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The 97% consensus on global warming

What the science says...

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Surveys of the peer-reviewed scientific literature and the opinions of experts consistently show a 97–98% consensus that humans are causing global warming.

Climate Myth...

There is no consensus

"[...] And I'll mention that the stat on the 97% of - of scientists is based on one discredited study." (Ted Cruz)

Authors of seven climate consensus studies — including Naomi OreskesPeter DoranWilliam AndereggBart VerheggenEd MaibachJ. Stuart Carlton, and John Cook — co-authored a paper that should settle this question once and for all. The two key conclusions from the paper are:

1) Depending on exactly how you measure the expert consensus, it’s somewhere between 90% and 100% that agree humans are responsible for climate change, with most of our studies finding 97% consensus among publishing climate scientists.

2) The greater the climate expertise among those surveyed, the higher the consensus on human-caused global warming.

consensus studies

Expert consensus results on the question of human-caused global warming among the previous studies published by the co-authors of Cook et al. (2016). Illustration: John Cook.  Available on the SkS Graphics page

consensus vs expertise

Scientific consensus on human-caused global warming as compared to the expertise of the surveyed sample. There’s a strong correlation between consensus and climate science expertise. Illustration: John Cook. Available on the SkS Graphics page

Expert consensus is a powerful thing. People know we don’t have the time or capacity to learn about everything, and so we frequently defer to the conclusions of experts. It’s why we visit doctors when we’re ill. The same is true of climate change: most people defer to the expert consensus of climate scientists. Crucially, as we note in our paper:

Public perception of the scientific consensus has been found to be a gateway belief, affecting other climate beliefs and attitudes including policy support.

That’s why those who oppose taking action to curb climate change have engaged in a misinformation campaign to deny the existence of the expert consensus. They’ve been largely successful, as the public badly underestimate the expert consensus, in what we call the “consensus gap.” Only 16% of Americans realize that the consensus is above 90%.

Lead author John Cook explaining the team’s 2016 consensus paper.

The Consensus Project

The 2016 paper was a follow-up on Cook et al. (2013).  This was a survey of over 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science papers by our citizen science team at Skeptical Science has found a 97% consensus in the peer-reviewed literature that humans are causing global warming.

consensus pie chart

The Abstracts Survey

The first step of our approach involved expanding the original survey of the peer-reviewed scientific literature in Oreskes (2004).  We performed a keyword search of peer-reviewed scientific journal publications (in the ISI Web of Science) for the terms 'global warming' and 'global climate change' between the years 1991 and 2011, which returned over 12,000 papers. John Cook created a web-based system that would randomly display a paper's abstract (summary).  We agreed upon definitions of possible categories: explicit or implicit endorsement of human-caused global warming, no position, and implicit or explicit rejection (or minimization of the human influence).

Our approach was also similar to that taken by James Powell, as illustrated in the popular graphic below.  Powell examined nearly 14,000 abstracts, searching for explicit rejections of human-caused global warming, finding only 24.  We took this approach further, also looking at implicit rejections, no opinions, and implicit/explicit endorsements.

powell pie

We took a conservative approach in our ratings. For example, a study which takes it for granted that global warming will continue for the foreseeable future could easily be put into the implicit endorsement category; there is no reason to expect global warming to continue indefinitely unless humans are causing it. However, unless an abstract included (either implicit or explicit) language about the cause of the warming, we categorized it as 'no position'.

Note that John Cook also initiated a spinoff from the project with a survey of climate blog participants re-rating a subset of these same abstracts.  However, this spinoff is not a part of our research or conclusions.

The Team

A team of Skeptical Science volunteers proceeded to categorize the 12,000 abstracts – the most comprehensive survey of its kind to date.  Each paper was rated independently at least twice, with the identity of the other co-rater not known. A dozen team members completed most of the 24,000+ ratings.  There was no funding provided for this project; all the work was performed on a purely voluntary basis.

Once we finished the 24,000+ ratings, we went back and checked the abstracts where there were disagreements. If the disagreement about a given paper couldn't be settled by the two initial raters, a third person acted as the tie-breaker.

The volunteers were an internationally diverse group. Team members' home countries included Australia, USA, Canada, UK, New Zealand, Germany, Finland, and Italy.

