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View Full Version : Let’s Talk About The ‘97% Consensus’ On Global Warming



irpat54
03-05-17, 10:45 AM
MICHAEL BASTASCH

We’ve heard it time and time again: “97 percent of scientists agree global warming is real and man-made.”

Question one aspect of the global warming “consensus” and politicians and activists immediately whip out the figure. “You disagree with 97 percent of scientists?”

The 97 percent figure was often used by the Obama administration to bolster its case for phasing out fossil fuels, and President Barack Obama himself used the figure to undercut his critics. NASA even cites studies purporting to show near-unanimous agreement on the issue.

More recently, Newsweek included this figure in an article fretting about “climate deniers” in state legislatures trying to influence science curriculum. The author couldn’t resist noting that “97% of scientists who actively study Earth’s climate say it is changing because of human activity.”


Liberals use the figure to shut down debate around global warming. Afterall, how can you disagree with all those scientists, many of whom have spent their lives studying the climate?

But how many proponents of “climate action” have actually bothered to read the research that underlays such a popular talking point? How many realize the “consensus” the research claims to find is more of a statistical contortion than actual agreement?

Probably not many, so let’s talk about the 2013 study led by Australian researcher John Cook claiming there’s a 97 percent consensus on global warming.

What Does The ‘Consensus’ Really Mean?

Cook and his colleagues set out to show just how much scientists agreed that humans contribute to global warming.

To do this, Cook analyzed the abstracts of 11,944 peer-reviewed papers on global warming published between 1991 and 2011 to see what position they took on human influence on the climate.

Of those papers, just over 66 percent, or 7,930, took no position on man-made global warming. Only 32.6 percent, or 3,896, of peer-reviewed papers, endorsed the “consensus” that humans contribute to global warming, while just 1 percent of papers either rejected that position or were uncertain about it.

Cook goes on to claim that of those papers taking a position on global warming (either explicitly or implicitly), 97.1 percent agreed that humans to some degree contribute to global warming.

In terms of peer-reviewed papers, the “97 percent consensus” is really the “32.6 percent consensus” if all the studies reviewed are taken into account.

But Cook also invited the authors of these papers to rate their endorsement of the “consensus.” Cook emailed 8,574 authors to self-rate their papers, of which only 1,189 authors ended up reviewing their work.

Again, 35.5 percent, or 761, of those self-rated papers took no position on the cause of global warming. Some 62.7 percent, or 1,342, of those papers endorsed the global warming “consensus,” while 1.8 percent, or 39, self-rated papers rejected it.

Twisting the numbers a bit, Cook concludes that 97.2 percent of the self-rated papers with a position on global warming endorsed the idea humans were contributing to it.

Other studies written before and after Cook’s attempted to find a consensus, but to varying degrees, finding a range of a 7 to 100 percent (yes, no disagreement) among climate experts, depending on what subgroup was surveyed.

Cook’s paper is probably the most widely cited, having been downloaded more than 600,000 times and cited in popular media outlets.

Criticisms

Left-wing politicians and environmental activists pushing for laws and regulations to address global warming unquestioningly embraced Cook’s study.

But not everyone agreed. Some global warming skeptics took a close look at Cook’s work and found some glaring issues.

Andrew Montford of the Global Warming Policy Foundation authored a major critiques of Cook’s study in 2013.

Montford argued Cook’s “97 percent consensus” figure was meaningless, since it cast such a wide net to include global warming skeptics in with hard-core believers.

To be part of Cook’s consensus, a scientific study only needed to agree carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that human activities have warmed the planet “to some unspecified extent.” Neither of these points is controversial, Montford wrote.

It’s like claiming there’s a consensus on legalized abortion by lumping pro-abortion activists in with those who oppose all abortion except in cases of incest and rape. That “consensus” would be a meaningless talking point.

University of Delaware geologist David Legates and his colleagues took a crack at Cook’s work in 2015, finding the numbers were cooked beyond a basic wide-net consensus.

Legates’ study, published in the journal Science and Education, found only 41 out of the 11,944 peer-reviewed climate studies examined in Cook’s study explicitly stated mankind has caused most of the warming since 1950.

