THE 97% CONSENSUS ON GLOBAL WARMING?
by John Spritzler
July 20, 2023
The URL for sharing this is https://www.pdrboston.org/the-97-consensus-on-global-warming-1
"Global Warming Perspective Graphs of Temperature & C02"
"ALARMIST CLIMATE WARMING MODELS--BEWARE!"
"FOSSIL FUELS ARE HERE TO STAY!"
"But it's hotter now than ever before in modern times!"--Watch this video to see some real temperature records
Video: "Climate The Movie (the Real Truth)" interviews top (including Nobel prize level) climate scientists who explain that there is no persuasive evidence that human-produced (from burning fossil fuels) C02 is causing catastrophic global warming.
Perhaps you believe the alarmist scientific hypothesis that Catastrophic Anthropogenic (i.e., human-produced, from CO2 resulting from burning fossil fuel) Global Warming is occurring (aka the CAGW hypothesis. Note the C for catastrophic here because there is a very different hypothesis--the AGW or Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis that merely says humans cause some, and not necessarily very much, or even dangerous, and perhaps even beneficial, global warming. If you believe that 97% of climate scientists support the CAGW (not just the AGW) hypothesis, it's very likely because you've read that 97% of climate scientists believe it. But it's not true. 97% of climate scientists DON'T believe it. On the contrary, only about 0.3% of climate scientists believe it.
The journal article that asserted the famous "97%" consensus of climate scientists for something--aye, there's the rub: for WHAT exactly?--is actually an open access letter to the journal, Environmental Research, titled "Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature," and authored by John Cook, et al., online at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024 .
The key sentence in the abstract of the Cook article reads:
"Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming."
Note that Cook et al do NOT assert that 97.1% endorsed the position that humans are causing CATASTROPHIC (or even dangerous) global warming. Note also that "there is widespread agreement, including among most sceptics [of CAGW], that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that humankind is therefore capable of warming the planet. The main focus of debate is over how much warming might take place." (my emphasis. This is from https://www.netzerowatch.com/content/uploads/2013/09/Montford-Consensus.pdf , which contains important information about the deceptive writing process of the Cook article.**)
On the basis of this nothing burger finding by Cook et al, others deceitfully reported its results as saying that 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing DANGEROUS global warming. Thus there is this tweet from President Obama's twitter account:
@BarackObama: Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous**
There's a peer reviewed journal article* that shows that, of the climate scientists who were sampled by the Cook article that claimed the 97% figure, it was actually only 0.3%--not 97%--who supported the CAGW hypothesis*. The abstract of this paper reads as follows in its entirety, and my bolding indicates the part most relevant to us:
Abstract Agnotology is the study of how ignorance arises via circulation of misinformation calculated to mislead. Legates et al. (Sci Educ 22:2007–2017, 2013) had questioned the applicability of agnotology to politically-charged debates. In their reply, Bedford and Cook (Sci Educ 22:2019–2030, 2013), seeking to apply agnotology to climate science, asserted that fossil-fuel interests had promoted doubt about a climate consensus. Their definition of climate ‘misinformation’ was contingent upon the post-modernist assumptions that scientific truth is discernible by measuring a consensus among experts, and that a near unanimous consensus exists. However, inspection of a claim by Cook et al. (Environ Res Lett 8:024024, 2013) of 97.1% consensus, heavily relied upon by Bedford and Cook, shows just 0.3% endorsement of the standard definition of consensus: that most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic. Agnotology, then, is a two-edged sword since either side in a debate may claim that general ignorance arises from misinformation allegedly circulated by the other. Significant questions about anthropogenic influences on climate remain. Therefore, Legates et al. appropriately asserted that partisan presentations of controversies stifle debate and have no place in education. [my emphasis]
Close inspection of the so-called "consensus" for the CAGW (C for catastrophic) hypothesis, in other words, shows the "consensus" to be not 97%, but 0.3%. The illogical and misleading argument for the incorrect 97% figure is explained in great detail in the paper, and it does not take special technical knowledge to follow it. Please read it!
BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS CORNELL CHRONICLE ARTICLE?