The Self-Ratings

As an independent test of the measured consensus, we also emailed over 8,500 authors and asked them to rate their own papers using our same categories.  The most appropriate expert to rate the level of endorsement of a published paper is the author of the paper, after all.  We received responses from 1,200 scientists who rated a total of over 2,100 papers. Unlike our team's ratings that only considered the summary of each paper presented in the abstract, the scientists considered the entire paper in the self-ratings.

The 97% Consensus Results

Based on our abstract ratings, we found that just over 4,000 papers expressed a position on the cause of global warming, 97.1% of which endorsed human-caused global warming. In the self-ratings, nearly 1,400 papers were rated as taking a position, 97.2% of which endorsed human-caused global warming.

We found that about two-thirds of papers didn't express a position on the subject in the abstract, which confirms that we were conservative in our initial abstract ratings.  This result isn't surprising for two reasons: 1) most journals have strict word limits for their abstracts, and 2) frankly, every scientist doing climate research knows humans are causing global warming. There's no longer a need to state something so obvious. For example, would you expect every geological paper to note in its abstract that the Earth is a spherical body that orbits the sun?

This result was also predicted by Oreskes (2007), which noted that scientists

"...generally focus their discussions on questions that are still disputed or unanswered rather than on matters about which everyone agrees"

However, according to the author self-ratings, nearly two-thirds of the papers in our survey do express a position on the subject somewhere in the paper.

We also found that the consensus has strengthened gradually over time. The slow rate reflects that there has been little room to grow, because the consensus on human-caused global warming has generally always been over 90% since 1991. Nevertheless, in both the abstract ratings and self-ratings, we found that the consensus has grown to about 98% as of 2011.

consensus over time

Percentage of papers endorsing the consensus among only papers that express a position endorsing or rejecting the consensus.  From Cook et al. (2013).

Our results are also consistent with previous research finding a 97% consensus amongst climate experts on the human cause of global warming.  Doran and Zimmerman (2009) surveyed Earth scientists, and found that of the 77 scientists responding to their survey who are actively publishing climate science research, 75 (97.4%) agreed that "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures."  Anderegg et al. (2010) compiled a list of 908 researchers with at least 20 peer-reviewed climate publications.  They found that:

"≈97% of self-identified actively publishing climate scientists agree with the tenets of ACC [anthropogenic climate change]"

In our survey, among scientists who expressed a position on AGW in their abstract, 98.4% endorsed the consensus.  This is greater than 97% consensus of peer-reviewed papers because endorsement papers had more authors than rejection papers, on average.  Thus there is a 97.1% consensus in the peer-reviewed literature, and a 98.4% consensus amongst scientists researching climate change.

Why is this Important?

Several studies have shown that people who correctly perceive the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming are more likely to support government action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. This was most recently shown in McCright et al. (2013), recently published in the journal Climatic Change. People will defer to the judgment of experts, and they trust climate scientists on the subject of global warming.

However, research has also shown that the public is misinformed on the climate consensus.  For example, a 2012 poll from US Pew Research Center found less than half of Americans thought that scientists agreed that humans were causing global warming.  One contributor to this misperception is false balance in the media, particularly in the US, where most climate stories are "balanced" with a "skeptic" perspective.  However, this results in making the 3% seem much larger, like 50%. In trying to achieve "balance", the media has actually created a very unbalanced perception of reality. As a result, people believe scientists are still split about what's causing global warming, and therefore there is not nearly enough public support or motivation to solve the problem.

consensus gap

Such false balance has long been the goal of a dedicated misinformation campaign waged by the fossil fuel industry.  Just as one example, in 1991 Western Fuels Association conducted a $510,000 campaign whose primary goal was to "reposition global warming as theory (not fact)."  These vested interests have exploited the media desire to appear "balanced."

Open Access for Maximum Transparency

We chose to submit our paper to Environmental Research Letters because it is a well-respected, high-impact journal, but also because it offers the option of making a paper available by open access, meaning that for an up-front fee, the paper can be made free for anybody to download. This was important to us, because we want our results to be as accessible and transparent as possible.

To pay the open access fee, in keeping with the citizen science approach, we asked for donations from Skeptical Science readers. We received over 50 donations in less than 10 hours to fully crowd-fund the $1,600 open access cost.

Human-Caused Global Warming

We fully anticipate that some climate contrarians will respond by saying "we don't dispute that humans cause some global warming." First of all, there are a lot of people who do dispute that there is a consensus that humans cause any global warming. Our paper shows that their position is not supported in the scientific literature.

