The extraordinary flaws behind the 97% climate consensus claim.
This is a preview. Watch the full video at:
https://www.climateskeptic.org/p/the-climate-skeptic-podcast-episode-17e
Here’s the related article previously published here and elsewhere.
The Climate Consensus Myth: The Climate Skeptic Podcast | Episode 59
154 Comments
September 1, 2026 2:36 pm
There never was any climate consensus except among the alarmists who hoped to profit from creating one; but when the real researchers began examining the numbers, and consumers began to realize the whole issue was just a scam to raise their living costs, the air escaped from the blimp remarkably quickly.
Here’s a real litmus test for anyone that wants to trust any AI bot:
Ask that AI bot for the “truth” supporting the claim there was “a 97% consensus (sometimes referred to as an ‘overwhelming majority’) of actively publishing climate experts that agreed that human activity caused global warming”.
You may want to include in the AI question a reference to the first “study” that kicked this off: the publication authored John Cook in 2013.
Just see if the AI bot response(s) to this question pass your own “smell test”. . . a mixed metaphor, so if you prefer that the litmus test result is basic truth or acidic falsehood?
September 1, 2026 2:45 pm
Surface area of Pacific atolls is increasing; sea level rise is not a threat.
The Global Warming Potential numbers are a classic example of misdirection.
Polar bears don’t need the sea ice; it’s the seals that need the ice.
Methane is not 82.5 times more powerful at “trapping heat” than CO2.
Tide gauges show acceleration of sea level rise to be nearly zero.
If the Himalayan glaciers melt away, the rivers will still flow.
Corals live in the tropics. Warm water does not cause bleaching.
Poor forest management results in larger fires when they occur.
“We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period!” Deming quote.
Hydrogen takes twice as much energy to produce than it provides
Increasing CO2 makes world greener and warmer with more rain.
There isn’t a down side to increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.
Sequestering carbon dioxide accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Climate scientists rewrite historical data continuously.
Geoengineering schemes are entirely without merit.
Climategate November 2009.
Quite the Gish gallop there.
“Poor forest management results in larger fires when they occur.”
So does global warming, through an increase in VPD (vapor pressure deficit):
Different quantities.
A decline in the number of active fire detections can coexist with an increase in burned area if the fires that do occur are larger.
Also, the IPCC has specifically assessed the evidence that anthropogenic global warming has increased burned area in western N. America:
“Anthropogenic climate change has led to warmer and drier conditions (i.e., fire weather) that favour wildland fires in North America (high confidence) (see AR6, WGI, Chapter 12, Ranasinghe et al., 2021). In response, increased burned area in recent decades in western North America has been facilitated by anthropogenic climate change (medium confidence). Annual numbers of large wildland fires and area burned have risen in the past several decades in the western USA (USGCRP, 2017; USGCRP, 2018), and area burned has increased in Canada (although the number of large fires has declined slightly recently) (Gauthier et al., 2014; Natural Resources Canada, 2018; Hanes et al., 2019). Attribution studies have reported that climate change increased burned area in Canada (1959–1999) (Gillett et al., 2004) as well as the western USA (1984–2015) (Abatzoglou and Williams, 2016) and California (1972–2018) (Williams et al., 2019a).”
p.1948
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter14.pdf
Differs by region.
In response, increased burned area in recent decades in western North America has been facilitated by anthropogenic climate change (medium confidence).
“medium confidence”? In other words, we really don’t know. Kinda like 50% chance of rain. A win either way, right?
It is why science requires a theory, hypothesis, and functional relationship for analysis. Anything else is nothing more than a guess! Might be, could be, possibly, all are weasel phrases showing nothing more than “in our opinion”.
“Annual numbers of large wildland fires and area burned have risen”
Not by drier, anthropogenic causes. They have risen because of poor land management. You should try and correlate the number of burned acres to the growth in government owned, managed, or controlled-via-regulation acres, especially west of the Mississippi.
The idiot author of your link (Carly Phillips) states, “Rising temperatures due to climate change“, showing she has little knowledge of what climate is, but just uses the latest marketing speak.
Climate is the result of a set of Geographical & Weather related circumstances over a long period of time; climate is NOT the cause of those circumstances.
Forest fuels build-ups can either managed by entities who claim responsibility for them (governments / bureaucrats), or by individuals who recognize their properties are exposed to bushfires devastation.