A Cornell Chronicle article is titled, "More than 99.9% of studies agree: Humans caused climate change"? This article reports on a letter, (titled "Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature") to a journal, about a survey the letter's authors did of climate journal articles. It turns out that this survey examined climate journal articles to see what proportion of them agreed with, and I now am quoting the phrase used by this letter's authors, "anthropogenic climate change" (the letter authors shorten this to ACC.)
Note that agreeing that there is "anthropogenic climate change" means MERELY that one agrees that humans have caused SOME--NOT NECESSARILY CATASTROPHIC--climate change.
The letter-authors conclude with these words:
"Our results confirm, as has been found in numerous other previous studies of this question, that there is no significant scientific debate among experts about whether or not climate change is human-caused. This issue has been comprehensively settled, and the reality of ACC is no more in contention among scientists than is plate tectonics or evolution."
This letter is a huge NOTHING BURGER! Here's why.
Virtually nobody in climate science--not the global warming alarmists and ALSO not the so-called "climate skeptics" (a.k.a. "climate deniers") denies that human-produced C02 may contribute in some way to climate change.
The actual, and very important question, is not whether humans cause some climate change (what the ACC statement merely says); the question is whether humans are causing CATASTROPHIC climate change. On THIS question--the one that is important--the letter writers remain silent.
The mass media want to obscure the ACTUAL question (whether humans are causing only some, or are causing catastrophic, climate change) and make the public believe that the question instead is whether humans are causing any climate change or not. The main way that the mass media (and some journals such as Cornell Chronicle) do this is precisely by remaining silent about the distinction between SOME climate change versus CATASTROPHIC climate change. Once one is aware of this means of deception one will notice it being used in all sorts of articles about what 97% (or 99%) of climate scientists believe.
Once the question is wrongly and deceitfully posed this way, then the mass media leads the public to believe that humans causing ANY climate change is the same thing as humans causing CATASTROPHIC climate change, and that the only scientists who don't agree that humans are causing catastrophic climate change are the extremely tiny (less than 1%!) number of them who don't agree that humans cause ANY climate change.
Do you see how deceitful this game is? It is almost as if a journalist did a survey of climate scientists and asked them if they agreed or disagreed that humans exhale C02, and then when 99.9999% of the scientists agreed (not 100% because one was drunk when answering the survey) the journalist declared, "See! 99.9999% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing catastrophic global warming. OMG! We're all going to die."
WHAT ELSE DO MANY CLIMATE SCIENTISTS BELIEVE?
What else many climate scientists do believe is the following: There was about five times more CO2 in the atmosphere during the time of the dinosaurs than today. The earth was as warm or warmer than today about a thousand years ago in what is known as the Medieval Warm Period. That was followed by a cold spell known as the Little Ice Age. Since then the earth has been gradually warming again. CO2 may have a very modest warming effect, but historically CO2 increases have occurred after, not before, global warming; ocean warming, with a centuries-long time delay, may release CO2, making atmospheric CO2 more an effect than a cause of global warming.
Please take a good look at this plot of C02 and global temperature over the last 550 Million years, recall that the dinosaurs thrived in the Mesozoic period along with our mammal ancestors who replaced them after the comet struck, and THEN ask yourself if we're heading to catastrophic global warming because maybe (according to the UN's alarmist IPCC predictions) the earth will heat up 3 or possibly 6 degrees Celsius in the future. (Read what the only Nobel economist who studies climate change says about this here.
BUT BIG OIL, BIG OIL!
I know, I know, you're probably thinking that it's 97% of all the climate scientists WHO AREN'T EMPLOYED BY BIG OIL who believe the CAGW alarmist hypothesis, right?
But guess what, here's a video interview of Dr Judith Curry, Professor Emeritus and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who quit her tenured professorship job because of the absurd degree of bias in climate funding for research, and who now makes a living as an independent consultant--not an employee of Big Oil. Dr. Curry is a TOP NOTCH climate scientist who does not buy the CAGW alarmist hypothesis. Listen to what she says, OK?
WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE SCIENTIFIC BODIES THAT SUPPORT THE CAGW ALARMIST HYPOTHESIS?
What about all those statements by scientific bodies that seem to support the CAGW alarmist hypothesis? The fact is that these statements by scientific bodies are not based on any poll of the members; they are merely statements by some individuals who hold top positions in these bodies. Think about this. When President Joe Biden--the president of the United States, the representative of more than 300 million people, right?--makes a statement and says X, does that tell you that most Americans think X? Of course not. So when the president of some scientific organization says X, does that mean most members of that organization say X?