Second, we did look for papers that quantify the human contribution to global warming, and most are not that specific. However, as noted above, if a paper minimized the human contribution, we classified that as a rejection. For example, if a paper were to say "the sun caused most of the global warming over the past century," that would be included in the less than 3% of papers in the rejection categories.

Many studies simply defer to the expert summary of climate science research put together by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which states that most of the global warming since the mid-20th century has been caused by humans. According to recent research, that statement is actually too conservative.

Of the papers that specifically examine the human and natural causes of global warming, virtually all conclude that humans are the dominant cause over the past 50 to 100 years.

attribution 50 yr

Net human and natural percent contributions to the observed global surface warming over the past 50-65 years.  The studies are Tett et al. 2000 (T00, dark blue), Meehl et al. 2004 (M04, red), Stone et al. 2007 (S07, green), Lean and Rind 2008 (LR08, purple), Huber and Knutti 2011 (HK11, light blue), Gillett et al. 2012 (G12, orange), Wigley and Santer 2012 (WG12, dark green), Jones et al. 2013 (J13, pink), IPCC AR5 (IPCC, light green), and Ribes et al. 2016 (R16, light purple).  The numbers in this summary are best estimates from each study; uncertainty ranges can be found in the original research.

Most studies simply accept this fact and go on to examine the consequences of this human-caused global warming and associated climate change.

Another important point is that once you accept that humans are causing global warming, you must also accept that global warming is still happening; humans cause global warming by increasing the greenhouse effect, and our greenhouse gas emissions just keep accelerating. This ties in to our previous posts noting that global warming is accelerating; but that over the past decade, most of that warming has gone into the oceans (including the oft-neglected deep oceans). If you accept that humans are causing global warming, as over 97% of peer-reviewed scientific papers do, then this conclusion should not be at all controversial. With all this evidence for human-caused global warming, it couldn't simply have just stopped, so the heat must be going somewhere.  Scientists have found it in the oceans.

Spread the Word

Awareness of the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming is a key factor in peoples' decisions whether or not to support action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  However, there is a gap here due to the public's lack of awareness of the consensus.  Thus it's critical that we make people aware of these results.  To that end, design and advertising firm SJI Associates generously created a website pro-bono, centered around the results of our survey.  The website can be viewed at TheConsensusProject.com, and it includes a page where relevant and useful graphics like the one at the top of this post can be shared.  You can also follow The Consensus Project on Twitter @ConsensusProj.

Quite possibly the most important thing to communicate about climate change is that there is a 97% consensus amongst the scientific experts and scientific research that humans are causing global warming. Let's spread the word and close the consensus gap.

Last updated on 8 May 2016 by dana1981. View Archives

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Further reading

Richard Black at the BBC investigates whether there is a bias against skepticism in the scientific community.

More on what we're talking about when we say "scientific consensus,"  in an essay founded on Denial101x and scientific literature: Scientific Consensus isn’t a “Part” of the Scientific Method: it’s a Consequence of it. (or via archive.org)

Further viewing

The "Climate Denial Crock of the Week" video series examines the list of "32,000 leading skeptical scientists."

Naomi Oreskes gives a thorough presentation of the development of our scientific understanding of anthropogenic global warming:

Lead author John Cook explains the 2016 "Consensus on consensus" paper.

Here is a video summary of the various studies quantifying the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming, as well as the misinformation campaigns casting doubt on the consensus.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Joe Crouch for his efforts in tracking down scientific organizations endorsing the consensus as well as links to their public statements.

Update

On 21 Jan 2012, we revised 'the skeptic argument' with a minor quote formatting correction.

Comments

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Comments 1 to 25 out of 955:

  1. Concensus only has meaning if there is no pressure to conform in either direction. In the climate debate this is extremely far from being true. How far could we reasonably expect a questioner to go in an IPCC panel when that instantly collects a denialist label and probably guarantees a dead end to even the most able career? In the current climate it is reasonable to assume the dissent camp is at least ten times the admitted size. I know that as an admittedly uninformed questioner I get some pretty vitriolic responses from the eco faithful.
  2. Roverdc hits the nail on the head. To say there is bias in the science at this point is a wild understatement. What the public hears is claims that "all scientists except a few kooks agree that catastrophic global warming is immenent and caused by your car.". This is what they think you mean by consensus. Is it safe to say the real consensus is closer to the view of those so called deniers in the National Post series or to the alarmist panic that is being widely circulated through things like "An Inconvenient Truth"?
  3. The fact that there are so many Academies of Science endorsing the global warming position is probably the strongest argument for supporting it. The question to ask is how mature is this field? If the answer is 'very mature' then this type of support has high credibility. If the answer is 'immature' then it's significance is considerably less. Here is a link to US Senate Committee on the Environment that lists in detail 400 scientists who disagree with the anthropomorphic global warming hypothesis: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport That there are so many when we repeatedly hear on the news and radio that the actual number of dissenters is 'miniscule' will have the tendency to turn believers into sceptics. I would also feel more confident if the 'hockey stick' graphics that predict rapid change and global catastrophe would not all be linked back to a small handful of researchers and students who work together and presumably have the same preconceptions and modus operandi. If there are no 'hockey sticks' then the small increase in global temperature over the last century does not statistically look different from what one would expect from natural variation.
  4. that list of 400 is about as big a hoax as the "Petition Project" was. Here's one of many sites exposing it. http://gristmill.grist.org/user/Andrew%20Dessler would you like to try again, Mr. Nitschke?
  5. sorry about the double post, and for the unintended smarmy tone.
  6. I think I'd put the list on the petition project up against the IPCC list, many of whom disagree with IPCC conclusions, any day of the week. The listed expose here paledriver is pure rubbish. Maybe you should investigate the actual list rather than the fake and distorted claims about it.
  7. The Marshall Institute co-sponsored with the OISM a deceptive campaign -- known as the Petition Project -- to undermine and discredit the scientific authority of the IPCC and to oppose the Kyoto Protocol. Early in the spring of 1998, thousands of scientists around the country received a mass mailing urging them to sign a petition calling on the government to reject the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was accompanied by other pieces including an article formatted to mimic the journal of the National Academy of Sciences. Subsequent research revealed that the article had not been peer-reviewed, nor published, nor even accepted for publication in that journal and the Academy released a strong statement disclaiming any connection to this effort and reaffirming the reality of climate change. The Petition resurfaced in 2001. They openly lied about endorsement from National Academy of Sciences, were caught, the Academy issues a statement disclaiming any connection, they re-release it again anyways, and you're foolish and gullible enough to buy it and defend it. Would you like me to post a sample of the signers? That would be embarrassing for you.
  8. i will anyways......................... The term "scientists" is often used in describing signatories. The petition requests signatories list their degree (B.S., M.S., or Ph.D.) and to list their scientific field.[3] The distribution of petitions was relatively uncontrolled: those receiving the petition could check a line that said "send more petition cards for me to distribute". The Petition Project itself used to state: “ Of the 19,700 signatures that the project has received in total so far, 17,800 have been independently verified and the other 1,900 have not yet been independently verified. Of those signers holding the degree of PhD, 95% have now been independently verified. One name that was sent in by enviro pranksters, Geri Halliwell, PhD, has been eliminated. Several names, such as Perry Mason and Robert Byrd are still on the list even though enviro press reports have ridiculed their identity with the names of famous personalities. They are actual signers. Perry Mason, for example, is a PhD Chemist.[2] ” In May 1998 the Seattle Times wrote: “ Several environmental groups questioned dozens of the names: "Perry S. Mason" (the fictitious lawyer?), "Michael J. Fox" (the actor?), "Robert C. Byrd" (the senator?), "John C. Grisham" (the lawyer-author?). And then there's the Spice Girl, a k a. Geraldine Halliwell: The petition listed "Dr. Geri Halliwell" and "Dr. Halliwell." Asked about the pop singer, Robinson said he was duped. The returned petition, one of thousands of mailings he sent out, identified her as having a degree in microbiology and living in Boston. "It's fake," he said.[15] ” In 2005, Scientific American reported: “ Scientific American took a sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition —- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers – a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.[16] ” In a 2005 op-ed in the Hawaii Reporter, Todd Shelly wrote: “ In less than 10 minutes of casual scanning, I found duplicate names (Did two Joe R. Eaglemans and two David Tompkins sign the petition, or were some individuals counted twice?), single names without even an initial (Biolchini), corporate names (Graybeal & Sayre, Inc. How does a business sign a petition?), and an apparently phony single name (Redwine, Ph.D.). These examples underscore a major weakness of the list: there is no way to check the authenticity of the names. Names are given, but no identifying information (e.g., institutional affiliation) is provided. Why the lack of transparency?[17]