Forget any actual attention to this matter from green-lit, grass-smoking ‘activists’ (a misnomer of ever there was one.
‘Activists’ are renowned for actually doing s.f.a.. Ever.
(Or maybe a bit of arson if they decide to get out of bed to make a name for themselves with their Antifa supporters).
Or – forest fuels management can be left to nature. Who always steps and expediently takes care of forest fuels build-up.
We see it on the news all the time.
No point complaining about what nature does – she only steps up when all other remedies have been passed over.
What you are claiming, unknowingly, is that climate can foster the growth of flora, which becomes ‘fuel load’. I wonder if increased CO2 had anything to do with increased greening? End result, you are claiming the greening of the earth due to anthropogenic CO2 is a BAD, BAD thing!
I guess you think we need to move back to the climate that proliferated during the Little Ice Age. No wonder you are in the progressive group wanting no chance for improvement in the human condition.
I have lived in Australia most of my life, often in bushland and country regions, like I do now, so here are some home truths about bushfire intensity and burn area.
1.. Once the temperature gets above 25-30ºC, a degree or two makes basically no difference.
2.. Probably the biggest things that affects their extent and intensity, are…
a) The fuel load and its dryness. a period of dry warm weather can set up the bush for a good burn…… and the biggy…
b) Wind. A strong wind will cause havoc even in lower temperature if there is stuff there to burn. It makes the fire almost impossible to contain and spreads it fast and far by propagation and by embers.
Absolutely nothing to do with “Climate”, which hasn’t changed noticeably or measurably in my whole lifetime.
I happen to live opposite some 900 hectares of what is designated as “dry sclerophyll eucalypt bushland” so as soon as I smell any smoke in the air in Spring, Summer or Autumn, the first thing I do go to the local RFS “Fires Near Me” web page, see if wetting down action needs to start.
No forest management, as in behaviour of forests before humans became part of the landscape at all, sets the baseline for forest ecosystem experience.
In brief, exuberant growth and flourishing followed by fires sparked variously by spontaneous combustion of accumulated litter on the forest floor or, much more likely, ignition by lightening. Then regrowth. Repeat.
There are NO virgin forests, no untamed wilderness forests, on the face of the planet and that goes back a very long way. And do not give me this “the Amazon is the lungs of the earth crap”, it is demonstrably a well-populated region of the earth until the start of the European colonial era.
“I am betting you live nowhere near any bushfire prone areas… as you seem to know basically nothing about it.”
Well, down below in your reply to Aussiecol, you agreed that low humidity is a driving factor, but that’s actually part of the VPD argument.
If the atmosphere is very warm and there’s little moisture in it, the gap between how much moisture the air can hold and how much it actually contains becomes larger.
Thus, a very thirsty atmosphere pulling moisture from the surface.
So you actually agree with me too.
Welcome to Team Science, bnice.
Thus, a very thirsty atmosphere pulling moisture from the surface.
If you believe that air lacking in moisture can literally “suck” water from the land surface, you need to study more. An atmosphere with a low humidity is not a vacuum pump. A lack of humidity, i.e., a VPD, can provide an impetus for faster evaporation, but transpiration and soil temperature driven evaporation are the main components, not VPD.
creating a steep moisture gradient that aggressively draws water away
For people who want more precision.
Even AI’s can be incorrect. The cause of VPD is a lack of moisture available to the atmosphere from surface soil and flora transpiration. In other words, it is an effect CAUSED by a lack of precipitation.
VPD can provide the opportunity for a higher RATE of loss of water from the soil and flora, but if there is little to no precipitation, there is little water to cross into the air.
VPD is basically a metric that can be used to address the severity of a drought by showing how little moisture is available for evaporation or transpiration.
” The cause of VPD is a lack of moisture available to the atmosphere from surface soil and flora transpiration. In other words, it is an effect CAUSED by a lack of precipitation.”
It is determined by both temperature and moisture. It can therefore increase because water vapor concentration decreases, because temperature increases water vapor holding capacity, or some combination of the two.
“Vapor pressure deficit (VPD) is defined as the difference between the saturation vapor pressure e_s(T) and actual vapor pressure e_a(Td), which is calculated using 2-meter temperature T and 2-meter dewpoint temperature Td from the ERA5 reanalysis. VPD is a measure of near-surface atmospheric moisture demand that is strongly and positively correlated with the annual mean area burned by wildland fires in the western United States (Williams et al. 2014; Abatzoglou and Williams 2016; Higuera and Abatzoglou 2021). Higher VPD corresponds to greater area burned as it reflects drier conditions that are conducive to wildfires.”
https://psl.noaa.gov/forecasts/seasonal_vpd/description/
Temperature is literally a part of the calculation.
