven flood of grants here in the United States. Maybe. But unless and until, the whole scenario will continue. Money, Money, Money. The most powerful force on Earth.
Can you spell projection?
Hillary will not stop this insanity, I think Cruz could, (not Trump).
J. Philip,
I agree with you there. However, I very seriously doubt that Cruz can win this election, while I think Trump has ‘fire in the belly’, and he would put Hillary on the defensive from day one. He also has the bona fides: more than 120 skyscrapers built, and lots of smaller projects.
Every other candidate has but one qualification: they won their last election. What did any of them build?
It doesn’t matter, though. The political insider class won’t give either ot them a chance. Which means a big ‘screw you!’ to the millions of common voters who support either one.
Just speaking from my own situation, these people are doing exactly what they set out to do ( I even see it in my own family), creating discord at many levels. This to me is the saddest and most dangerous thing that ever happened on the planet right now.
ecoguy , You have a point , A blind registry (not sure if that is the correct term ) might work but science is not about consensus in any event . Group think happened with the global cooling scare of the 1970’s and has repeatedly occurred throughout history . That is not science it’s politics at best . Over 30,000 scientists have already openly disagreed with the over exaggerated scary claims of scary global warming promoters by signing the Oregon Petition . The global warming industry tries to discredit the Oregon Petition based on some planted false signatures but of the over 30,000 signatures more than 9000 were people with PhD’s and highly trained qualified scientists . The 41 scientists in the COOK survey sample who supporting a consensus view pails in comparison . Scientists are being intimidated to not speak out yet over 30,000 did anyway . Does that sound like there is a consensus ?
Climate changes , who knew ? Humans also have some impact no doubt ,but the overblown scam is motivated by good old fashion greed and not science . . A $$Trillion dollar industry based on a massive lie will not go quietly into the night the way the 1970’s global cooling scare did . It just disappeared . Scary global warming propaganda (rebrand to the unsalable catch all phrase” climate change”) is the gift that keeps giving for many and a complete deadly disaster for tens of thousands who pay with their lives because of the misguided and foolish policies to supposedly pretend and allow humans to adjust the earth’s thermostat to within 2 degrees . How daft is that ?
Natural occurring CO2 (mainly water vapor ) accounts for over 99% of CO2 but no one seems to have a problem with that . Natural variation alone has more volatility than humans ability to accurately discern humans contribution to temperature change . Yes CO2 from humans goes up but putting a thimble full of water in a pool is hardly devastating . In any event let’s hope for warming because the alternative is far worse . At least they got that right with the 1970’s global cooling campaign which was equally pumped by the media and some “consensus ” scientists . That con was however far less costly .
The global warming industry has run out of chicken little the sky is falling cries so they have fallen back to bullying and threats as their last resort . At least people didn’t have to put up with that nonsense in the 1970’s .
Dude:
1) H₂O is not a type of CO₂.
2) H₂O is resident in the atmosphere for less than 2 weeks. Increasing it increases rainfall, but not climate over a long period of time.
3) The greenhouse effect of H₂O compared to CO₂, is nowhere near 99%. H₂O absorbs about 36%, of the absorbed outgoing LW radiation, not counting overlap with other absorbing species, and CO₂ absorbs about 9%, also not counting overlap. So about 80% of outgoing IR absorbed by the two is absorbed by H₂O.
Amber wrote: Group think happened with the global cooling scare of the 1970’s and has repeatedly occurred throughout history.
Possibly in the press, but not in the scientific literature. That is why looking at published science is compelling.
Amber wrote: Over 30,000 scientists have already openly disagreed with the over exaggerated scary claims of scary global warming promoters by signing the Oregon Petition.
There was a lot of misrepresentation by the “skeptics” running that. The petitions were originally sent out with an unpublished paper formatted so that it looked like it had been published in PNAS. It also had no checking up of credentials, when Scientific American looked for a sample of 30 that claimed to have a PhD,
13% couldn’t be found to exist
37% still agreed with the petition
20% had changed their opinion and would not sign at the time they were contacted
10% hadn’t signed to their recollection
17% didn’t respond to queries
3% was dead
– Archived here
Given the extremely poor light the fraudulent PNAS paper and poor controls surrounding the Oregon Petition, it’s surprising “skeptics” want to shine a light on this survey, especially considering the definition of “scientist” is so broad that even if you think that more than 37% are real and still back their position, they still have a vanishingly small minority of scientists signed:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/oismtable2-sm.jpg
Seth, please stop posting debunked nonsense about the Oregon Petition. The original version of the scientific paper “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” included with the petition explicitly said “Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine” and “The Marshall Institute” at the top. So anyone “fooled” by this strawman argument were either illiterate or incompetent. Which is it?