Cook basically cast a wide net create a seemingly large consensus when only a fraction of the studies he looked at explicitly stated “humans are the primary cause of recent global warming” or something to that effect.

Dr. Richard Lindzen, a climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, called Cook’s work “propaganda” created to bolster the political argument for economically-painful climate policies.

“So all scientists agree it’s probably warmer now than it was at the end of the Little Ice Age,” Lindzen said in 2016. “Almost all Scientists agree that if you add CO2, you will have some warming. Maybe very little warming.”

“But it is propaganda to translate that into it is dangerous and we must reduce CO2,” Lindzen said.

Is There A Consensus?

Cook’s paper has become the trump card for alarmists to shut down those who disagree with them. Rarely a day has gone by without some politician or activists citing the 97 percent consensus, but few probably realize how meaningless the figure is.

But there’s a more fundamental problem with Cook’s 97 percent figure — consensus is not proof.

Experts can all agree, but that doesn’t mean they are right. Most political pundits and pollsters predicted Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 presidential race, but were proven dead wrong on November 8th.

Trying to shut down dissent by arguing “well, all these smart people disagree with you” doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t win anyone over. In fact, most Americans don’t even believe there’s actually a “97 percent consensus” among scientists.

“Just 27% of Americans say that ‘almost all’ climate scientists hold human behavior responsible for climate change,” according to Pew’s new poll from October.

That being said, most climate scientists likely do agree humans are contributing to warming in some way.

The throngs of climate researchers working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) certainly believe most global warming, though not all, since 1950 was driven by humans.

That still leaves us with a lot of possibilities. Is 51 percent of global warming attributable to humans or is 99 percent? Scientists can guess, but no one knows for sure.

On the other hand, a 2016 George Mason University survey of more than 4,000 American Meteorological Society (AMS) members found one-third of them believed global warming is not happening, mostly natural or only about half-caused by humans. The survey found 29 percent of AMS members thought global warming was “largely or entirely” caused by humans and another 38 percent believe warming is “mostly” due to humans.

Other scientists, like Lindzen, see humans as having a minimal influence on the Earth’s climate. Climate scientists with the libertarian Cato Institute — where Lindzen is now a fellow — have shown climate models incorrectly predicted global temperature rise for six decades.

Climate models currently show twice as much warming as has actually been observed — a problem many scientists have only recently come to terms with.

Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter



Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/05/lets-talk-about-the-97-consensus-on-global-warming/#ixzz4aTxHJHQg

FoxtrotOscar
03-05-17, 11:06 AM
Fraudulent made up fabrication to separate you from your money and do as your told...

In simpler words: POWER & MONEY - One World Order...

advanced
03-05-17, 11:42 AM
FO, I believe in it's simplest words climate change is - total bull shiit....

irpat54
03-05-17, 04:22 PM
agree with both..

Tennessee Top
03-05-17, 04:28 PM
All the papers, models, and studies in the world will never convince the tree hugging hippies of anything.

Kegler300
03-06-17, 04:22 PM
Consensus isn't science ...

oldtop
03-08-17, 10:28 AM
figures don't lie, but liars do figure... all it proves is that 97% of the scientists that believe in "global warming" BELIEVE in global warming..... it does NOT prove that 97% of ALL scientists believe in the theory....

FoxtrotOscar
03-08-17, 12:46 PM
Theory is just principled conjecture, not actual irrefutable scientific fact...!!!

Remember things that go with the flow are turds and dead fish...

irpat54
03-08-17, 01:28 PM
Theory is just principled conjecture, not actual irrefutable scientific fact...!!!

Remember things that go with the flow are turds and dead fish...


ROFL, I'm going to use this..

crazymjb
03-08-17, 02:32 PM
I think its utterly insane that this has become an issue of political divide. Count me with siding with the scientific community on this one...

Mike

irpat54
03-08-17, 06:01 PM
I think its utterly insane that this has become an issue of political divide. Count me with siding with the scientific community on this one...

Mike

if you read the article, that is the point, they say 97% they have a consensus or are in agreement, when actually there is only 32.6% consensus on it and the rest have no opinion.

oldtop
03-14-17, 09:41 AM
count me with those that have an opinion influenced by COMMON SENSE, and NO, I do not believe that "bovine flatulence" will destroy the atmosphere by damaging the ozone layer.... jmho.... and it's a LOT cheaper than paying for Al Gore's "opinion".....