It is determined by both temperature and moisture. It can therefore increase because water vapor concentration decreases, because temperature increases water vapor holding capacity, or some combination of the two.
You just said it yourself. “It is determined by both temperature and moisture.” Yes, VPD goes up as moisture goes down. The issue is that VPD DOES NOT CAUSE LESS MOISTURE. It is AN EFFECT OF less moisture., that is, less precipitation. It is useful metric for how dry it is but useless in determining WHY there is a lack of moisture.
You’re arguing against something I haven’t said.
I haven’t argued that VPD causes less precipitation.
My point has been about the moisture gradient and atmospheric moisture demand.
Decreasing atmospheric moisture isn’t the only way to increase that gradient. Increasing temperature can do so as well.
I haven’t argued that VPD causes less precipitation.
No, you have argued that VPD actively sucks water from the surface. That is a misstatement of what occurs. The lack of precipitation is what causes the lack of moisture both in the flora and in the atmosphere.
VPD is the cause of nothing. It is a metric that can indicate a condition caused by other variables. You are way off in the woods to keep saying VPD somehow affects anything.
This is what I said:
“If the atmosphere is very warm and there’s little moisture in it, the gap between how much moisture the air can hold and how much it actually contains becomes larger.
Thus, a very thirsty atmosphere pulling moisture from the surface.”
The word “suck” doesn’t show up anywhere.
Continue wasting your time trying to bash this straw man. I can just keep re-quoting what I actually said.
No problem for me.
“The lack of precipitation is what causes the lack of moisture both in the flora and in the atmosphere.”
And warming can increase atmospheric drying demand and contribute to moisture loss from vegetation and fuels. That’s been my point this entire time.
“You are way off in the woods to keep saying VPD somehow affects anything.”
I’ll stick with science.
Pro tip –
Google AI, like Ghat GPT, were just 2 of the general purpose free-use AI’s that were observed as ‘trained’ to construct & respond with answers they considered you would agree with.
(aka – pretty much just what Wikipedia said)
Soooo, as many others here have frequently advised, just as with the Scientific Method, answers from free-use AI apps should be challenged, and sources of evidence demanded.
That warmer atmosphere has a greater capacity to draw moisture from vegetation and fuels, thus making them more flammable.
Again, VPD is not a vacuum pump sucking water out of anything.
The air has little moisture content because there is little water in the surface to evaporate and little plant growth, that is little transpiration, because of the lack of water. This is commonly known as lack of rain and/or drought.
You have the cause and effect entirely reversed.
Eldro read about VPD somewhere..
Knows nothing about it…
… but now its his/her go-to meme. !
Aussie bush has ALWAYS been dry in summer. !!
That hasn’t changed.. Aussie rainfall is increasing somewhat.
Hasn’t been a “bad” bushfire years since 2019.
If anything, humidity has been increasing, as shown by sonde dew point analysis.
For western US forests, there is evidence linking increased VPD to increased wildfire activity:
Precipitation is also increasing in the USA so the forest are going to be wetter.
Your link is also complete balderdash, because there is no sign of any anthropogenic warming in the 21 years of USCRN data, just the slight step at the 2016 El Nino and a new bulge from the recent El Nino.
Also the 1930s and 40s were considerably warmer.
The most hilarious line in the article is…
“We use modeled climate projections to estimate the contribution of anthropogenic climate change“
You need to find a better source… one based on actual science. !
Narrow your analysis to a more specific region:
We’re specifically talking about the Southwest U.S. here.
The Southwest US has been in drought conditions for more than 20 years DUE TO A LACK OF PRECIPITATION. It’s not because of VPD, it’s because there isn’t enough precipitation! And the lack of precipitation is mostly below-average WINTER precipitation when temperatures are LOW!
The Southwest US climate classification is either Cold Semi-Arid (low precip), Hot Desert (low precip), or Cold Desert (low precip).
These climate classifications have existed for thousands of years. They are literally ancient.
The climate hasn’t changed in the SW USA. Any wildfires there are due mostly to government land management policies – heck, the Federal government owns 80% of the land in Nevada and ranging from 30?% to 63% in the other SW states!
drier conditions if the atmosphere’s moisture holding capacity increases with warming.