Dr. Robinson refuted this assertion in Science Magazine,
“Robinson admits it is no coincidence that the article, which he designed on his computer, looks like one published by the academy. ‘I used the Proceedings as a model.’ he says, ‘but only to put the information in a format that scientists like to read, not to fool people into thinking it is from a journal.” […]
“The Malakoff Science article also includes a picture of the first page of our 8-page article. The photo clearly shows no journal name, no submission date, no submitting scientist (required by the Proceedings), and “January 1998” printed in a format never used by a journal. The article is also twice as long as permitted in the Proceedings (in which I have published several papers) and has other textual and format differences that I introduced to make it easier to read. It actually never occurred to me that this format complaint would be made – probably because I actually expected more.”
…further refutation by Dr. Robinson,
“The review article sent with the petition could not possibly have been mistaken for a PNAS reprint. I have published many research papers in PNAS. I am very familiar with reprint formats.
The PNAS claim originated because Frederick Seitz – past president of the National Academy and past president of Rockefeller University signed a letter that was circulated with the petition. (Dr. Seitz, like everyone else who has actively opposed the “enviro warmers” has been smeared with many false claims.) Also, the first signers of the petition were several rather famous members of the National Academy.”
The paper in question was later peer-reviewed and published in Climate Research, Volume 13, Number 2, Pages 149-164.
Scientific American is not a scholarly journal and the numbers they provided are meaningless. A writer for a magazine being unable to locate a scientist does not mean they do not exist nor can we confirm they even contacted the correct scientists. In the past activists have misidentified the names of signatories and used this to fabricate misinformation about. Where is the data Scientific American used so this can be verified?
The application of total worldwide degrees obtained to the Oregon Petition invalidates every single other “consensus study” ever done. Thank for helping invalidate the “97% consensus” talking point.
With respect to the 97% consensus, “climate change is real” means “most of the current climate change is probably due to human activity”.
However, we are the vastly dominant cause of the current warming:
http://www.realclimate.org/images/ipcc_rad_forc_ar5.jpg
It’s good to see climate “skeptics” interested in discussing facts. What exactly do you mean by “being dangerous” and how are you measuring it?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You’re going to need to show your estimates of the deaths caused by moving to predominantly nuclear and renewable energy sources.
Because you seem to be trying to drum up irrational fear with no evidence. The increase in cost of electricity will not be huge. We’re talking something in the range of a little bit cheaper to 20% more expensive, but with health benefits of reduced air pollution, slower sea level rise, less extinction pressure on species, and more time to educate the third world about how they need to change their crops and diet.
Winter excess mortality is generally increasing in Europe. The pattern doesn’t follow electricity prices though. Germany has been one of the least affected, whereas Portugal has the highest in Europe. Glancing through the literature I’m left with the impression that insulation standards seem to be the aspect with the greatest correlation with excess winter mortality, more than fuel poverty. (Fuel poverty is certainly also an issue, and is addressed with legislation in the UK, and for all I know, other Nations in Europe – it’s not obvious that increased winter mortality can be attributed to this though) .
Could the increase be related to the fast growing over-65 demographic?
Consensus is how science is decided. In terms of deciding what to put in textbooks and what to use to inform policy, it has an unrivaled place in science. Occasionally it’s wrong, but that’s certainly not the way to bet, and if it is wrong, in time a different consensus emerges in response to the new evidence.
Yes. And if it did, General Relativity would no longer have the consensus backing of the scientific community. So the consensus is a good proxy for the fact that a single experiment has not proven the science wrong.
This is why it is the basis for deciding “known” from “not known”.
No, with the claim “Human activities … are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents … that absorb or scatter radiant energy. … [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations”
As you can see from her essay.
