Guest Post by Scott Adams
One of the most famous statistics in the world of politics is the claim that 97% of climate scientists agree with the idea that humans activity is boosting CO2 to dangerous levels.
Critics say the 97% is misleading, because the critics like to include in their own list the scientists that are working for energy companies. The industry-paid scientists and engineers have less credibility, say the critics of the climate science critics.
Recently I retweeted a link to a climate science whistleblower. I don’t have any way to evaluate his claims. But his story did a good job of illustrating the flow of data from the measuring devices all the way to the published papers and then to your brain. And what I got out of that was that very few people have direct access to the measuring devices and the original data. Let’s say 1% of climate scientists are actually involved in generating the temperature data and deciding what to include, what to smooth, what to replace, and so on. Apparently you can measure Earth’s temperature a number of ways, from ice core samples, to satellites, to ocean buoys, to land thermometers. I might be missing a few. Oh, and each of those methods probably change a bit over time, so you have some apples-to-oranges comparisons if you look at history.
In other words, even the 1% involved in direct measurements might not be involved in all the different forms of it.
What follows next is pure speculation, based on my years of experience in corporate America and my understanding of human nature. But it seems to me that 99% of the 97% are relying on the accuracy and honesty of the 1% who actually produce the temperature measurements. Sure, the other scientists read the papers, and see whatever “adjustments” were made by the authors. But that seems like opening the hood of the car, looking at the outside of the engine, and determining that it’s all good on the inside.
Speaking of my corporate experience, this reminds me of a situation when I worked for the phone company. 100% of the employees believed that one of the Executive Directors in our group was a PhD in some sort of technology field. After all, he said he was, and the Human Resources group does background checks before hiring. So he had to be a PhD, right?
But it turns out he was a con man. He had no PHd. The Human Resources group was two years behind in their background checks. When they caught up with him, he was fired immediately.
I’m open to correction on my assumption that the 97% of climate scientists depend on the accuracy and honesty of the handful of people with direct access to the data. Let me know if I got that wrong. If I’m wrong, that supports my point that non-scientists such as myself can’t be expected to have useful opinions on science topics.
You just witnessed a little trick I learned from President Trump. I gave myself two ways to win and no way to lose. You should try it. It works every time.
“Surely the most suspicious “97 percent” study was conducted in 2013 by Australian scientist John Cook — author of the 2011 book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand and creator of the blog Skeptical Science (subtitle: “Getting skeptical about global warming skepticism.”). In an analysis of 12,000 abstracts, he found “a 97% consensus among papers taking a position on the cause of global warming in the peer-reviewed literature that humans are responsible.” “Among papers taking a position” is a significant qualifier: Only 34 percent of the papers Cook examined expressed any opinion about anthropogenic climate change at all. Since 33 percent appeared to endorse anthropogenic climate change, he divided 33 by 34 and — voilà — 97 percent! When David Legates, a University of Delaware professor who formerly headed the university’s Center for Climatic Research, recreated Cook’s study, he found that “only 41 papers — 0.3 percent of all 11,944 abstracts or 1.0 percent of the 4,014 expressing an opinion, and not 97.1 percent,” endorsed what Cook claimed. Several scientists whose papers were included in Cook’s initial sample also protested that they had been misinterpreted. “Significant questions about anthropogenic influences on climate remain,” Legates concluded.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425232/climate-change-no-its-not-97-percent-consensus-ian-tuttle
What I never seem to see being touted in the forefront of the claims is what percentage of the CO2 in the atmosphere if from man made causes and what is from natural causes?
And then again, since water vapor is the dominant “greenhouse” gas in the atmosphere what is the percentage of man made CO2 as a percentage of overall “greenhouse gas” in the atmosphere?
Then, with that in mind, how much the total “climate change” could then be attributable to man after other causes are removed from the total?
Surely some of those climate scientists would know on a definitive basis, but where do I find one to ask?
Anon….that was pretty darn good:
CO2 from man in atmosphere = they really don’t know, but IPCC took a WAG and said 50%.
CO2 as part of atmosphere = 0.04%; how much is from man = they don’t know but IPCC will apply the 50%. Also, a CO2 molecule will only stay in atmosphere for x years, and like a sponge becoming completely soaked, CO2 acts the same way – less and less of CO2 is absorbed in atmosphere for each new molecule added.
When you cite ‘climate change’, are you referring to Natural Climate Change or Global Warming Climate Change?