And just where does that additional water vapor in the air disappear to?
Show us a calculation about how a 1F increase would increase RH and/or SH. Bet its no more than a couple of percent. Far below the daily change from morning to evening.
You aren’t offering any clairity. All you have is gaslighting! My guess is that you didn’t even realize how much of the SW USA the federal government owns.
Even the non-owned or controlled land in the SW is controlled by regulations like the Endangered Species Act which controls what private land owners can do on their own land. Environmental reviews for land-use changes, grazing permits, and mining permits offers indirect government control of a LOT of private land.
Most of the wildfires today are HUGELY affected by government policies, not by climate change.
I’m not gaslighting. I explicitly clarified that we’re discussing the Southwestern United States:
So there really shouldn’t be any confusion about what we’re discussing.
For western US forests, there is evidence linking increased VPD to increased wildfire activity:
From your paper.
The legacy of twentieth century fire suppression across western continental US forests contributed to increased fuel loads and fire potential in many locations (20, 21), potentially increasing the sensitivity of area burned to climate variability and change in recent decades (22).
Anthropogenic increases in temperature and VPD contributed to a standardized (σ) increase in all-metric mean fuel aridity averaged for forested regions of +0.6 σ (range of +0.3 σ to +1.1 σ across all eight metrics) for 2000–2015 (Fig. 2).
As in the second paragraph, using models, the ASSUMPTION was that anthropogenic increases in temperature and VPD were direct causes. There is no proof of their being causes, only the ASSUMPTION that they are.
In the first paragraph, there is a proven cause, fire suppression practices.
The start of this paper called VPD a metric that can be used to gauge the possibility and severity of forest fires. I can agree with that. However, the paper quickly moved into it being a CAUSE, when modeling was started. That is a major leap in attribution with no evidence whatsoever. A major flaw in a scientific paper.
VPD is an effect of lack of precipitation. The lack of precipitation is NOT an effect from VPD.
You all overlooked the observational component of the study.
The relationship between fuel aridity and burned area wasn’t simply assumed from climate models.
The authors compared the fuel-aridity metrics against the observed western-US forest burned-area record. All eight metrics were significantly correlated with burned area, and their combined metric explained 76% of its annual variance.
The modeling addresses a separate attribution question.
I think it would be worth reading the paper more carefully before criticizing it.
You all overlooked the observational component of the study.
All eight metrics were significantly correlated with burned area, and their combined metric explained 76% of its annual variance.
I did not overlook anything. As I have said repeatedly, correlation is not causation.
Look at this statement of cause in the paper.
Anthropogenic increases in temperature and VPD
These are pure unproven assertions used as inputs to the modeling in order to obtain a preconceived outcome of an increase in the metrics.
Anthropogenic warming can not be used to do two things. Both an increase in water vapor that results in more rainfall and at the same time being a cause of a reduction in water vapor.
These are the absurd pseudoscience requirements for “proving” correlation IS also causation. Do better.
“If anything, humidity has been increasing, as shown by sonde dew point analysis.”
DP alone will not give you relative humidity – an estimate of specific humidity yes but you need an analysis along with temperature to figure RH.
SH is increasing but RH is decreasing …..
It is the RH that affects evaporation not SH.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-investigating-climate-changes-humidity-paradox
I just checked both ASOS and USCRN data. They both have relative humidity resolution in the units digit. That is, in full percentage points. Exactly what instrument does the MET office use to to obtain a a resolution of one-tenth for their values.
Specific humidity calculation generally uses RH, and if RH has a resolution in the units digit, significant digit rules would limit the end result to the same. You might give a detailed description of the MET calculations.
And last but not least, what are the measurement uncertainties associated with all these measurements? Are the values being displayed larger than the combined uncertainty?
Me, a good-faith participant, however, am dedicated to ensuring this blog’s conversation stays about science.
If you are dealing in science, then you should be able to provide references that have data evidence that VPD causes a lack of precipitation. That would make VPD a major contributor to drought which causes dryness.
I could find no references or sources that have VPD being the cause of drought. Let’s see what you find.
Even though I know it’s a futile attempt, I am actually trying to help you. Are you in the UK, where the NHS is decimated by the government spending, in a useless manner, taxpayer money on net-zero, and themselves. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t get help. I’m the only therapist you have in the world. You should be saying thank you.
Step back, go look in a mirror.