Again, no. Only those who had contributed to the IPCC AR4 WG1, or signed documents supporting their consensus counted as agreeing with the consensus:
IPCC AR4 Working Group I Contributors (coordinating lead authors,
lead authors, and contributing authors; 619 names listed), 2007
Bali Declaration (212 signers listed), Canadian Meteorological
and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) 2006 statement (120 names
listed), CMOS 2008 statement (130 names listed), and 37 signers
of open letter protesting The Great Global Warming Swindle film
errors.
As you can see from Anderegg’s methods.
It is quite correct to exclude papers that don’t take a position. There were a lot of papers on sociology at the time too. They don’t reduce the consensus on climate change either.
I think there’s a little bait and switch going on here too. The consensus position is that humans are the main cause of the current warming, not the sole cause.
Cook included implicit endorsement, being papers that made the assumption that humans are causing warming. You could argue the toss as to how much, but the papers and results are all published, so an effective way to argue the toss would be with reference to specific papers that you only imply a small contribution from human activity, but were counted as explicit endorsement.
The strength of Cook’s paper, is that he also asked the authors to rate their own papers, of those that responded the consensus was slightly stronger than those that Cook’s people rated (97.2% vs 97.1% endorse).
So you’ve got an uphill battle to argue that the ratings were inaccurate or baised compared to the opinions of the authors.
“It is quite correct to exclude papers that don’t take a position. There were a lot of papers on sociology at the time too.” I suspect that lots of papers by astrologists profess a belief in astrology. How would comparing the number of papers by astrologists who expressed a belief in astrology with those that disavowed such a belief be in any way useful? You seem to be following that line of reasoning though.
In any event, weren’t there only 41 papers out of the ones written by nearly 30,000 authors that claimed that man was mainly responsible? That is the data right there. Manipulating that to reach 97.1% is pure propaganda.
The survey has even less credibility when you discover that the paper’s authors discussed how to publicise the results before the survey itself had begun. Could that have led to any confirmation bias I wonder? Was the decision to lump categories 1, 2 and 3 together before dividing by the dissenters decided a priori or a posteriori?
graphicconception wrote How would comparing the number of papers by astrologists who expressed a belief in astrology with those that disavowed such a belief be in any way useful? You seem to be following that line of reasoning though.
If a paper doesn’t express an opinion on whether the current warming is mostly anthropogenic, then it shouldn’t be included in a study of whether the view that most of the current warming is anthropogenic compared to the view that most of the current warming isn’t anthropogenic.
There are lots of papers that don’t take a view on that. Those that are returned by the search term “global climate change” are no more valid to include than those returned by any other search term, so long as they don’t take a stance of whether most of the current warming is anthropogenic.
In any event, weren’t there only 41 papers out of the ones written by nearly 30,000 authors that claimed that man was mainly responsible?
No, not even close. 1319 papers of 1357, according to the author’s own ratings. I don’t know how many authors there were, but the number 41 doesn’t appear anywhere.
That is the data right there. Manipulating that to reach 97.1% is pure propaganda.
Oh, the irony.
The survey has even less credibility when you discover that the paper’s authors discussed how to publicise the results before the survey itself had begun.
No, that doesn’t affect the credibility of the survey. Lots of scientists intend to publicise their work.
Was the decision to lump categories 1, 2 and 3 together before dividing by the dissenters decided a priori or a posteriori?
1 divided by 1+7, 1+2 divided by 1+2+6+7 and 1+2+3 divided by 1+2+3+5+6+7 give very similar results.
Seth, that is quite a list of demonstrated false assertions. Do you really think Electrical prices in Europe have not increased dramatically due to wind and solar initiatives?
Dozens of well written articles , many which have been posted at WUWT, extensively debated in comments in which your potion was badly trounced, have been published, but you learn nothing.
Do you not know that energy is the life blood of every economy?
Have you read the NIPCC reports, based on thousands of peer reviewed papers, which support deep skepticism of CAGW?
Do you know your IPCC listing of climate forcing’s is a fantasy based on computer models, not the observations which demonstrate that the troposphere is warming at one third the rate predicted by the IPCC?
Your understanding of the Cook paper is wrong based on many factual comments already given in this thread.
Did you not know that a statement that humans caused most of the recent warming is unscientific, as “most of” neither defines the warming (which global mean T database do you wish to use) the amount, (51% or 99%) or the benefits or harm of said warming?
