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Digby Scorgie at 13:27 PM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze, RedBaron, denisaf
Our present way of life, at least in the developed world, is healthy neither for us nor the planet. I'm convinced, whether I'm right or not, that mitigation efforts to avoid dangerous warming would entail considerable change — upheaval — in that way of life. We and the planet would be the better for it, but the people fighting such efforts don't see it that way — hence the campaign to bamboozle the general public into thinking scientists are still arguing amongst themselves about the reality or otherwise of climate change.
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Digby Scorgie at 13:02 PM on 16 April 2016After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
OPOF, okay, as I understand it then, it's not so much fossil fuel that has to become increasingly expensive, but the burning thereof.
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Tom Curtis at 12:03 PM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
bartverheggen @26:
"As we explain in the paper (on which John Cook is a coauthor by the way) the fraction of outspoken contrarians (based on the puiblic list by Jim Prall) in our sample is only a few percent, and the level of consensus if this group were excluded would be ~3% higher. But approx half of this group are actually publishing climate scientists, so excluding them wouldn't be entirely fair; only excluding the "non-scientist-contrarians" (if that were possible) would only bring up the consensus level by 1 or 2%. In other words, I don't think it's fair to paint our survey as non-representative because of their inclusion."
Bart, the correct way to ensure the sample is representative is to exclude all members of the "contratrian" grouping who would not also have been included based on the other criterion for respondents. Even just retaining "scientist contrarians" means that they could be included due to publication history in climate science or political statements agains effective policy on climate change. In contrast, non-contrarian scientists could only be included based on publication history. The effect is that including "scientist contrarians" who do not also appear as an author publishing on climate science is to bias the list in favour of contrarian opinions.
Whether or not a group is representative depends on the absence of bias in the selection method for that group. As it happens your selection method did have such bias, and the results are non-representative. That is a different issue to how large is the impact of the bias, something you could have clarrified in your paper but chose not to. Indeed, you have not done so even now in that the effect of the bias would be different when considering all responses compared to when considering only those responses from respondents with 10 or more papers. I assume the 3% and 1-2% figures are related to the latter grouping.
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grindupBaker at 10:57 AM on 16 April 2016Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong
I had thought I was about to disagree with the post but I might only be disagreeing with the myth. Anyway, I disagree with any premise that a computer simulation such as these can have "climate sensitivity" as an input, because it's an output, a result. I've written a computer simulation program. It's more problematic to have a pre-determined output from a computer simulation than it is to compute a trapdoor function in reverse. I think it's impossible. The only way would be iterative simulations, still not an input. You run a few simulations with diverse settings for parameters such as forcings, cloud effects and many others. Then compare the "climate sensitivity" results and there's a technique I've forgotten that I programmed in 1970 (ironically, oil exploration) where the one with least preferred result is discarded and the results are projected from worst to best to yield a set of preferred inputs. And so on iteratively until the desired result is produced, then those inputs are the ones to use. That's the only way that a simulation can produce an output such as "climate sensitivity" as a pre-determined result.
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Roberto Toca at 10:15 AM on 16 April 20162016 SkS Weekly Digest #13
On Toon of the week: Sad but true.
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Haze at 07:48 AM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
MA Rodger@25. Given that the conservatives in the UK have been in power since 2010 and won the last election fairly comfortably, the obvious conclusion from your argument is that most Britons are stupid.
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r.pauli at 03:04 AM on 16 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
Bjorn Lomborg is stuck with his name and reputation. For a great while now, I see his name and associate it with pandering,,, financial and ideological.
Every so often, I check in and read about him, and it only reinforces the validity of the labels. Thanks for checking him again.
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CitizenSmith at 00:33 AM on 16 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
I read both letters. I am not surprised your "Guest Letter" was not published. It was poorly argued and missed a major point that populations can migrate. In fact the original Global Change.gov document was lacking too. While it was much more comprehensive than either of these 2 letters, it was still one sided and neglects to mention any benefits of a warmer climate. There is a term for government documents that provide information of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view: Propaganda.
Moderator Response:[JH} Sloganeering snipped.
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RedBaron at 00:26 AM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
@John #28
Ok. I'll buy that argument. So then the obvious solution is to sever the link in the public mind that AGW mitigation requires payment of a fee/tax of any kind. If what you are saying is true, then it is a flaw in mitigation strategies that needs to be corrected so as not to meet such resistance.
