Climate change consensus

[Adrift]

That show was a satire on network news, right? I never saw it myself.

Not really satire as I understand it. Its an Aaron Sorkin broadcast, the guy who did West Wing. So, yeah, I guess that tells you all you need to know.

[Truthseeker]

I mean, when I was a teen, global warming and holes in the ozone layer were hot topics that were laid on us . . .

I guess you meant cooling.

[pancreasman]

Why may I not assert on the basis of the article linked above that more than 60% of stuff published regarding climate change expressed no opinion?

I would suggest you read more of the study. How many articles on evolutionary biology would you expect to express an opinion on evolution's accuracy? How many papers on infectious disease would you expect to express an opinion on the accuracy of germ theory?

From the article:

Surveys of climate scientists have found strong agreement (97–98%) regarding AGW amongst publishing climate experts (Doran and Zimmerman 2009, Anderegg et al 2010). Repeated surveys of scientists found that scientific agreement about AGW steadily increased from 1996 to 2009 (Bray 2010). This is reflected in the increasingly definitive statements issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the attribution of recent GW (Houghton et al 1996, 2001, Solomon et al 2007).

The peer-reviewed scientific literature provides a ground-level assessment of the degree of consensus among publishing scientists. An analysis of abstracts published from 1993–2003 matching the search 'global climate change' found that none of 928 papers disagreed with the consensus position on AGW (Oreskes 2004). This is consistent with an analysis of citation networks that found a consensus on AGW forming in the early 1990s (Shwed and Bearman 2010).

[Leonhard]

Just reading some old headlines:

U.N. OFFICIAL PREDICTS DISASTER SAYS GREENHOUSE EFFECT COULD WIPE SOME NATIONS OFF MAP - entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of "eco-refugees," threatening political chaos, said Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect - Associated Press June 30, 1989

'New York will probably be like Florida 15 years from now,' - St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sept. 17, 1989

''I think we're in trouble. When you realize how little time we have left - we are now given not 10 years to save the rainforests, but in many cases five years. Madagascar will largely be gone in five years unless something happens. And nothing is happening.'' - ABC - The Miracle Planet April 22, 1990

Within a few years winter snowfall will become a very rare and exciting even. Children just aren't going to know what snow is," Dr David Viner, Senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia - Mar 20, 2000

None of these are scientific reports. This was pretty much what I feared you'd trot out.

[Leonhard]

Since when does science depend on consensus? At one time 99.99% of geologists thought plate tectonics was kook science.

When there's a large scientific consensus on a subject, we as non-experts ought to follow this consensus unless we have very good reasons not to.

Its also worth it because there are those who've recently tried to dismiss that there's a consensus.

Climate scientists should be able to prove their claims using actual measurements and experiments and predictions. Yet everything they have claimed in the last 40 years has basically not happened.

This is pretty much a false statement. The moment I read this I suspected that you'd take a very selective approach to this, and only look at the predictions reported in the press, which were not given with any kind of information as to certainty or not. The actual prediction of a steady growth, barring random oscilations, has been born out.

And since the main thesis of Global Warming is that the Earth is getting warmer, and that temperature increase is directly tied to the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (which is mainly caused by humans), there's been no disproof of the fact that the Earth is getting warmer, and that its caused by man.

If it was that easy to disprove Global Warming I wouldn't believe in it. Seriously, I'm not a fan of the concept Sparko, it just happens to be the ugly reality.

[Leonhard]

And where the heck did THAT come from? I was asking about whether consensus is what makes science true.

Actually that wouldn't be that far off on difficult and complex topics such as Global Warming, or more mundane questions such as whether a given treatment modality (who only has a weak effect) has any effect. In those cases you typically see various reports clustered around the truth, some false some positive, over time further studies should drive the articles towards one of these positions.

In the case of Global Warming the mechanisms driving it had been known basically since the fifties, and the reality of Global Warming was established around the seventies, and now its overwhelmingly well attested that the Earth is getting warmer, man is the cause, its man's output of CO2 which is driving it, man outputs vastly more CO2 on average than anything else out there, etc..., etc..., there's no longer a question of whether its happening, just about how bad exactly its going to get.

[Adrift]

I guess you meant cooling.

As a teen in the 80s they were definitely preaching warming. Cooling was probably a 70s and prior thing.

[Truthseeker]

If anthropogenic climate climate change is real, then there are actions we should take.

What actions?

If it isn't real, then those actions make no difference.

Wrong, their cost is staggering.

If it is real, the consequences of not taking action are catastrophic.

Nonsense. We will have to adapt, and it may kill some people, but what if the actions we take to combat climate change are catastrophically expensive? Are you not going to pay any attention to how much it would cost us, at all?

Otherwise, we place ourselves in the position of believing a plucky band of energy corporations and oil billionaires are fighting a gigantic evil conspiracy of nasty scientists.

Nonsense. Our government are driving the anti-AGC bandwagon with taxpayer money. Scientists are just as human as we are, feeding at the public trough, publishing papers tweaked to help the bandwagon go forward.