  9. I have the article you claim was "formatted to mimic..." sitting right here. It doesn't look like it is anything of the sort. In fact it clearly lists Author and who puplished it. It looks like a review of literature type paper which...it is. As for mass mailing as it was done with a tiny budget it was nothing of the sort. In fact I never even got one despite being on one of the main mailing lists they supposedly used. How many copies of this supposed mass mailing did you get? Aren't you bothered by a clear attempt by the "enviros" to commit fraud with fake names? Shouldn't you question why they think this is needed or something to be proud of. Is it ok to be dishonest as long as they are on your side? A sample of 30 in which some back down (people get fired for being skeptics in this field you know)is instantly credible to you while you arm wave away 17,000 You are pointing out 1 fake signature out of 19,000! Really? It was caught, we had thousands of Fake names on our voting list in one nearby city alone. You are avoiding the main issue. Consensus is not science but if it was the supposed 2500 scientists of the IPCC report have every failing you mention of the petition project and more important the people who signed the petition agreed with what it said. The same can not be said for the IPCC and its supposed 2500. Counted in that IPCC number are hundreds of non scientists, NGO reps (these are people with an agenda)and most importantly reviewers, many of whom don't even agree with the conclusions of the IPCC report. In fact most of the famous "deniers" are included in the 2500 IPCC counts. Someone made the mistake of asking them after the second IPCC report (surveyed participants) and found that over 60% did not agree with the summary for policy makers. Maybe we should stop pretending numbers and NGOs are scientists and that consensus is science. It's that claim that raises huge red flags for me.
  10. Wow, that was terrible punctuation. Darn Packers
  11. I'm sorry. Are you a Packer fan? Picked another losing cause? I'm sorry again,but I couldn't help myself on that one. Great game though.
  12. Let's take a look at the "Inhofe 400" Meteorologist George Waldenberg was named. In response to his inclusion ,Mr. Waldenberg sent an email to Senator Inhofes' staff that began "Marc, Matthew: Take me off your list of 400 (Prominent) Scientists that dispute Man-Made Global warming claims. I've never made any claims that debunk the "Consensus". You quoted a newspaper article that's main focus was scoring the accuracy of local weathermen. Hardly Scientific ... yet I'm guessing some of your other sources pale in comparison in terms of credibility. You also didn't ask for my permission to use these statements. That's not a very respectable way of doing "research". One shining example. I have many more.
  13. Again? now its one out of 400 and who the heck was talking about the Inhofe 400? The point remains it is not a popularity contest despite all the attempted score keeping by the IPCC fans. Also many of the prominent scientists counted in that score are in fact the so called deniers.
  14. the point remains that the deniers flesh out their "petitions" and "lists" with fakes, fraudulent claims, and people who in no way have made any claims against the consensus and pointedly say so. I've pointed out one of many, (which I've linked to above) And the "400" was brought up on post#3, which is why I even referred to fraudulent "Petition Project" in the first place.
  15. p.s. I'm not claiming that there's no dissent. Just that there IS a consensus. An overwhelming one.
  16. Well that awful Inhofe 400 is now over 420 as in the time it took for you to complain about the one that didn't sign 20 more "scientists" did. But, it isn't important. My problem with this is, it isn't an election, you claim the skeptics inflate their numbers, maybe so, beyond question the AGW catastrophy folks inflate theirs. At least two of the best known "deniers" are IPCC lead authors. Dozens of others are listed as contributers or reviewers, several have been so disgusted with the process they withdrew and asked their names be removed. This means they are counted on both sides. What is that overwelming consensus? Here is what is presented as that consensus: Human CO2 emissions will cause massive catastrophic warming, It will cause disaster in the near future ruining the world for our children. This warming will lead to massive flooding, drought, wide scale starvation, wars, plagues, melting of the polar ice, flooding of huge areas of the world... Refer to my post number 2 above. Which is closer to the consensus? Al Gore with 23 feet of sea level rise this century or the "deniers" with 15-20 cm ? Al Gore with his talk of "unprecidented warming". Or the "deniers" claims that the world seems to have wamed about .6-.7 C over the last century and that may be somewhat due to human activity. Most of the "deniers" probably don't even have that much trouble with the consensus as stated in the first paragraph of the original post. They are vilified largely because they refuse to accept the supposed consensus I just described. In general I agreed with the stated consensus in the original post, though based on the recent data and the trouble with the historical record I think now I would not use the word "most".