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John Hartz at 00:11 AM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Why are humans reluctant to wholeheartedly embrace the body of scientific evidence about manmade climate change?
Human psychology influences the decisions we make every day, including unwise ones. Our psychological profile can make us reluctant to pay for services that benefit everyone, including those who don't contribute. It makes us focus on achieving short-term gains and avoiding short-term losses. And, most importantly, it prompts us to engage in rationalization and denial rather than tackle difficult challenges.
Scientists suggest appealing to human psychology to create solutions to climate change by Rosemary Mena-Worth, Stanford News, Apr 13, 2016
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PhilippeChantreau at 23:28 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Ikaika @ 17. The argument is in response to the fake skeptics' contention that there is significant disagreement among scientists, a tactic inherited from the tobacco industry. There is no significant disagreement. That's all the message of these studies.
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bartverheggen at 19:24 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
As already noticed, the survey mentioned at Breitbart is based on a misrepresentation of the survey I undertook while at the Dutch PBL institute. More info about how it's been misrepresented at various places can be found on my blog. Or this post specifically how Rick Santorum misrepresented the survey.
Basically, we found ~90% agreement among respondents with more than 10 climate related peer reviewed publications that recent global warming is for the most part (more than half) caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Notice that we used a much stricter definition of what entails the consensus position than most other studies did. That probably goes a long way to explain why we found a slightly smaller level of consensus than some ither studies.
As we explain in the paper (on which John Cook is a coauthor by the way) the fraction of outspoken contrarians (based on the puiblic list by Jim Prall) in our sample is only a few percent, and the level of consensus if this group were excluded would be ~3% higher. But approx half of this group are actually publishing climate scientists, so excluding them wouldn't be entirely fair; only excluding the "non-scientist-contrarians" (if that were possible) would only bring up the consensus level by 1 or 2%. In other words, I don't think it's fair to paint our survey as non-representative because of their inclusion.
For more questions about or survey, see e.g. this FAQ.
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MA Rodger at 18:10 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze @18.
You ask "Why is climate change viewed so differently by Republicans and Democrats?" I am a Brit so here assume the UK political scene is an equivalent to the US version.
I once got into a long interchange on the impacts of and evidence for AGW with Peter Lilley, a right-wing Conservative MP & recently a recruit to the GWPF (Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy). As well as exhibiting all the signs of delusion and denial, the man eulogised the political philosopher JS Mill. This I considered rather strange as JS Mill famously said (and thus I suggest answers your question):-
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
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denisaf at 17:21 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
This is one of those selective arguments that distract from consideration of the holistic problems that society will have to try to cope with. Climate disruption and ocean acidification is one predicament. Others are over population, declining availability of many natural crustal resources, fertile soil and potable water together with irrevocable aging of the infrastructure that society has become so dependent on as well as devastation of the environment and pollution of land, sea, air and us.
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:49 PM on 15 April 2016After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
Digby Scorgie,
The burning of oil is what needs to be restricted. Making that specific action expensive is one way to achieve that required objective. A more important point is that light hydrocarbons like methane, ethane, and propane are better feedstock for making plastic. So burning natural gas is a poor action to address the CO2 problem. Not only does burning natural gas generate 50% as much CO2 as burning coal, which makes carbon capture and storage with coal burning better than natural gas burning without CCS, burning natural gas also burns up the best materials to make plastics from.
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RedBaron at 14:20 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze,
Yes you missed something. It was me not Digby Scorge that said that. Presumably that is where your confusion lies.
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Haze at 14:03 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Digby Scorge @21. My apologies if I have missed something but why in your reply do you say "That idea you have that mitigation necessarily requires upheaval in our way of life is not proven at all" Where, in what I have written at 18 and 20, do I say or even give the impresssion, that I have such an idea?
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RedBaron at 12:31 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Digby Scorgie,
That is my biggest problem with this whole controversy. That idea you have that mitigation necessarily requires upheaval in our way of life is not proven at all. Depends on the mitigation strategy taken. It can just as easily improve it even more. IMHO actually more likely to do that than anything.
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Haze at 11:42 AM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Digby Scorgie @19 Thanks for the response. Why however is there this significant disconnect between climate scientists and the general population? Surely it can't all be due to manipulation by the media as here in Australia the national broadcaster and the Fairfax press are very ardent advocates for the role humans play in climate change.