Seth, do you not know the glaring error, common to the 97% studies, that preclude them from having any meaning applicable to CAGW, and public policy pertinent to the theory?
They leave the “C” out of CAGW, and thereby move most skeptics into the camp of supporters of CAGW; as most skeptics accept that human GHG emissions case some warming.
Let us meet some of the skeptics…
Here are Seven Eminent Physicists; Freeman Dyson, Ivar Giaever (Nobel Prize), Robert Laughlin (Nobel Prize), Edward Teller, Frederick Seitz, Robert Jastrow and William Nierenberg, all skeptical of “man-made” global warming (AGW) alarm. http://www.populartechnology.net/2010/07/eminent-physicists-skeptical-of-agw.html
Of the various petitions on global warming circulated for signatures by scientists, the one by the Petition Project, a group of physicists and physical chemists based in La Jolla, Calif., has by far the most signatures; 31,487 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,029 with PhDs
When the skeptics wish to demonstrate that there is a strong scientific community of thousands of PHD scientist who reject the theory of CAGW, they do it correctly. They start with a statement that goes to the heart of the matter…
================================
.“We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
======================================
That Seth is how you demonstrate scientific support or denial of a proposition. The 97% surveys are junk science of the worst kind.
In addition it is likely that the majority of the alarmed “climate scientists” in those deeply flawed scientifically meaningless 97% surveys, are not specialists in the CAUSES of climate change (attribution), but in the impacts of and remedies for such change. Many, if not most, know very little about studies of atmospheric physics. They may know details about how in such and such region there was a drought, or a flood, and in that region these species were harmed, be it plants, animals, etc, and they then look at the IPCC climate model mean projection (which according to all the observations are off by a factor of at least two to three) that says, “It worse than we thought, these events will increase in the future if we do not tax the air you breath now”.
From there these environmental studies project that frogs will get bigger, or frogs will get smaller, or penguins will get to warm, or polar bears will drown, or forests will burn up, or oceans will rise 20’, or bees will die, or earthquakes will increase (really) ,etc,etc,etc. (This is not hyperbole, as the flawed climate science peer review process has produced papers stating all of the above, and a far longer list of absurdity then written here)
Seth, study the NIPCC reports. (Climate Change revisited)
By the way, the International proposals for preventing the non existent problem of CAGW do far greater harm then the already disastrous affect of raising energy prices.
They cause great harm through misallocation of resources (to the tune of trillions of dollars) fundamental harm to conventional energy producers (see the US coal workers no longer employed as one example of hundreds) BTW, Germany increased their coal production which is why their rates have not increased as dramatically as others in Europe.
Great additional harm is caused by far more resources going to the Government. (Study the Lafer curve) as well as the economic disasters of statist governments.
Great loss of individual rights and liberties (the foundational basis of the USA) has tremendous economic consequences. Study Austrian school of economics and read Adam Smith.
This one world statist central control policy advocated by the UN under the guise of environmentalism often leads to economic disaster and war. (Research “Democide” or “Death by Government”.)
David almost of his argument is disingenuous, a copy and paste jobby, these loons are armed with links of false claim after false claim
You are correct Mark. In general I post for new readers not so familiar with alarmist misinformation and false assertions. I do not expect any rational response from Seth, “he speaks”, but reason has forsaken him.
David wrote Seth, that is quite a list of demonstrated false assertions.
Indeed no, David. I’m not sure how you got that wrong impression, because you appear to be leading with your conclusion without giving any evidence.
David wrote Dozens of well written articles , many which have been posted at WUWT, extensively debated in comments in which your potion was badly trounced, have been published, but you learn nothing.
And yet you offer no evidence to support your arguments. The reader might conclude that my “potion” was not as trounced as you are claiming, and that you’re trying to whitewash over it.
David wrote Do you not know that energy is the life blood of every economy?
Perhaps you should define your terms before asking if someone knows it.
Is there an economic definition of “is the life blood of”? Or are you merely posturing with phrases that have no meaning, in order to discourage an analysis of low technology economies, while trying to make it appear as if you have a point?
David wrote Have you read the NIPCC reports, based on thousands of peer reviewed papers, which support deep skepticism of CAGW?
