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What exactly do 98% of climate researchers believe?

By Barry York - posted Monday, 20 October 2014


Politicians, climate activists and influential Hollywood celebrities are misusing the 98% figure derived from such studies to justify an alarmist point of view and to marginalise dissident scientific voices. This is especially unfair given that many or most scientist-sceptics could be part of the 98% in the terms of the studies above. Sceptics generally accept that warming has occurred over the past 130 years. Sceptics tend to be more questioning of the degree to which human activity is a contributing factor and, from my reading of them, generally place emphasis on natural variation rather than industrial activity and CO2 emissions. I do not have the necessary expertise to reach a conclusion on the science but I do know, from history, that minority voices within science are sometimes proven right.

Argument and debate are essential to the advancement of knowledge

A culture of debate is as essential to scientific progress as it is to democracy. Yet our political culture has moved so far to the Right that the term 'sceptic' now has a negative connotation and argument by 'appeal to authority' wins the day, even when dodgy. And if you stand up for those scientists and experts who are sceptics, as I do, for their right to argue a case without being vilified, then look out for that big "98%" stick! Argument and debate are essential to advancement of knowledge

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The findings of Cook et al, referred to above, the one which received international publicity last year, were subjected to critical scrutiny by David Legates, former Director of the Center for Climatic Research at Delaware University. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11191-013-9647-9 The challenge by Legates et al drew attention to an obvious problem with the way in which the 97% figure was arrived at. Cook et al adopted seven levels of ratings to categorize their findings.

Category 1 is for research that "Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of global warming". Clear enough.

Category 2 is for "Explicit endorsement without quantification" (i.e., does not express a view as to how significant human activity is).

Category 3 is "Implicit endorsement".

The final four categories are: "No opinion or uncertain", "Implicit rejection", "Explicit rejection without quantification", "Explicit rejection with quantification".

Using Cook's own figures, only 64 papers fitted Category 1. That's 64 out of 11,944 – or, out of 4,000, if we are to agree with Cook that those expressing 'no opinion' should not be included in the count. That means, only 1.6% of abstracts explicitly expressed the view that humans are the cause of global warming. A far cry from 97%! Cook et al arrived at the 97% figure by lumping categories 1 to 3 together, when only category 1 explicitly represented the view that human activity was the main cause of warming.

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Cook and colleague Bedford claimed in a more recent paper titled 'Agnotology, scientific consensus and the teaching and learning of climate change' that "Of the 4,014 abstracts that expressed a position on the issue of human-induced climate change, Cook et al. (2013) found that over 97% endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause". http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Bedford_2013_agnotology.pdf The "main cause"? How could John Cook say that, when his own data shows something very different?

An article by John Cook in 'The Conversation' is titled "It's true: 97% of research papers say climate change is happening". Well, big deal. The fact of climate change is hardly controversial and very few sceptics challenge it. The increase over 130 years is less than a degree and the past 16 years show a pause, so it is hard to argue that the warming is accelerating.

Advice to Obama and John Kerry

Were Obama and Kerry and others to refer to the 98% in their public speeches in a more accurate and honest way, they would have to say something like:

"About 98% of experts accept that the planet has warmed by less than a degree over the past 130 years and that human industrial activity has played a significant part in this."

Somehow it just doesn't have the same pull as "dangerous", or the supposed need for 'urgent personal surgery', 'airplanes crashing' or "crippling consequences".

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This article was first published on C21stLeft.



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About the Author

Barry York is an historian and writer who blogs at C21st Left. He rejects the current pseudo-left and regards himself as a leftist influenced by Marxism.

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Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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