Consensus?
Whenever I post something that casts any doubt on the liturgy of the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming®€£$, I can expect some screeching from the true believers. Especially if the artist formerly known as the Daou Report (now Blog Report) links. Then the gates are opened. One of the things they shout – in a towering huff – is that the TOP scientists have reached a CONSENSUS and only a brain dead tool of the oil companies would deny it. And you're going to be entered into the global warming denier's database for later reeducation. (Well, that's what they imply, anyway.)
They flat refuse to even question their private jet-setting, energy hogging, strip mining, indulgence selling prophet Al "Gorezilla" Gore about his hypocrisy. You know, preaching mightily about the evils of using gobs of energy. While using 20 times more gobs than the people he lectures. (And cheerfully pimping the benefits of buying indulgences – er – carbon offsets, while offering to sell said offsets through one of his companies.
I haven't had them respond to any of the sudden spate of stories recounting the rampant fraud in the UN and European Union run carbon mitigation programs yet. I really cannot wait to hear the explanations of how the emperor does too have some clothing. But let's go back to that consensus thing. Lawrence Solomon has been writing a long series of profiles on people who are classified by the true believers as candidates for reeducation once the revolution is complete. (Oh, they just call them "deniers" now. Sorry, just took it to the logical conclusion there.) And guess what? There are TOP scientists who think the CONSENSUS is a pile of ……. fill in the blank (that darned comment policy gets me, too, you know.)
Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing that a scientific consensus exists on climate change. Certainly there is no consensus at the very top echelons of scientists — the ranks from which I have been drawing my subjects — and certainly there is no consensus among astrophysicists and other solar scientists, several of whom I have profiled. If anything, the majority view among these subsets of the scientific community may run in the opposite direction. Not only do most of my interviewees either discount or disparage the conventional wisdom as represented by the IPCC, many say their peers generally consider it to have little or no credibility. In one case, a top scientist told me that, to his knowledge, no respected scientist in his field accepts the IPCC position.
What of the one claim that we hear over and over again, that 2,000 or 2,500 of the world's top scientists endorse the IPCC position? I asked the IPCC for their names, to gauge their views. "The 2,500 or so scientists you are referring to are reviewers from countries all over the world," the IPCC Secretariat responded. "The list with their names and contacts will be attached to future IPCC publications, which will hopefully be on-line in the second half of 2007."
An IPCC reviewer does not assess the IPCC's comprehensive findings. He might only review one small part of one study that later becomes one small input to the published IPCC report. Far from endorsing the IPCC reports, some reviewers, offended at what they considered a sham review process, have demanded that the IPCC remove their names from the list of reviewers. One even threatened legal action when the IPCC refused.
Read more than just Solomon's linked synopsis of what he has found in interviewing these folks. Read some of the actual profiles – and the actual credentials these folks have, it is important.
And it shows that, despite the screeching, this issue is not settled. And, quite frankly, the outright sanctimonious fraud in the so-called carbon reduction programs should make any thinking person realize there is a hell of a big smoke screen here – and it isn't oil-fired.
(And for the record, this blog does not get funding from the oil companies. Hell, I don't get funding from anyone.)
Environment, Junk Science | Gaius June 3, 2007
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Public Secrets: from the files of the Irishspy — June 3, 2007 @ 6:49 pm
By Steve J., June 3, 2007 @ 7:30 pm
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Edit – only warning. If you cannot make your point without name calling, you do not have one. See comment policy.
By Steve J., June 3, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
Solomon is mistaken about the Gallup poll:
Associated Press
December 8, 1997, Monday, BC cycle
SECTION: Washington Dateline
HEADLINE: WASHINGTON TODAY: Global warming debate generates much heat
BYLINE: By DONALD M. ROTHBERG, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
One conservative group criticized the news media for accepting claims that there is widespread scientific agreement on global warming. The Media Research Center cited “a recent Gallup poll” that said only 19 percent of the members of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union think that a warmer climate has been the result of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Gallup organization said the poll was taken in October of 1991. It noted that some people, opposed to claims that human-induced global warming is occurring, “have used the study to support their position.”
“These writers have taken survey results out of context that appear to show scientists do not believe that human-induced global warming is occurring.”
The statement from Gallup noted that when asked if they thought human-induced global warming was occurring, 66 percent of the scientists surveyed said yes.
By tom, June 4, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
What would it take to “settle” the issue?
The stakes are high for not taking action and frankly even if you don’t believe in global warming there are significant advantages to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.
As for the economic downsides of reducing carbon emissions, well, let’s say, that there isn’t a consensus on that
I’ve seen the comparison made between Global Warming and the Y2K crisis. There were many doomsday type predictions back in the late 90’s. None of them really panned out.
Was it because it was mostly hype or because private industry took the problem seriously and shelled out hundreds of billions of dollars to deal with the issue? Probably some of each. In any case, all that spending didn’t in fact result in a huge economic downturn. On the contrary, the economy was growing at an astronomical rate.