Again is there a scientific definition of CAGW? Or are you merely posturing with phrases that have no meaning?
Google scholar returns 95 results for the search term “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming”, including about one peer reviewed paper. The term doesn’t exist in the scholarly discourse.
(By comparison the phrase “Anthropogenic Global Warming” returns 26,000 results including many peer reviewed scholarly papers.)
David wrote Your understanding of the Cook paper is wrong based on many factual comments already given in this thread.
Again, if you can’t supply an argument showing where and why, I’m afraid that I for one, am unconvinced by this unsupported statement.
Do you care to describe what you think my understanding of the Cook paper is, and how it is wrong, referencing factual comments?
Or shall we dismiss this as more meaningless handwaving?
David wrote Did you not know that a statement that humans caused most of the recent warming is unscientific, as “most of” neither defines the warming (which global mean T database do you wish to use) the amount, (51% or 99%) or the benefits or harm of said warming?
“most of” defines what proportion of the warming is due to humans.
Your claim that it is unscientific because there are other things that it doesn’t define is wrong. The definition of “scientific” is not, as is your hidden assumption “defines either the warming, the amount of the benefits or harms of said warming”.
David wrote Seth, do you not know the glaring error, common to the 97% studies, that preclude them from having any meaning applicable to CAGW, and public policy pertinent to the theory?
The study looked at what proportion of papers accepted the consensus position that most of the current warming is anthropogenic. That is not a glaring error, it is what the paper set out to test. It’s what the Oreskes literature review before it tested.
It certainly isn’t a error that it didn’t look to have applicable meaning to a term “CAGW” that doesn’t even exist in the literature, and has the word “catastrophic” that doesn’t have a strict scientific definition by which an impact can be formally assigned “catastrophic” or “not catastrophic”. That would be meaningless.
David wrote Let us meet some of the skeptics …
You can name each one?
Putting “Global Climate Change” into google scholar returns 701,000 results, and you think that if you can name 7 people, not known from climate science, mostly retired, that you’ve made a point?
You should be embarrassed that there’s so few you can name them.
David wrote That Seth is how you demonstrate scientific support or denial of a proposition. The 97% surveys are junk science of the worst kind.
No David. Naming a few people from outside a field of hundreds of thousands does not demonstrate support. If anything the vanishingly small numbers demonstrate the opposite.
David wrote In addition it is likely that the majority of the alarmed “climate scientists” in those deeply flawed scientifically meaningless 97% surveys, are not specialists in the CAUSES of climate change (attribution), but in the impacts of and remedies for such change
It is likely? The papers are there. Grow some, and present your examples.
If you look at the Cook papers, classifications 1 and 2 were specifically on causes of climate change.
classification 3 would have been impacts, adaptation and so on.
Whichever way you cut it you get 96-98%
David wrote By the way, the International proposals for preventing the non existent problem of CAGW do far greater harm then the already disastrous affect of raising energy prices.
Big claim.
What’s your very best evidence of this?
How much harm does AGW cause, and how much harm does moving to the already same-order-of-magnitude priced nuclear and renewables, who’s cost is dropping, and not vulnerable to the foibles of the fossil fuel markets?
What definition of “far greater harm” are you using?
David wrote Great loss of individual rights and liberties (the foundational basis of the USA) has tremendous economic consequences.
I certainly agree that market forces should be used to reduce emissions. A tax on fossil fuels where they come out of the ground or into the country is a good mechanism, that allows the free market to find the cheapest solution to production and processes, freed from the imbalance of the externalities of the costs of climate change.
Why am I not surprised that Seth falsely thinks the result totals from Google Scholar queries have any relevance to the actual frequency of a search term in the scholarly literature.
The term “CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming)” is used by scientists and can be found in the scholarly literature (e.g. Carlin 2011, Lindzen 2012, Van Kooten 2012, Nemeth 2014 and Rose 2014).
BTW Seth can you provide us with the 1001 results from any of those Google Scholar Queries?
There is zero evidence that human activities are the main driver of “climate change” at the moment, since 1950, 1900, 1850 or any other period you might wish to chose.
Science can’t even say whether the net effect of human activities is to cool or warm the planet, but in any case, it’s negligible globally, however possibly measurable locally, as in Las Vegas.