[pancreasman]

What actions?



Wrong, their cost is staggering.



Nonsense. We will have to adapt, and it may kill some people, but what if the actions we take to combat climate change are catastrophically expensive? Are you not going to pay any attention to how much it would cost us, at all?



Nonsense. Our government are driving the anti-AGC bandwagon with taxpayer money. Scientists are just as human as we are, feeding at the public trough, publishing papers tweaked to help the bandwagon go forward.

A lot of dismissive 'nonsenses' in there. Yes, those damned scientists. I see them on their yachts.

[phank]

I must say, this reply got me thinking...

For someone who isn't a scientist though, couldn't we say that, given the general consensus by scientists, its not at all unreasonable for the non-scientist to believe that the theory is more probable than not? I think, for instance, of the historicity for Jesus. The mythicist view among historians is extremely fringe. Just because the historicist view is much more widely accepted does not make that view automatically correct, but for the non-historian, its not at all unreasonable to assume that the consensus view likely has more going for it. The lack of expert support for the mythicist view seems telling.

What strikes me as even more telling, is that the historicity of Jesus has been examined almost entirely by theologian historians. If we were to try to factor out this bias by eliminating the theologians, we don't get anything close to a consensus. And this is true for a very simple reason - there is one source, and only one source, from which to derive that historicity. No valid history outside that source mentions anyone matching the description, and there is plenty of such external history. Contrast this with the techniques for measuring atomospheric change, which are not historical techniques.

The whole climate change debate doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me really. Its like that common core math issue that was brought up earlier. Its annoying to hear about it all the time, and I don't really know or care that much who is right, but it seems like the only reason people debate it has to do with ulterior political motivations that has little to do with the actual science.

The parallel is again striking. Those denying global warming have very real, very obvious economic vested interests in not wanting to do anything about it. Just as those finding Jesus to be a historical person have a strong vested interest in this being the case. In neither case are the facts paramount in arriving at an opinion.

I mean, when I was a teen, global warming and holes in the ozone layer were hot topics that were laid on us, and like overpopulation, and thermal nuclear war, we were told that it was a heavy burden us youngins were just going to have to bare and there was nothing we could really do about it except be afraid. Then some time in the early 90s they stopped talking about it, and life went on as normal, and no one cared, and then Al Gore came out with that movie, and everyone got all stirred up about it again, and for some reason it became a political issue where people on the left were for it, and people on the right were against it. I think both sides are pretty silly.

I admit this isn't very clear to me. By now, there really is little debate about human influence on the planet's climate. There is hot debate about what, if anything, to do about it. Those most strongly against doing anything about it, tend to deny there's a problem.

[phank]

Climate scientists should be able to prove their claims using actual measurements and experiments and predictions. Yet everything they have claimed in the last 40 years has basically not happened. Relying on consensus on such a topic is basically not very useful. There could be many reasons for a consensus: It is the popular view and if you go against it you might not get a job in the field, or you might be ostracized. Funding is easier to obtain on such a political topic too. Pretty easy to get money to try to save the world from global warming than to do research that shows that there is no man-made global warming.

And here we have the conspiracy theory of global warming! Science hasn't "proved" their claims (as if science has ever proved anything), they are unable to predict future climate in any detail, therefore they're all in it for the money. And pancreasman wonders why we have these debates. When ideology battles facts, there is no contest. Meanwhile, each new year brings a new candidate for warmest on record, and out of sheer political wrong-headedness we aren't doing enough research to show that the facts don't mean nuthin'

[Mountain Man]

In another thread here, the conversation developed this way.

Mountain Man said:

I replied:

DE chimed in with Think about THAT for a while

I responded as you do.

Mountain man said: Think about THAT for a while.

I said

He said

Then he said I was being 'typical' when I did not take the matter further ... in a thread about 'The Vagina Monologues'.

So here we are. Let's test the claim that there is a high level of consensus among practicing climate scientists that climate change is real. If you want to, add in the further filter that there are anthropogenic contributions.

I'm NOT a climate scientist. MY training is in physics and mathematics.

Why is this article wrong?

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

Two things. First of all, the question was already answered:

Given your user icon declaring yourself a "Proud Liberal", it figures you'd be dumb enough to fall for the "95% consensus" scam.

Fact is, pretty much every claim of a scientific consensus with regards to global warming has been debunked, but seeing how you're a "Proud Liberal" (i.e. a low-information moron) I don't suppose you're actually aware of the facts.

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/20...7-what-is.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybel...consensus-not/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/1...cientists-say/

More specifically, this excerpt from the first link directly addresses your source:

Source: The Hockey Schtick

In 2013, John Cook, an Australia-based blogger, and some of his friends reviewed abstracts of peer-reviewed papers published from 1991 to 2011. Mr. Cook reported that 97% of those who stated a position explicitly or implicitly suggest that human activity is responsible for some warming. His findings were published in Environmental Research Letters.