There is a LOT of pressure from the rich and powerful on individuals such as presidents of scientific organizations and editors of scientific journals to go along with the CAGW alarmist hypothesis. Why? Read my explanation here.
Now I'd like you to read "THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG WAY TO JUDGE EXPERTS" and after you read it (you did read it now, right?) then consider this: Does it makes sense to a) trust scientists employed by or beholden to money from the likes of billionaires such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and King Charles III and these billionaires who fund the Democratic Party, and b) NOT trust scientists who once worked for BP Corp., or who get funding from a conservative think tank or whose last name is Koch, just because of who employed or funded them? You do know (I hope) that the liberal billionaires are no less evil than the conservative ones, right?
How about judging a scientist based on the quality of the data and analysis he/she presents?
A good book I suggest you read is Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters by Steven E. Koonin. Below are some extracts from it starting with Koonin's distinguished bio and then dealing with 1) the "97% consensus", 2) the way the "climate denier" accusation is based on wrong-headed "science," and 3) how the best course of action today is to adapt to climate change rather than trying to stop it.
By the way, the author of this book grants greater C02 effects on weather than many other scientists do, but still he does not think there is any catastrophic danger posed by C02 emissions.
First, who is the author? Here's his bio, excerpted from the book:
“Dr. Steven E. Koonin is one of America’s most distinguished scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a leader in United States science policy. Currently a professor at New York University, Dr. Koonin holds appointments in the Stern School of Business, the Tandon School of Engineering, and the Department of Physics.
He founded NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress, which focuses research and education on the acquisition, integration, and analysis of big data for big cities.
Dr. Koonin served as Undersecretary for Science in the US Department of Energy under President Obama [That's right, Obama, not Trump!--J.S.] where his portfolio included the climate research program and energy technology strategy.
He was the lead author of the US Department of Energy’s Strategic Plan (2011) and the inaugural Department of Energy Quadrennial Technology Review (2011).
Before joining the government, Dr. Koonin spent five years as chief scientist for BP, researching renewable energy options to move the company “beyond petroleum.”
For almost thirty years, Dr. Koonin was a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech. He also served for nine years as Caltech’s vice president and provost, facilitating the research of more than three hundred science and engineering faculty and catalyzing the development of the world’s largest optical telescope, as well as research initiatives in computational science, bioengineering, and the biological sciences.
In addition to the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Koonin’s memberships include the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Council on Foreign Relations, and JASON, the group of scientists who solve technical problems for the US government; he served as JASON’s chair for six years. He chaired the National Academies’ Divisional Committee for Engineering and Physical Sciences from 2014 to 2019, and since 2014 he has been a trustee of the Institute for Defense Analyses.
He is currently an independent governor of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and has served in similar roles for the Los Alamos, Sandia, Brookhaven, and Argonne National Laboratories.
He is a member of Governor Cuomo’s Blue Ribbon Commission to Reimagine New York in the post-COVID-19 era. Dr. Koonin has a BS in physics from Caltech and a PhD in theoretical physics from MIT. He is an award-winning classroom teacher and his public lectures are noted for their clarity in conveying complex subjects.
He is the author of the classic 1985 textbook Computational Physics, which introduced methodology for building computer models of complex physical systems.
He has published some two hundred peer-reviewed papers in the fields of physics and astrophysics, scientific computation, energy technology and policy, and climate science, and has been the lead author on multiple book-length reports, including two National Academies studies.
Through a series of articles and lectures that began in 2014, Dr. Koonin has advocated for a more accurate, complete, and transparent public representation of climate and energy matters.”
— Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters by Steven E. Koonin
So, he's obviously just a fringe science-hating "climate denier" and probably a flat-earther as well, right?
Here's an excerpt from his book about the "97 percent consensus":
Any appeal to the alleged “97 percent consensus” among scientists is another red flag. The study that produced that number has been convincingly debunked. 8 And in any event, nobody has ever specified exactly what those 97 percent of scientists are supposed to be agreed upon. That the climate is changing? Sure, count me in! That humans are influencing the climate? Absolutely, I’m there! That we’re already seeing disastrous weather impacts and face an even more catastrophic future? Not at all obvious (for reasons I hope you understand, having read this far).
— Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters by Steven E. Koonin
Here's another excerpt from his book dealing with the way even academies of science fail to distinguish between non-human-caused versus human-caused climate change; this lays the basis for the media accusations of "climate denier" against those who DO distinguish between these two causes:
Academies reports undergo an extensive authoring and review process. I know that process well, having led two Academies studies and reviewed the reports of several others, along with for six years overseeing all the Academies’ report activities in Engineering and the Physical Sciences (including several in Energy, but none in Climate Science). This process does indeed result in reports that are almost always objective and of the highest quality. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen, their reviews of the National Climate Assessments (they don’t write the assessments themselves) in 2014 and 2017/ 18 didn’t quite meet that standard.
On June 28, 2019, the presidents of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine issued a statement affirming “the Scientific Evidence of Climate Change.” The sole paragraph dealing with the science itself read:
"Scientists have known for some time, from multiple lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions. The evidence on the impacts of climate change is also clear and growing. The atmosphere and the Earth’s oceans are warming, the magnitude and frequency of certain extreme events are increasing, and sea level is rising along our coasts. 10"
Even given the need for brevity, this is a misleadingly incomplete and imprecise accounting of the state of climate science. It conflates human-caused warming with the changing climate in general, erroneously implying that human influences are solely responsible for these changes. It invokes “certain extreme events” while omitting the fact that most types (including those that pop most readily to mind when one reads the phrase “extreme events,” like hurricanes) show no significant trend at all. And it states that “sea level is rising” in a way that not only suggests that this, too, is solely attributable to human-caused warming, but elides the fact that the rise is nothing new.
I’m quite sure that this personal statement issued by the presidents in a news release was not reviewed by the usual Academies procedures; if it had been, its deficiencies would have been corrected. The statement therefore carries the weight of the Academies’ name without being subject to its customary rigor.
Ironically, the statement goes on to say the Academies “need to more clearly communicate what we know.” Which in this case they didn’t.
When communication of climate science is corrupted like this, it undermines the confidence people have in what the scientific establishment says about other crucial societal issues (COVID-19 being the outstanding recent example).
As Philip Handler, a prior president of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote in the 1980 editorial I mentioned in the Introduction: It is time to return to the ethics and norms of science so that the political process may go on with greater confidence. The public may wonder why we do not already know that which appears vital to decision—but science will retain its place in public esteem only if we steadfastly admit the magnitude of our uncertainties and then assert the need for further research. And we shall lose that place if we dissemble or if we argue as if all necessary information and understanding were in hand. Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. 11
— Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters by Steven E. Koonin
Here is an excerpt from the end of Koonin's book in which he says that what makes the most sense today is for us to ADAPT to climate change rather that try (based on insufficient scientific knowledge) to stop it:
I’m less bullish on “forced and urgent” decarbonization, either through a price on carbon or by way of regulation. The impact of human influences on the climate is too uncertain (and very likely too small) compared to the daunting amount of change required to actually achieve the goal of eliminating net global emissions by, say, 2075. And for me, the many certain downsides of mitigation outweigh the uncertain benefits: the world’s poor need growing amounts of reliable and affordable energy, and widespread renewables or fission are currently too expensive, unreliable, or both.
I would wait until the science becomes more settled—that is, until the climate’s response to human influences is better determined, or, failing that, until a values consensus emerges or zero-emissions technologies become more feasible—before embarking on a program to tax or regulate greenhouse gas emissions out of existence or to capture and store massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. I believe the socio-technical obstacles to reducing CO2 emissions make it likely that human influences on the climate will not be stabilized, let alone reduced, in this century. If the effects of those influences become more evident and more severe than they have been to date, of course, the balance of costs and benefits might shift, and society might well shift along with it. But I’d be surprised if this happened anytime soon.
Advocating that we make only low-risk changes until we have a better understanding of why the climate is changing, and how it might change in the future, is a stance some might call “waffling,” but I’d prefer the terms “realistic” and “prudent.” I can respect the opinions of others who might come to different conclusions, as I hope they would respect mine. Those differences can only be resolved if we realize that they’re ultimately about values, not about the science.