Gloateus Maximus wrote There is zero evidence that human activities are the main driver of “climate change” at the moment, since 1950, 1900, 1850 or any other period you might wish to chose.
This is flat out wrong. There are measurements and science behind those estimates of forcings, and the error bars.
If you have a different estimate, please present it. But this one is evidence based.
Gloateus Maximus wrote Science can’t even say whether the net effect of human activities is to cool or warm the planet
Yes it can. The net anthropogenic forcing is at the bottom of the chart.
(It is warming).
Gloateus Maximus wrote but in any case, it’s negligible globally,
Okay, you’re going to need to present your data from which this is calculated, because I think most people would say that you’re mistaken about that.
I was going through the Cook poll data:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/self_vs_abstracts_private.txt
And I found that some authors (3%) self categorized themselves in intermediate categories like 1.5, 1.6667, 2.5,
What does that even mean?
Ignoring the 3% of answers that had decimal points since I don’t know how to interpret them. The agreement between abstract classification and self classification is very limited as the following table explains:
same classification on both tests 798 37.36% (of 2136)
of those category 1 8 44.44% (of 18)
of those category 2 71 32.57% (of 218)
of those category 3 133 24.14% (of 551)
of those category 4 582 43.47% (of 1339)
of those category 5 4 44.44% (of 9)
of those category 6 0 0.00% (of 1)
of those category 7 no paper was categorized here by abstract classification
This demonstrates that the abstract evaluation method is not good at classifying the papers, since in average only 37% of papers are correctly classified. Only the 2136 papers that were self-evaluated may be of any significance.
NOTE: For the purpose of this last part I have considered all the papers categorized as an intermediate position between 1 and 2 to be part of 1, being conservative towards the CAGW hypothesis)
The position that supports CAGW is only Category one, in fact even an unknown subset of category 1, since no statement about whether the authors thought the anthropocentric warming poses a serious threat to humanity is found in the article. For the purpose of an upper limit in the so called consensus lets assume all papers in category 1 believe in the CAGW hypothesis then at most the consensus is a lousy 17.6% (242 out of 1376) when the papers that state no position are ignored (category 4) or a 2.26% (242 out of 2136) when all papers are considered.
It is far worse then that;
Does over 50% of warming mean 51%or 99%?.
How does this affect the IPCC models, off in the troposphere by a factor of three including one hundred percent of the warming?
What data base of warming is being used to determine the warming? Satellites? Weather balloons? Surface data sets?
Is the warming net beneficial?
The entire exercise is unscientific and meaningless.
I agree completely with you. I was just trying to say that even if you are willing to accept their data the conclusion is no consensus
sebmagee wrote And I found that some authors (3%) self categorized themselves in intermediate categories like 1.5, 1.6667, 2.5,
What does that even mean?
It means that more than one author responded, and in that case they took an arithmetic average of their self ratings.
A few years ago nutritionists had a 97% consensus too . . .
You would think in order to explain why something changed something else…
…you would first have to explain what it would be like without it
Not a single one of those 97% can claim to know what “normal” is…
…yet they are 100% sure we’ve changed it
47.354% of all statistics are made up.
The posts here are most interesting and revealing in that they glide in and out of other political issues besides the climate- totalitarian actions are the same no matter what the category,time or geography. The commonality is that artificial data is persuasive, as compared to data by measurement, in the same way that unicorns are real because you can’t prove the negative that they do not exist. Oh yes, that plus there is untold gold if the answer is always man-made CO2, which only requires artificial data because the measured data has to comply with that pesky reality physics. Bernie Madoff understood that gimmick quite well and used it for 40 years. His model projections were wonderful, his reality was a nightmare as is the CAGW projections and the policy of energy poverty that seeks to enslave , literally, billions of lives.
“As for climate change being dangerous, this is pure hype based on little fact. Mile-high rivers of ice burying half of North America and Europe were disastrous for everything in their path, as they would be today.”
Did anyone pick up the irony? :
The irony that you believe the word of men who tell you the temperature of air can’t be calculated without magic?
After their organization ran the pot is like heroin scam on you all through your school years?
And after one of them sued a guy for telling us all what a liar he is, lying in the court filing he won a Nobel Prize he never one, therefore the guy was calling a Nobel Prize winner a liar?
