The weird, freezing cold weather has once again brought up the topic of climate change. It seems everything is evidence of it. In fact, it is no longer called “global warming,” but now must be referred to as “climate change” in scientific circles. Why? Because the evidence doesn’t lead to the overall warming of the globe. Now everything, including rising temperatures, dropping temperatures, hurricanes, and droughts, is evidence of climate change. Even more, humans are the problem, we must do something about it, and 97% of climate scientists agree. But, is this really true?
The short answer is “no.” This statistic has been debunked numerous times yet is still desperately clinging on within the arguments of those already invested in the theory of climate change. Before I continue, I will say up front, I am not someone who will outright deny the overall global climate is changing. My stance is we do not and cannot yet know conclusively how much it is changing, if the change will produce an overall negative result, if humans are the cause, and if anything we do would have a noticeable effect. In short, the science is not settled.
It would seem people are beginning to see through the facade of global warming/climate change. Former President Barack Obama once tweeted “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climatechange is real, man-made and dangerous.” This was tweeted in 2013 and, at the time of this writing, has has 2,421 retweets and 725 likes. However, it would seem most, including myself, prefer President Donald Trump’s tweet, which said “In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!” This was tweeted out less than two weeks ago (at the time of this writing) and has 66,701 retweets and 208,614 likes. Of course, as hilarious and awesome as this is, it doesn’t really prove anything. So what about the 97% of climate scientists?
The 97% claim mainly began with a paper written by John Cook, who said about his own paper “Cook et al. (2013) found that over 97 percent [of papers he surveyed] endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.” Looking into Cook’s paper, however, it is easy to tell this is not the case. In fact, it has been shown that only 1.6 percent explicitly stated that man-made greenhouse gases caused at least 50 percent of global warming. According to Forbes:
"Where did most of the 97 percent come from, then? Cook had created a category called “explicit endorsement without quantification”—that is, papers in which the author, by Cook’s admission, did not say whether 1 percent or 50 percent or 100 percent of the warming was caused by man. He had also created a category called “implicit endorsement,” for papers that imply (but don’t say) that there is some man-made global warming and don’t quantify it. In other words, he created two categories that he labeled as endorsing a view that they most certainly didn’t."
In fact, many scientists whose papers were included in Cook’s study publicly spoke out against his methods. Dr. Richard Tol said “Cook survey included 10 of my 122 eligible papers. 5/10 were rated incorrectly. 4/5 were rated as endorse rather than neutral.” Dr. Craig Idso said “That is not an accurate representation of my paper…” Dr. Nir Shaviv said “Nope…it is not an accurate representation. Dr. Nicola Scafetta said “Cook et al. (2013) is based on a straw man argument…”
This statistic has been used multiple times to stack the public opinion of climate change to one side. Similar problems are easily recognized in other supposed facts of climate change, such as the “hockey stick” trend. This, quite simply, is the wrong way to do science.
Article from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2015/01/06/97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-100-wrong/#1add50e43f9f
Mark Steyn on the "Hockey Stick" Graph: https://www.steynonline.com/7973/on-the-receiving-end-of-the-hockey-stick
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Josh Peck
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