Another prudent step would be to pursue adaptation strategies more vigorously. Adaptation can be effective. As mentioned in the previous chapter, humans today live in climates ranging from the Tropics to the Arctic and have adapted through many climate changes, including the relatively recent Little Ice Age about four hundred years ago. Effective adaptation would combine credible regional projections of climate change with a framework for assessing the costs and benefits of various adaptation strategies. As we’ve seen, we’re a long way from having either of those. So the best strategy is to promote economic development and strong institutions in developing countries in order to improve their ability to adapt (and their ability to do many other positive things as well).
— Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters by Steven E. Koonin
If you're really and truly interested in knowing what climate scientists think about global warming, I suggest you read this:
"Challenging 'Net-Zero' with Science" (40 page document) at
https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2023-02-23-Challenging-Net-Zero-with-Science.pdf
Here's a video interview titled, "Dr Richard Lindzen exposes climate change as a politicised power play motivated by malice and profit." Richard Lindzen is a TOP NOTCH climate scientist who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (the most prestigious science body in the United States). Do you dare to listen to what he says?
Here's a video interview titled, "Data shows there’s no climate catastrophe looming – climatologist Dr J Christy debunks the narrative"; Dr. Christy is the distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Do you ignore what he says because somebody told you "97% of climate scientists" say otherwise? Really?
Another example of how good climate science is censored if it conflicts with "The sky is falling! The sky is falling" ruling class-approved narrative:
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Image-2023-07-21-19-06-41.png?fbclid=IwAR0mYqioqv3U16JYJlZU6uvHGyNmBUNCHMaV1BM8G4cz1GYthrpGO-JNLBY
Here is a statement (it's a PDF file that takes some time to load) written by two absolutely top-notch climate scientists: 1. William Happer, Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Princeton University, and 2. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These two climate scientists show that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing rules regarding fossil fuel based on claims-- that fossil fuel use is leading to catastrophic global warming--that are without any scientific basis.
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* https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11191-013-9647-9#/page-1
Also see this for a clear summary of the above: https://www.thegwpf.com/content/uploads/2013/09/Montford-Consensus.pdf
Regarding the fact that this Springer-published article is open source, read about what exactly that means on the Springer explanatory page at
https://www.springer.com/journal/11191/how-to-publish-with-us?fbclid=IwAR3La-fFOXaR4vtf2uGkvYkJKuIakjgzclxSBEy--E-oHq7is-m1S1uHT2Y .
The authors of the Springer-published article I cited clearly did not “have to pay” to get their article published, as the above Springer link makes clear to those who actually bother to read it.
Articles are FIRST accepted or rejected by the Springer journal (peer-reviewed) and only AFTER being accepted are the authors offered the choice to have it published the traditional way (a very small academic readership that must pay the journal to read it) or the Open Access way (a much larger readership that does not have to pay to read it. )
Regarding the reputation of Springer publications, see this: https://www.loc.gov/flicc/svcdir/so.html?fbclid=IwAR18nBnyOUHlymEo87fRWIOB0gokijEguVf2s5mXuTd4iCJtc59qPICOuCk#:~:text=Many%20of%20their%20publications%20are,labs%20and%20industrial%20research%20facilities :
"Springer Science & Business Media, is one of the world's largest publishers in the Science/Technology/Medicine (STM) sector, publishing more than 1,450 journals and 3,000 new book titles each year, as well as databases and online services, conferences and seminars. Their publishing areas include Science, Medicine, Business, Computer Science & Technology and Mathematics. Their aim is to offer excellence- more than 150 Nobel prize-winners have published with Springer to date. Many of their publications are considered authoritative works in their respective fields and are invaluable sources of information for researchers working in academia, government labs and industrial research facilities."
** The article titled, "CONSENSUS? WHAT CONSENSUS?" by Andrew Montford at https://www.netzerowatch.com/content/uploads/2013/09/Montford-Consensus.pdf is a detailed refutation of the claim that Cook et al presented evidence that 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing catastrophic (or even dangerous) global warming. This article notes: "In early 2012, a security lapse at the Skeptical Science website led to an internal forum for its staff being exposed to public view. Among the contents were several discussions about what became the Cook et al. paper." Read Montford's article to learn about the revealing details. This is the article that cites the Obama tweet also.