I licked my finger and stuck it in the air Jim…I proved two things. One that the earth is getting colder and two that that’s probably how the climate change folks are collecting data .
“I’m open to correction on my assumption that the 97% of climate scientists depend on the accuracy and honesty of the handful of people with direct access to the data. Let me know if I got that wrong.”
You are wrong in that you are limiting the fraudulent activities to gathering of temp data. The Cook study cited by indubitably above is just one of many ‘studies’ and not representative of the ‘typical’ study.
Typical study sends out questionnaires, gets some responses, throws out some responses, collates any remainder for the final result. The major key is the specific questions asked. This is wordsmithing and has been applied deviously. As a 100% Denier of CAGW, even I would have been included as a believer in one of the studies.
“Consensus” they say. “There is consensus.”
But consensus is a political construct and has nothing to do with scientific proof
lets see plants need co2 damn that what we all get rid of the plants love us and we all get to eat. but wait the left hates that
The consensus is the number of individuals and corporations who have a “hook” into a government budget and when the budget goes away so does the job and then they have to go get a real job.
” I retweeted a link to a climate science whistleblower. I don’t have any way to evaluate his claims.”
Says it all
I have heard this stat, too (actually, ‘98%’), and my response has been, ‘What are their names? Is there a master list of all PhDs in the appropriate disciplines that this stat is based on? How do you know? Is there a list? Can I see it?’ and so forth. Without fail, I am ignored, they talk around it, or change the subject. (I happen to believe that we do affect the environment, but much more so at the micro-level – think ‘urban heat islands’ – and what contribution we make to global climate change, which occurs naturally, is still an open question. ) What conclusion can one draw but that it is impossible to reason with such people?
P.S. Of course, if you really want to set them off, mention Immanuel Velikovsky and catastrophism….
This easy math!! you go out and find 100 scientists on the payroll and you ask them about global warming and out of your 100 employees only three are tired of lying and see you only have to replace three that leaves 97%. Easy math. Seriously Fresh headline the last couple days: UN Battleaxe during speech says climate change is for destroying capitalism. UN main topic either 82-84 or 92 94 , in Rio de janeiro or central america main topic Climate change I forgot what was said but informative. Once you can produce weather as a weapon, how hard is it going to be to convince people that the weather is changing. Poles are supposed to have more Ice than the year before. Put enough heavy metal into making clouds holds ground temp down and keeps sunlight out. Look up they are doing this crap daily. Has anybody seen artificial clouds. The weather man has been lying through his teeth for over a year. You look at weathermap and it is clear and we watch them put clouds together with rain. We had three blizzards with record snowfalls laying a blanket feet thick from texas to maine and we got an inch of snow and it was back up to 40* in two days we. Two huge major ice storms and we got one for about 8hrs and ice was gone in day and half. Talk about CLIMATE CHANGE. talk about Geoengineering and HAARP. 1500 pages of weather warfare documents in 78 NOAA I think. OOH OH last couple days article said scientists who don’t believe Listed a bunch of prominent big names from big universities and said the number of 23.4 k 0r 24 something of them coming out on record saying climate change is bulsh. Global warming was created to promote nwo un agenda of population decrease of 95%, another article on tbp today about global cooling in 71. Remember cowfarts causing global warming??? Agendas 15, 21 30 and fifty read up Wildlands project only 6 cities in USA
Attention TBP friends: It’s the Sunspots stupid. Cycle 24 (2008-2019?) is on the last three years of its downside so the Global Winters of 2018, 19 and 20 should get worse. Around 2027, we will start into even worse winters since Cycle 25 should have even less Sunspots than Cycle 24! Besides, the Earth’s atmosphere was loaded with Methane, Ammonia, Carbon Dioxide and water vapor 2.6 to 2.1 billion years ago and Earth still had the worst Ice Age ever. Earth’s atmosphere didn’t become rich in Oxygen until 650 million years ago. Also, Ulysses Satellite measured a 30% decline in Solar Wind during its 19 year life! This hot Electric Star is 11,000 years long in the teeth and about go into hibernation and become more like just a Fusion Reactor for 90,000 years; the next Ice Age is on time. The last four Ice ages each got colder and the warm Periods got shorter. http://www.thelivingmoon.com/41pegasus/02files/Global_Warming_003.html
I retract the last sentence about colder and shorter.