Harold The Organic Chemist Says:
ATTN: Steve
RE: “Increasing CO2 makes the world greener and warmer with more rain.”
At the Mauna Loa Obs. in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is currently 429 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has a mass of 1,290 grams and contains a mere 0.84 grams of CO2 at STP. This miniscule amount of CO2 in the air can not absorb enough out-going IR light to warm up such a large mass of air.
Now go to the late John L. Daly’s website: “Still Waiting For Greenhouse” available at: http://www.john-daly.com. From home page go to end and click on “Station Temperature Data”. On the “World Map” click on “Australia”. There is shown a list of stations. Click on “Adelaide”. The chart shows a plot of average mean temperature from 1857 to 1999. In 1857 concentration of CO2 in dry air was ca. 280 ppmv (0.55 g CO2/cu m. of air), and by 1999 it had increased to 368 ppmv (0.72 g CO2/cu. m. of air). Instead there was slight cooling which began in ca. 1940. Brisbane had a similar cooling. Please note and never forget how little CO2 there is in the air.
This empirical temperature data falsifies the claims by the corrupt IPCC and the unscrupulous collaborating scientists that CO2 causes global warming and is the control knob of climate change.
To return to the list of station, click on the back arrow. Click on the back arrow again to display the “World Map”. John Daly found over 200 station located around the world that had no warming up to 2002.
Please no more of this talk about CO2 causing global warming.
CO2 concentration has one valid effect on atmospheric temperature.
A change in CO2 concentration affects the Specific Heat Capacity (pressure) Cp by a trivial, minute amount. Specific Heat Capacity defines the delta temperature when a quantity of matter (air in this case) has 1 J of energy (specifically thermal energy) entered into that volume.
You are absolutely correct, Neither CO2 nor any of the myriad of other contributors is a “climate change control knob” not even the sun (meaning all by itself).
You are absolute correct. CO2 does NOT cause global warming.
September 1, 2026 3:43 pm
Story tip!
Michael Mann says the flash floods in Nepal were a planetary warning. CO2 pollution will cause more extreme weather. Models say so.
– – – – – – – – –
Nepal’s glacial collapse foreshadowed a future of climate disaster (By Michael Mann)
The deluge capped a summer of extreme climate events, from deadly heatwaves to wildfires. We must take action now
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/01/nepal-flooding-climate-disaster
The Nepal floods were because of a bedrock failure.
Nepal Floods Caused By Bedrock Failure | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
Climate had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with it.
Mickey Mann is just “making up BS”.. yet again !!
September 1, 2026 4:02 pm
An attractive young Lady is approached on the street, and offered a tidy sum ($100.) to perform a lewd act with her solicitor.
After she slapped him, he pursued the matter further:
“How about for $10,000?
She paused — “Let me think about it”.
“Then why not for $1,000?”
“What do you take me for, a Tramp?”, she protested.
“Madame, we have already determined your Character; now we are only haggling over your Price.”
And this, my dear friends, is what we are talking about, when we talk about the position of the 99% of younger scientists et al., when they are seduced to pronounce the shibboleth, ‘Climate Change’.
Next, we need to Follow-the-Money. And finally, to consider the Retaliation.
‘We ALL are Mafiosi here.’
The Hebrew word shibboleth (שִׁבֹּלֶת) does not mean a “sheaf” of wheat, but rather an ear of grain or a stalk of grain containing the seeds.
The actual word was unpronounceable to the non-Hebrews (Moabites & such), who when forced to say it (lisping) could be readily identified thereby … and executed on the spot.
‘Shibboleths’ are ubiquitous in technical / scientific communication, and serve that age-old imperative, the need to ‘first, [ let’s ] kill all the outsiders!’
— [Signed] sincerely yours, the Whet-Stone
An old geezer enters a chinese whorehouse.
Asks: How much?
Mi-Tu “For 100 you can use the bed, 20 bucks if we use the floor”
The old man looks at the bed, than at the floor, than at the bed and then pulls out 100 dollar.
” Ah, old geezer I knew you’d choose the bed”
“Bullshit biatch- I want 5x floor”
97 % is the standard voting result in every communist election for the leading party.
One can not break with old traditions if they have no tradition.
Sometimes theese numbers are harder to get.
During Covid the Fauci accomplicies Dr Anderson and Dr Gerry concluded that the China lab Virus is artificial.
