Posted on 2 September 2020 by John Cook

The scientific consensus on human-caused global warming has been a fierce topic for decades. To understand why, you need to know the history of consensus. The first message the public heard about the consensus on climate change was that there was no consensus. Next, scientists published a series of studies quantifying expert agreement on human-caused global warming – multiple studies found 90 to 100% agreement with multiple studies converging on 97% consensus. In response, climate deniers continued to argue there was no consensus (as well as argue scientists should stop talking about it because science isn’t done by consensus).

This video is part of a virtual grad class “Understanding and Responding to Climate Misinformation” that I’m teaching at George Mason University with Natalie Burls & Tim DelSole. Our class teaches climate & communication students the climate & comm research needed to debunk climate misinformation.