FoxtrotOscar
03-14-17, 04:06 PM
31382

California passed the law that all cows must have their gas captured...

How much will that contraption drive up the cost of milk products...???

Kegler300
03-14-17, 05:29 PM
31382

California passed the law that all cows must have their gas captured...

How much will that contraption drive up the cost of milk products...???

Is that thing for real???

FoxtrotOscar
03-14-17, 07:26 PM
Is that thing for real???
Read it: https://www.good.is/articles/backpack-collects-cow-farts

31383

New meaning to that term "FART SACK"....

advanced
03-15-17, 07:30 AM
Is that thing for real???
Keg, if you think that's unreal, wait till they attempt to hook us up something similar.

irpat54
03-15-17, 01:32 PM
Read it: https://www.good.is/articles/backpack-collects-cow-farts

31383

New meaning to that term "FART SACK"....

California is run by
31384

Rocmistro
03-17-17, 09:13 AM
A few other common-sense things about the value of science.

-In the 42 years that I've been on this planet, "scientists" have been unable to come to a consensus on whether or not eggs are good for you. Seriously; ****ing eggs, people.

-I like to play a game with my pro-science/global warming friends. It's called "What's wrong with my shoulder?". I have been to 3 MD's (medical doctors...scientists, to be sure - people educated at prestigious universities). These are not witch doctors and shamans...they are medical doctors, schooled in biochemistry of the human body. Using the most up-to-date tools and devices that western civilization's scientific communities have built, I have 3 different opinions from 3 different doctors on what is wrong with my shoulder. Tell, me, oh enlightened scientific-believer-of-global-warming, how this is possible given the laser-sharp precision of science and unerring results which one will get by following the scientific method.

-My wife and I are friends with a local meteorologist. The computer models and data forecasting methods they have can generally predict the weather out to about 48 hours with 95% accuracy. Every hour past that drops the accuracy of the forecast by about 2%. Tell me how, if we can't predict the weather past a couple days out in a local environement with any degree of accuracy, how we have the tools and information to form a complete grand unified theory about the temperate of the planet, what's affecting it, causing it, and what we can do about it (if anything)

irpat54
03-17-17, 10:19 AM
A few other common-sense things about the value of science.

-In the 42 years that I've been on this planet, "scientists" have been unable to come to a consensus on whether or not eggs are good for you. Seriously; ****ing eggs, people.

-I like to play a game with my pro-science/global warming friends. It's called "What's wrong with my shoulder?". I have been to 3 MD's (medical doctors...scientists, to be sure - people educated at prestigious universities). These are not witch doctors and shamans...they are medical doctors, schooled in biochemistry of the human body. Using the most up-to-date tools and devices that western civilization's scientific communities have built, I have 3 different opinions from 3 different doctors on what is wrong with my shoulder. Tell, me, oh enlightened scientific-believer-of-global-warming, how this is possible given the laser-sharp precision of science and unerring results which one will get by following the scientific method.

-My wife and I are friends with a local meteorologist. The computer models and data forecasting methods they have can generally predict the weather out to about 48 hours with 95% accuracy. Every hour past that drops the accuracy of the forecast by about 2%. Tell me how, if we can't predict the weather past a couple days out in a local environement with any degree of accuracy, how we have the tools and information to form a complete grand unified theory about the temperate of the planet, what's affecting it, causing it, and what we can do about it (if anything)

spot on, brother

smith1811
03-17-17, 05:09 PM
100% of all climate studies are funded by us taxpayers. Thats why they say it's happening , easy way to make money.

m14ed
03-18-17, 03:54 AM
climate studies are

funded by us taxpayers.


.
move to the head of the class


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Melvin Jeffries
04-10-17, 12:51 PM
Gore made a statement 11 years ago that the earth would be dead in 10 years! Even an old man like me can count so apparently Gore and his comrades are wrong again.

advanced
04-10-17, 01:10 PM
Have you looked at gore lately, he's dead.

Mongoose
04-11-17, 08:44 AM
Russ...it's all that climate changing taking a toll on poor old Gore.