Fauci gave them 17 mio Dollars in funding(not his own money)
and they didn’t only started to call everyone a conspiracy theorist who dared to think that a virus that broke out next door to Chinas only high end biolab may be artificial – they wrote a strategical paper on how to deal with the virus that Fauci used to justify his actions.
The Con makes sense once you know where the money goes.
September 2, 2026 1:52 am
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/10/more-999-studies-agree-humans-caused-climate-change
“Co-author Simon Perry, a United Kingdom-based software engineer and volunteer at the Alliance for Science, created an algorithm that searched out keywords from papers the team knew were skeptical, such as “solar,” “cosmic rays” and “natural cycles.” The algorithm was applied to all 88,000-plus papers, and the program ordered them so the skeptical ones came higher in the order. They found many of these dissenting papers near the top, as expected, with diminishing returns further down the list. Overall, the search yielded 28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly skeptical, all published in minor journals.”
There were, I am sure, many papers examined that had nothing to do with climate (maybe even thousands), but the fact is that there were just “28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly skeptical*, all published in minor journals” (Out of the 88,000).
(by reason of containing sceptical keywords eg: such as “solar,” “cosmic rays” and “natural cycles.)
No – it should be left to experts,
like journalists,politicians and experts who cry that country X should be bombed because leader Y went rouge and want to use weapon Z to kill a number of X people.
Later it turns out that everything was a lie to justify a war they couldn’t do otherwise.
The same people also sell AGW – with the same accurate predictions.
“CONsensus has absolutely nothing to do with science.”
Of course it does.
Since when has mankind agreed 100% on anything?
Never mind 97%.
Where peeps are concerned there will be contrarians, whatever the *evidence*.
Also some studies may contradict each other and a neutral standing has to be made.
There therefore needs to be a consilience of evidence made – ie a consensus among disciplines.
Also some studies may contradict each other and a neutral standing has to be made.
There therefore needs to be a consilience of evidence made – ie a consensus among disciplines.
You are discussing pseudoscience opinions. When real physical science is done, there is theory, hypothesis, and functional relationship available for perusal.
There are three main deficiencies in climate science.
One, correlation is not proof of causation. Regardless of the number of studies and conclusions, correlation will only allow guessing. That is not science.
Two, temperature is not an adequate proxy for thermodynamic heat when there is both sensible and latent heat involved. Ignoring the part of the system that has latent heat will not allow solving the Earth’s system.
Three, time series data will never, ever produce a functional relationship between temperature and any other physical variable. That can only be done by using independent and dependent variables that have a definable relationship. Even after 50 years, climate science has failed to show a functional relationship between time and temperature.
September 2, 2026 4:22 am
Story Tip: If today is the 2nd of September, a Tuesday, then that reminds that [us] the monthly UAH – Lower-Troposphere (satellite) report may be published.
Checking DrRoySpencer.com‘s page, [we] quote therefrom —
the effects of the strengthening major El Nino event are beginning to appear in the global average tropospheric temperature [GATT], with August’s [deviation at] +0.9 deg. C (from ’91-2020 mean)
As foretold (by SSTs & oceanic heat indices), we seem set to revisit the late-’23, but starting from a higher apparent baseline.
September 2, 2026 6:22 pm
This article is nonsense.
The scientific consensus of published scientific research that human activities — primarily the burning of fossil fuels –are responsible for post-industrial warming of the climate, is not 97%. It’s 99.9%, based on a more recent Cornell University study. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966
And there was a 99% consensus that the sun rotated around the earth.
And there was a 99% consensus that phlogiston existed and was released upon burning.
And there was a 99% consensus that tectonic plates didn’t exist.
And there was a 99% consensus that Einstein’s theories were incorrect.
I could go on and on, but it isn’t necessary to show that consensus is no guarantee that anything is correct. Where do you think the adage correlation is not proof of causation originated? Every time you assert that 99% of scientists agree on something, so it must be true, is just repeating failed historical precedent. Keep making the claim, it makes you appear to be a follower and not a leader.
September 2, 2026 9:23 pm
Does this say anything about John Cook’s previous work as a webcomic author and artist? He used to do a Star Trek and other science fiction parody webcomic called “Sev Trek”. Years ago, after a while of having not gone to the site to read the latest comics, I saw he’d put up a notice about ending the comic and doing his new site, Skeptical Science. I figured that sounded like a good thing – until I went to the site and quickly discovered the title’s a red herring, John Cook’s not a skeptic at all, he’s all in on AGW.