Irony is when you come in talking about requiring magic to calculate the temperature of air
because the law of atmospheric chemistry written for solving temperature of air
doesn’t work to solve the temperature of air.
Irony is when you show up schlepping for losers like them, and they could bet you’d be so dumb, you’d do it.
You’re an example of what’s called ”too dumb to calculate the temperature of air for yourself, so you can find out it doesn’t take magic: the law of thermodynamics written for solving temperature in chemistry doesn’t have any magic effect and never will,
because the above noted scammers you troll for,
are just liars and fraudulent scammers, passing themselves off as scientists, when in fact they’re mostly just government administrators and whatnot.
Phil Jones, your leader in Climatology, admitted in Feb 2010 BBC’s interview that – he fabricated every tenth degree of warming since 1995, or 1998 or something.
After he was seen telling John Christy ”the world would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world cooled ince 1998. Ok it has but it’s only seven years of data, and it isn’t statistically significant.” j
The irony.
After he was seen saying that in 2005, when he was exposed in 2009 – to then admit it again in Feb 2010 to the BBC.
The irony.
Of his employer Met Office releasing three papers on the ”fifteen year pause in Global Warming since 1998” in their press release named ”The Recent Pause In Warming.”
The irony
of you here from the same people who sold you ”pot is like heroin”
telling the people who caught your leadership and made them confess to faking every whit of warming for more than 12 years,
they don’t understand about the temperature of air.
Yes, we do: we don’t need magic to determine it, just the laws of chemistry we always used to do it,
while you insist with religious fervor, that it can’t be done without that
because the above fakes, frauds, liars, and clowns told you so, and for no other reason than that.
Poptech wrote: Why am I not surprised that Seth falsely thinks the result totals from Google Scholar queries have any relevance to the actual frequency of a search term in the scholarly literature.
My reasoning was that if the term appears in a paper or article indexed by google scholar, it will be listed, and therefore the relative frequencies of use and not use can be inferred.
Poptech wrote: The term “CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming)” is used by scientists and can be found in the scholarly literature (e.g. Carlin 2011, Lindzen 2012, Van Kooten 2012, Nemeth 2014 and Rose 2014).
Yes, that’s no peer reviewed papers on climate science, two peer reviewed papers about economics, two conference presentations, one chapter of a book. As I said you can find nearly 100 hits. But from 701,000 hits your five represent only 0.0007% of the literature. This doesn’t indicate to me that it’s a well understood term.
But if you think it has a scientific definition precise enough to determine from a paper whether it supports “catastrophic” warming, we don’t need to faff, just let us know what your definition is.
I’m afraid you’ve misinterpreted something I said. I do not insist nor agree that the temperature of air requires magic.
Poor Seth, still does not understand how Google Scholar works. Google Scholar result totals are meaningless for determining the frequency that a term appears in the scholarly literature, as they are filled with erroneous nonsense such as fairy tales and movie scripts – which all has to be individually removed before any serious count can be taken.
Since you are apparently Google Scholar illiterate…
Please provide the 1001 search result for your Google Scholar Query that claims “701,000” hits.
Each reference I provided is from the scholarly literature and is directly discussing climate change. I have thus demonstrated that the term is used by scientists and appears in the scholarly literature.
The maximum possible error and deceiving, as scientific as well as the general public, the pressure on the scientific community to accept the stupidest statement that people are the main causes of climate change. Did you see a dumbed-down to scientists on planets where there are no people, climate change is happening.
I ask that you anywhere on the globe there is a smart and consistent laws of nature, so I send you my high-quality evidence of the REAL causes of climate change.
I’m surprised that many let them money and fear of losing your job, do not become obedient cattle in the hands of politics and tycoons, who do not know anything else but to plunder national broad masses, they enrich. Their spirituality and awareness of the singularity at zero. Abandon these terminators from nature.
Scientists argue incessantly. But Cook and his lemmings here are trying to convince rational folks that 97% of a group is on the same page in this contentious issue.
That number is so preposterous it must have come from a clown college. If Cook had claimed “63%”, or “59%”, or even “71%”, he wouldn’t look outright foolish. But 97%???
Pull the other one…
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
http://phys.org/news/2016-04-bc-forests-outpace-pine-beetle-co2.html