Mr. Cook's work was quickly debunked. In Science and Education in August 2013, for example, David R. Legates (a professor of geography at the University of Delaware and former director of its Center for Climatic Research) and three coauthors reviewed the same papers as did Mr. Cook and found "only 41 papers—0.3 percent of all 11,944 abstracts or 1.0 percent of the 4,014 expressing an opinion, and not 97.1 percent—had been found to endorse" the claim that human activity is causing most of the current warming. Elsewhere, climate scientists including Craig Idso, Nicola Scafetta, Nir J. Shaviv and Nils- Axel Morner, whose research questions the alleged consensus, protested that Mr. Cook ignored or misrepresented their work.

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/20...7-what-is.html

© Copyright Original Source

But you didn't even bother reading the links, did you? You should change your avatar to read "Proud Low-Information Voter".

Secondly, you say, "Then he said I was being 'typical' when I did not take the matter further ... in a thread about 'The Vagina Monologues'."

This is false. Here was the exact exchange:

hehe. I knew my icon would stir up the haters. Precisely as intended.

And no answer to the fact that your claim of a 90-something percent consensus was wrong. Typical.

[pancreasman]

Two things. First of all, the question was already answered:


More specifically, this excerpt from the first link directly addresses your source:

Source: The Hockey Schtick

In 2013, John Cook, an Australia-based blogger, and some of his friends reviewed abstracts of peer-reviewed papers published from 1991 to 2011. Mr. Cook reported that 97% of those who stated a position explicitly or implicitly suggest that human activity is responsible for some warming. His findings were published in Environmental Research Letters.

Mr. Cook's work was quickly debunked. In Science and Education in August 2013, for example, David R. Legates (a professor of geography at the University of Delaware and former director of its Center for Climatic Research) and three coauthors reviewed the same papers as did Mr. Cook and found "only 41 papers—0.3 percent of all 11,944 abstracts or 1.0 percent of the 4,014 expressing an opinion, and not 97.1 percent—had been found to endorse" the claim that human activity is causing most of the current warming. Elsewhere, climate scientists including Craig Idso, Nicola Scafetta, Nir J. Shaviv and Nils- Axel Morner, whose research questions the alleged consensus, protested that Mr. Cook ignored or misrepresented their work.

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/20...7-what-is.html

© Copyright Original Source

But you didn't even bother reading the links, did you? You should change your avatar to read "Proud Low-Information Voter".

Secondly, you say, "Then he said I was being 'typical' when I did not take the matter further ... in a thread about 'The Vagina Monologues'."

This is false. Here was the exact exchange:

Thanks for joining us here. I appreciate it. I did read your links.

I note Joseph Bast is a failed economist:

Joseph Bast is president of the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based industry-funded think tank. Bast opened the International Conference on Climate Change (2009), organized by Heartland. [1] He "studied economics as an undergraduate" at the University of Chicago[2] but did not complete the degree.[3] An August 2014 Travis County Texas court ruling highlights President and CEO Joseph Bast's lack of credibility:
"Mr. Joseph Bast, president and CEO of the Heartland Institute, testified for the Intervenors regarding the Texas Taxpayers’ Savings Grant Programs (“TTSGP”), a school voucher bill that failed in the 82nd Legislative Session. As a threshold matter, this Court finds that Mr. Bast is not a credible witness and that he did not offer reliable opinions in this matter. While Mr. Bast described himself as an economist, he holds neither undergraduate nor graduate degrees in economics, and the highest level of education he completed was high school. Mr. Bast testified that he is 100% committed to the long-term goal of getting government out of the business of educating its own voting citizens. Further, his use of inflammatory and irresponsible language regarding global warming, and his admission that the long term goal of his advocacy of vouchers is to dismantle the “socialist” public education system further undermine his credibility with this Court."[4]

Roy Spencer does indeed have climate credentials but apparently is not highly regarded.

https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/roy-spencer/

This link details some errors in Spencer's work ... from republican scientists.

[Mountain Man]

You want to talk about consensus, what about the over 30,000 scientists who have signed a petition explicitly rejecting the theory that human activity is causing or will cause catrastrophic changes to the earth's climate?

http://www.petitionproject.org/index.php

And what about the fact that earth's climate is stubbornly refusing to cooperate with the models and predictions of the global warming charlatans. They predicted that the ice caps would be gone by this year, but they're larger and thicker than ever before, and then there's the inconvenient truth that the earth's atmospheric temperature hasn't actually warmed for nearly two-decades. But the charlatans are still convinced that global warming is happening, so they reasoned, "Gee, all that extra heat that should be in the atmosphere must be hiding in the oceans! Yeah! Yeah!" Nope. Scientists are scratching their heads trying to figure out where all the "missing" heat went when the most obvious answer, of course, is that it's not "missing", it was simply never here to begin with.

[Mountain Man]

I note Joseph Bast is a failed economist...

A genetic fallacy? That's the best you've got?