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Digby Scorgie at 11:02 AM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze @18
Climate change has become a political football because any attempt to avert dangerous warming would entail an upheaval in our way of life. To a lot of people this is anathema. Consequently they fight tooth and nail to sabotage all climate action.
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Haze at 10:34 AM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Why is this 97% or greater consensus not reflected in the attitudes of the wider community? Why is it that political persuasion has an effect on a scientific matter?
A recent survey, January 2016, in the US found that although 70% of Americans believe the climate is changing only, 27% of respondents agreed with the “overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is the main cause of climate change”. (http://tinyurl.com/jn39kns)
There was a significant divide between Democrats and Republicans on the seriousness of climate change in that while 63% of the former saw climate change as a very serious matter only 18% of the latter held that view. The researchers noted that “the data exposes the extent to which this has become a partisan political issue in the U.S. rather than a scientific issue,”
Why is climate change viewed so differently by Republicans and Democrats? Why is there so much politicisation of climate change? It’s the same science and climate is no respecter of persons be they Democrats or Republicans. Is something rather out of kilter in this global debate?
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Ikaika at 08:41 AM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
I understand the concept of suggesting a consensus, but I also think that it becomes an easy taget of attack for contrarians. I would prefer the use of 97% consilience of data to support AGW. This goes to the heart of scientist, who they are and more importantly what they do.
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shoyemore at 07:43 AM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Eclectic @15
Bart Verheggen blogs on climate change at My view on climate change
He has a post up on the paper discussed above: Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming
Excellent opportunity for you to pose your questions to him directly.
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RedBaron at 06:04 AM on 15 April 2016More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
@rojojr #243
Not likely to be significant by itself, and very likely to be quickly offset by increased decomposistion and reduction of the O horizon of the soil profile as temperatures warm.
Now what you are talking about is possible via the liquid carbon pathway (LCP). But in today's world that requires careful management by us. It's not just going to happen by itself or by "natural" systems. Primarily because the biomes responcible for the LCP are too degraded to function in that respect. In fact, in my opinion that is 1/2 the problem to start with.
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rojojr at 05:49 AM on 15 April 2016More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
Obviously there are a lot of "could" and "might" statements in the article. But one thing I have not seen is how much more c02 larger plants will remove from the atmosphere. That is assuming that as a whole, plants do grow larger. But if the earth does warm, growing seasons will increase as well which means the amount of time in a year that plants will be using c02 will increase as well. That will likely have a much greater effect at creating an equilibrium in c02 levels, possibly a decrease when combined with reduction of additional c02 from burning fossil fuels as we move toward renewable energy sources.
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ubrew12 at 04:00 AM on 15 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
As the planet warms, it also holds more water vapor. Dry cold air, held still next to the body, will warm rapidly to body temperature due to its low specific heat, but wet cold air will not: so you lose heat faster in wet air. So that works against Lomborg's argument 2 ("climate change will reduce the number of cold days").
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Ian Forrester at 01:48 AM on 15 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
Another factor which makes bacterial and viral diseases more prevalent in winter is the lower level of solar radiation. UV light is a very good sterilant but its effect is much reduced in winter so viruses and bacteria will hang around on surfaces much longer and be more readily transferred.
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braintic at 00:11 AM on 15 April 2016Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Crask,
One doesn't need a degree to know that there is no god.
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RedBaron at 23:22 PM on 14 April 2016You can’t rush the oceans (why CO2 emission rates matter)
Very good article, but you missed something very big and very critical. An estimated 695–748 Gt of stable carbon (stable humic substances) is held in the upper 100 cm of the world's soils. This is different than AND IN ADDITION TO the figure you used for the terrestrial biosphere of about 560 GtC, which is living biomass and about 50 GtC which is in flux (rapid decomposition) in the litter layer and about 1500 GtC in the "slow response" soil decompostion pool. The total soil pool is roughly around 2200 PgC +/-. But it matters very much which parts of that pool we are talking about and how they function. Breaking the soil pool down into the rapid responce, slow responce (taken together the active fraction) and stable fractions reveals an important understanding about both the causes and potential solutions to atmospheric CO2 rises. This is because the soil pools are currently highly degraded, but they can be rapidly restored.
Roughly 120 GtC/yr taken out of the atmosphere by terrestrial plant photosynthesis reduced by 60 GtC/yr plant respiration. An equivalent 60 GtC/yr is respired from soil, joining the 60GtC/yr plant respiration to return to the atmosphere. So we have a rough balance. This balance in the active fraction is very difficult to manipulate, because increasing biomass and thus plant photosynthesis is ultimately followed later by increased respiration, both from that increased plant biomass and also increased decomposition in the soil. This is often called the "saturation effect" However, increasing the rate at which stabilization by clay surfaces deep in the soil profile does not have this limitation due to the liquid carbon pathway (LCP).