  17. 420? In the original 400 I found many who were completely unqualified, some of whom are skeptical, some of whom are not. Many who are qualified who are either not actually skeptical, are skeptical only of some proposed solutions or who have actually stated their agreement WITH the consensus. The list was not made to hold up to close scrutiny. I imagine it's the same with the additional 20.
  18. addressing claims about the IPCC............... "John McLean and the NRSP Category: Global Warming Posted on: December 20, 2007 1:02 PM, by Tim Lambert Hey, remember John McLean? The guy who kept steering Andrew Bolt into brick walls? Well he's teamed up with Tom Harris of the NRSP to accuse the IPCC of lying about the scientific support for its reports: In total, only 62 scientists reviewed the chapter in which this statement appears, the critical chapter 9, "Understanding and Attributing Climate Change". Of the comments received from the 62 reviewers of this critical chapter, almost 60% of them were rejected by IPCC editors. And of the 62 expert reviewers of this chapter, 55 had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial. First, there were much more than 62 reviewers for chapter 9. McLean and Harris have only counted the reviewers of the second order draft and ignored the more numerous comments on the first order draft. Second, they mislead by giving the impression that 60% of the reviewers disagreed with the IPCC, but half of the comments (572 of them!) were made by Vincent Gray, with 97% of them rejected. Only 16% of the comments by other reviewers were rejected. Gray was also responsible for most the rejected comments on the first order draft. Examples of Gray's rejected comments include: Insert after "to" "the utterly ridiculous assumption of" Insert after "Bayesian" "(or super-guesswork)" Insret before "Calibrated" "Bogus" Dave Semeniuk has a more detailed analysis of Gray's comments -- 50 of them were Gray repeatedly asking for "anthropogenic" to be replaced with "human-induced". Third, as Richard Littlemore points out, it is pretty dodgy for the NRSP to complain about "vested interest" when their own vested interest is so blatant. But how did McLean and Harris come up with their claim that 55 of the reviewers had "serious vested interest"? McLean gives details in a piece published by the SPPI (an oil industry funded think tank that apparently does not count as a vested interested to McLean). Scientists were declared to have a vested interest if they were an IPCC author, or an IPCC author of a previous assessment, or if any of their work was cited by the report, or if they worked for a government, or if they work for an organization that gets government funding, or if they have a "possible commercial vested interest in the claim of man-made warming". Basically that leaves amateurs like Gray and McKitrick. In one of his comments Gray asked them to cite one of his Energy and Environment papers. Fortunately it was rejected, or he would have been ruled out as well. John Mashey examined McLean's background and it seems that while the National Post awarded him a PhD he actually has no scientific qualifications at all, just a Bachelor of Architecture. Which makes McLean's rant against a critic, which was captured by Nexus 6 particularly funny." http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/12/john_mclean_and_the_nrsp.php
  19. It appears you have proved my point.
  20. it took you 23 days to come up with that?
  21. You mean I should have quickly pointed out that you had proven my point? Not allow you time to elaborate or correct?
  22. please, for my age addled mind, explain how I've proved your point.
  23. My point is the consensus, such as it is, is closer to the denialist view than the popular view of Al Gore etc. The claim that there is some vast number of scientists that constitute a consensus and that agree with catastrophic warming is not only not science it isn't even correct. We constantly see people pointing out IPCC to supposedly prove this supposed consensus. IPCC isnt all qualified scientists any more than any of these lists are. But more important than that, despite the fact that a pro warming bias is built into the entire IPCC process, the actual body of the IPCC report in fact supports my position rather than that of Al Gore. When I pointed out that the petition project and other similar things like the Heidelberg appeal all had one thing the IPCC didn't have; the consent and agreement of the people involved. (This is something lacking in the lists of academies etc. in the original post as well.) You ignored it completely as if tiny politically active committees somehow spoke for all. Personal attacks on a handful of people, each of which is questionable in itself does nothing to refute my stated point. It appears rather to be a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the issue.
  24. The deniers series in the National post has grown much larger. It is still a good series can you update the link so it doesn't just lead to the first 10.
  25. Yeah, Vincent Gray made a lot of noise, ergo there's no consensus. Genius logic!

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