I estimate approx 20 GtC/year +/- would be the maximum potential long term sequestration into the stable soil fraction via the LCP with a massive ecosystem restoration and change in agriculture. That's roughly 30% of 1/2 the 120 GtC/yr taken out of the atmosphere by terrestrial plants. Some people actually estimate its potential much higher.
So actually to properly restore our soils, we will need that ocean outgassing to happen. Without it, the atmosphere would rapidly loose CO2 thus reducing photosynthesis efficiency long before our soils are restored worldwide.
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Eclectic at 22:22 PM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
If I may be permitted to expand on the Dutch "Environmental Assessment Agency" survey ~ linked to by Tom Curtis @9 [and first raised by Alfalfa] :-
I'm not quite sure of how it is named : possibly "Strengers, Verheggen & Vringer, 2015" . (Published by the Netherlands agency)
It is based on a survey in early 2012 of opinions, requested of a select 6550 persons of whom "around 200" were chosen because of their known contrarian position against the scientific (climate) consensus. There were more than a dozen questions, regarding attribution etc of global warming (if any).
Of the 6550 invitees, there were 29% actual respondents (though down to 24% on some of the subsequent, more detailed questions). The survey authors claim that the known contrarians only constituted around 5% of respondents . . . possibly they mean 1/20th of the 29% .
On the basic question of attribution, the large majority of respondents indicated that 50% to 100+% of global warming since mid-20th century was caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Around 12% opined that up to 50% was from GHG's (of whom a subgroup 7% opined 0-25% GHG attribution).
*** This is a very different picture of scientific opinion, to what Alfalfa/Breitbart were publicizing.
The other remarkable aspect, is the selection process for "invitees" to the survey. The authors mentioned that the names selected for survey, were based variously on an (overlapping) basis of 500 from recent science literature; 2000 from a climate science database; and 6000 from "Web of Science"; and 200 known for their contrarian opinions.
Most interestingly and unusually, the authors mentioned that: "half of whom only published in the gray literature on climate change" . . . and it was far from clear to me, whether they meant the contrarians or all those invited to reply to the survey. Can anyone at SkS enlighten me about the authors' intention ~ and on the meaning of gray literature ?
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Kevin C at 21:45 PM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
I think there is a reason for this 'consensus is not science' myth.
Consensus is a genuine feature of the scientific method, and it is used in every field of science. However most of the time it is not visible to the outsider, because we don't talk about it. The only reason it has become visible in the case of climate science is because of lay people asking 'how do you know?', which means we have to explain something of how scientific knowledge develops. If lay people were to challenge scientists in other fields, the answer would be the same.
Here's an example from my primary field of X-ray crystallography. As it happens, a Nature paper and a whole load of protein structures have just been retracted: here and here. In the 1980s and 90s we had a significant problem with wrong structures being published, mostly due to rapidly developing methods being misapplied, but a few of them fraudulent.
Scientists looked at how to address this problem, and decided that a paper should not be published unless both the atomic model, and the processed (in climate terms, adjusted and homogenized) X-ray data were deposited. Furthermore the results should be checked by cross-validation (leading to a statistic we call the 'Free-R factor').
Over the course of around 5 years (which was remarkably fast) the community accepted that this was a good approach. It quickly became the norm that a paper would not be accepted without the data and cross validation tests, and eventually became a condition of publication. And as a result we now see a lot fewer wrong structures.
Nowhere in the crystallographic literature will you find the term consensus. However that is what was going on. The community agreed there was a problem, and the community recognized that a particular solution was a good one. Decisions by journal editors and the data archives played a part, but they were in turn informed by the emergence of a consensus among methods developers and users.
But if a lay person was to ask how the change happened, the existence of a consensus would be an important part of the answer. In fact I just did the experiment: I asked a senior figure in the field - an FRS - the question, and she used the term 'consensus' in her answer.
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shoyemore at 18:53 PM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
bozza@10
There is more than 1 satellite:
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shoyemore at 18:49 PM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
alalfa@6,
As expected, the study Breitbart is spinning is the one of Bart Verheggen, who is a co-author of the paper this post describes. That study is included in the wider analysis of the Carlton et al publication.
The question for Breitbart and alfalfa is: if there are so many non-consensus scientists, then where are their papers, their AGU presentations, their conference attendances? None seem to exist beyond the 3% "usual suspects".
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bozzza at 18:45 PM on 14 April 2016You can’t rush the oceans (why CO2 emission rates matter)
howardlee, do you know if the Antarctic circumpolar current is tightening and if it is it might be related?!!!
If you don't know if the current around Antarctica is tightening do you know where I could find the answer to such a question?
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bozzza at 18:41 PM on 14 April 2016Deep Ocean: Climate change’s fingerprint on this forgotten realm
Does anyone know if the sea currents are tightening around Antarctica?
Does anyone know where to find the answers to such questions?
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bozzza at 18:26 PM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
@1, Consensus starts with nomenclature!
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bozzza at 18:21 PM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
NSIDC is down: it is discounting all of Aprils data as unreliable.
How do we know any of March 2016, or indeed the weird few years of Arctic Sea Ice over the last few years, is reliable?
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bozzza at 17:25 PM on 14 April 2016James Powell is wrong about the 99.99% AGW consensus
The trouble is anarchy: risking anarchy is not worth it! Jobs, otherwise known as occupations, keep anarchy at bay.
Collateral damage is fine. The whole thing that keeps anarchy at bay is the collection of tax payer dollars that allows the business confidence to keep people regularly too occupied to roam the streets in packs looking for random things to occupy their minds. The collection of tax payers dollars itself depends on business confidence: meaning the whole things depends on no one panicking.
What would you do first?
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Digby Scorgie at 14:11 PM on 14 April 2016After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
OPOF, okay, so you don't need to burn fossil fuel to make plastics. But if the oil required becomes increasingly expensive, plastic products would also become increasingly expensive, would they not? Or is this where recycling comes in?
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Tom Curtis at 12:15 PM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
alfalfa @6 references breitbart's spin on this study rather than the study itself. That is nodoubt because if you look at the study itself, you will see it does not support either breitbart's spin. Specifically, once you exclude the non-responses (unknown, I don't know, and other) 84.3% of respondents agreed with the IPCC that humans have caused 50% or greater of warming since the middle of the 20th century. That figure is itself biased low because the respondents include a group of people invited to respond solely on the basis that they are AGW 'skeptics'. That is, the sample population is not representative of climate scientists in general because of a deliberate bias to include additional 'skeptical' respondents.
Breitbart tries to pull the wool over our eyes by focusing not on those who agree with the IPCC on attribution, but on that subset who also agree with the IPCC on how certain they are. He also carefully neglects to mention the built in bias in the sample, portraying it as unbiased and representative when it is (by design) biased in favour of 'skeptical' respondents.
alfalfa will find nothing wrong with breitbart's spin doctoring because, like all 'skeptics' his global warming denial is built on straining at gnats in the work of scientists, while swallowing camels served up by his fellow deniers.
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RickG at 11:40 AM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Alfalfa, thank you for the link. Once again I wish to point out that the scientific consensus being discussed here relates to what the published peer review research world-wide shows. That published research is physical evidence, not opinion. Conversely, upon following your link I find that the non-consensus finding was an opinion poll of selected scientists in what was stated as climate related fields. What I would have to ask is: how many of them have actually performed original climate research and had their findings published in the peer review literature?
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alfalfa at 10:51 AM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Here is an article about how the antartica is growing. Evidence is more important than consensus. http://patriotupdate.com/liberals-heads-are-spinning-after-nasa-releases-new-images-showing-that-antarctica-is-growing-not-shrinking/
Moderator Response:[PS] Please see here for discussion on this. Note also from IPCC TAR
"Changes in ice sheets and polar glaciers: Increased melting is expected on Arctic glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet, and they will retreat and thin close to their margins. Most of the Antarctic ice sheet is likely to thicken as a result of increased precipitation. There is a small risk, however, that the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets will retreat in coming centuries. Together, these cryospheric changes may make a significant contribution to sea-level rise.**** "
so not exactly evidence against consensus. Please put any further discussion on Antartica in the appropriate thread.
Also, when asked to back your assertions, please supply links published science not opinion pieces (and since pseudo-skeptic sites specialize in misrepresenting papers, make sure you actually read the paper).
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From Peru at 10:29 AM on 14 April 2016James Powell is wrong about the 99.99% AGW consensus
I would ask a simple question: even if the consensus were just under 10%, betting against a 10% probability of getting detroyed is still utterly irresponsible, to say the least.
It would be like playing Roussian Roulette with 9 billion people. Now, betting against a >90% chance of disaster is completely insane.
To put things in perspective, the 1918 flu pandemic, with a fatality rate of "just" between 2% and 6%, killed more people than WWI and WWII. As a policymaker, I would rather shut down the entire world economy for some months (i.e. massive quarantines) than letting another monster like this spread like fire by people travelling in planes, roads and ships. The economy can be restored years later, dead people cannot.
Climate Change is a slow-motion disaster that can be far worse than a pandemic, yet the measures required are much less traumatic and abrupt. They could be even beneficial by themselves, reducing air pollution and eliminating energy poverty (renewable energy has a near zero operating cost, and a declining capital cost, unlike fossil energy).
Why do we need a consensus? The mere possibility of disaster is more than enough to me.
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alfalfa at 10:23 AM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Crossing out the truth doesn't make it any less true. If you want a reference to the Netherland study take a look at http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/07/31/new-study-majority-of-climate-scientists-dont-agree-with-consensus/
Moderator Response:[JH] Moderation complaint snipped.
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chriskoz at 09:55 AM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Tom@4,
Thank you for your valuable assertion and a link showing that flat earth concept was a myth among science denialist rather than the errant of science. I havn't known it! Thus Middle Ages were not "Dark Ages of Science" as wrongly portrayed by common opinion, but "Dark Ages of Science Denial". Exactly the same phenomenon as in today's climate science (Concensus Gap).
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Tom Curtis at 07:30 AM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
alfalfa @1 claims that "There used to be consensus that the earth is flat" (since stricken as sloganeering by the moderator).
Of course, that claim is a myth. That the Earth has been round has been the concensus among scholars since emperical observations have been coupled with mathematical reasoning in the fourth century BC (Aristotle). That the Earth orbits the Sun has been the concensus since just prior to the start of the scientific revolution (ie, the wide spread acceptance that observation, not the authority of the ancients is the primary determinant of knowledge).
What has persisted is a concensus among the ignorant that contradicts the scientific concensus - much as is the case with climate science. Historically, where the popular view has starkly contrasted with the scientific view, the scientific view has always proved more accurate in the long run. If alfalfa was to truly draw the lesson from history, he would conclude that the 97% consensus is good reason to think that whatever the truth about climate, it is far closer to the scientific consensus than popular theories espoused on the internet.
Of course, he will not. We know already from his views on climate science that his opinions are not guided by empirical facts, but by what he desires to be true.
Moderator Response:[PS] I think we have enough responses to alfalfa now. Thanks for contributions. More would be dogpiling. Let us see whether alfalfa can back his/her claims and please dont let this discussion disappear down a track of when/if people thought earth was flat. I think we can all acknowledge that consensus doesnt imply a theory is true and that consensus positions have been wrong in the past. The point is that consensus does exist and consensus position is best guide to policy. Please dont get this offtrack.
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RedBaron at 07:24 AM on 14 April 2016To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
Further reading on the LCP.
Humified carbon differs physically, chemically and biologically from the labile pool of organic carbon that
typically forms near the soil surface. Labile organic carbon arises principally from biomass inputs (such as
crop residues) which are readily decomposed. Conversely, most humified carbon derives from direct
exudation or transfer of soluble carbon from plant roots to mycorrhizal fungi and other symbiotic or
associative microflora. Humus can form relatively deep in the soil profile, provided plants are managed in
ways to encourage vigorous roots [1] -
RickG at 05:12 AM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
@ alfalfa: The consensus is what the scientific literature states, not opinion as you seem to indicate.
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Magma at 05:12 AM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
@ alfalfa: this site is frequented by scientists and others who know what they're talking about. Peddle your tired misinformation elsewhere.
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alfalfa at 04:52 AM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
First of all consensus is not what makes a scientific theory true. There used to be consensus that the sun orbited around the earth. There used to be consensus that the earth is flat. Evidence that a scientific theory is true is when predictions match reality. Climate model predictions have deviated extensively from reality. Tinkering with the models after the predictions fail to make them match the past is fudging and does not support any theory at all.
Second there was a recent large scale study in the Netherlands showing that the consensus was not that human activity caused climate change.
Moderator Response:[JH] Sloganeering sticken.
Also, please provide references for your statements about specific studies.
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