Consensus

CO2 Not The Demon It Is Made Out To Be (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Bottom Line:

  1. The Mean Global Temperature has been stable since 1997, despite a continuous increase of the CO2 content of the air: how could one say that the increase of the CO2 content of the air is the cause of the increase of the temperature? (discussion: p. 4)
  2. 57% of the cumulative anthropic emissions since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable. How to uphold that anthropic CO2 emissions (or anthropic cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Mean Global Temperature?

(more)

This is Part IV of a series from Christmas 2014.

Renown physicist Freeman Dyson says CO2 does not worry him… montage

The climate models used by alarmist scientists to predict global warming are getting worse, not better; carbon dioxide does far more good than harm; and President Obama has backed the “wrong side” in the war on “climate change.”

So says one of the world’s greatest theoretical physicists, Dr Freeman Dyson, the British-born, naturalised American citizen who worked at Princeton University as a contemporary of Einstein and has advised the US government on a wide range of scientific and technical issues.

In an interview with Andrew Orlowski of The Register, Dyson expressed his despair at the current scientific obsession with climate change which he says is “not a scientific mystery but a human mystery. How does it happen that a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to the obvious facts.”

This mystery, says Dyson, can only partly be explained in terms of follow the money. Also to blame, he believes, is a kind of collective yearning for apocalyptic doom.

It is true that there’s a large community of people who make their money by scaring the public, so money is certainly involved to some extent, but I don’t think that’s the full explanation.

It’s like a hundred years ago, before World War I, there was this insane craving for doom, which in a way, helped cause World War I. People like the poet Rupert Brooke were glorifying war as an escape from the dullness of modern life. [There was] the feeling we’d gone soft and degenerate, and war would be good for us all. That was in the air leading up to World War I, and in some ways it’s in the air today.

Dyson, himself a longstanding Democrat voter, is especially disappointed by his chosen party’s unscientific stance on the climate change issue.

It’s very sad that in this country, political opinion parted [people’s views on climate change]. I’m 100 per cent Democrat myself, and I like Obama. But he took the wrong side on this issue, and the Republicans took the right side…..

[….]

He concludes:

“I am hoping that the scientists and politicians who have been blindly demonizing carbon dioxide for 37 years will one day open their eyes and look at the evidence.”

(BREITBART)

We need MORE CO2, not less!

Dr. William Happer, currently a professor of Physics at Princeton University, was once fired by Gore at the Department of Energy in 1993 for disagreeing with the vice president on the effects of ozone to humans and plant life, also disagrees with Gore’s claim that manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) increases the temperature of the earth and is a threat to mankind. Happer appeared before the U.S. Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee on Feb. 25 and explained CO2 is in short-supply in relative terms of the history of the planet.

“Many people don’t realize that over geological time, we’re really in a CO2 famine now. Almost never has CO2levels been as low as it has been in the Holocene [geologic epoch] – 280 [parts per million (ppm)] – that’s unheard of,” Happer said. “Most of the time, it’s at least 1,000 [ppm] and it’s been quite higher than that.”

Happer said that when CO2 levels were higher – much higher than they are now, the laws of nature still managed to function as we understand them today.

“The earth was just fine in those times,” Happer said. “You know, we evolved as a species in those times, when CO2 levels were three or four times what they are now. And, the oceans were fine, plants grew, animals grew fine. So it’s baffling to me that, you know, we’re so frightened of getting nowhere close to where we started.”…

Must See Interview

Here is a quick intro that I combined with a great visual in reagrds to PPM and how it is benefitial to mankind:

To skip this aside, click HERE…

CONSENSUS

He mentioned most of the experts KNOW how CO2 affects climate. He says he does not and doesn’t think they do either. This has nothing to do with the supposed “consensus” of experts — 97% — who “say” it is driven by mankind. This is known as anthropogenic global warming, of AGW. The myth of the 97% started with ONLY 75-out-of-77 climatologists saying they believe man is the primary cause.

Yes, you heard me correctly, seventy-five.

Another study has undergrads and non-specialists (bloggers) search through many articles in peer reviewed journals, and noting that a large majority supported the AGW position. The problem was that they were not specialized in the field of science… AND… they only read the abstracts, not the peer reviewed paper itself. Many of the scientists behind the papers “said” to support AGW rejected that idea. So the specialists THEMSELVES said their papers cannot be read to support the AGW position.

Another study (pictured in the graph above) tries to save an earlier one with tainted information based on abstracts — a very UNSCIENTIFIC way to get to consensus (that is, relying on abstracts). Not only was this study based on abstracts, again, non specialists categorized them. Yet another study was merely based on search parameters/results. Here is more info (mainly links) for the not-faint-of-heart.

In reality, nearly half of specialists in the fields related reject man causing climates change.

And a good portion of those that do reject the claim that it is detrimental to our planet.

Only 13% saw relatively little danger (ratings of 1 to 3 on a 10-point scale); the rest were about evenly split between the 44% who see moderate to high danger (ratings of 4 to 7) and 41% who see very high or grave danger (ratings of 8 to 10). (Forbes)

Here is a list of scientists with varying views on the cause of “Climate Change,” and here is a list of 31,000 who stand against man as the primary cause.

Continuing with the original post

This is meant mainly as a supplement to a Christmas Eve-Eve gathering/discussion I was at. I will make this post  a little different than other posts, as, it will be “minimalist.” This is the fourth installment of the topics covered, which are polar bears, rising sea levels, CO2, Inconvenient Truth (the movie), nuclear power, warmest year, electric vehicles (EVs)/hybrid cars, and bullet trains.

Can you imagine the polluted, destroyed, world we would have if the left had their way with green energy?

Environazis, like all progressives, care about two things: other people’s money and the power entailed in imposing their ideology. Prominent among the many things they do not care about is the environment, as demonstrated by a monstrosity planned for Loch Ness:

A giant 67 turbine wind farm planned for the mountains overlooking Loch Ness will be an environmental disaster thanks to the sheer quantity of stone which will need to be quarried to construct it, according to the John Muir Trust. In addition, the Trust has warned that the turbines spell ecological disaster for the wet blanket peat-land which covers the area and acts as a huge carbon sink, the Sunday Times has reported.

According to global warming dogma, carbon sinks are crucial in preventing human activity from causing climatic doom.

The planet isn’t the only victim of this ideologically driven enterprise:

Around one million people visit the picturesque Loch Ness, nestled in the highlands of Scotland each year, bringing about £25 million in revenue with them. Most are on the lookout for the infamous monster, but if Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) get their way the tourists will have something else to look at: the Stronelairg wind farm – 67 turbines, each 443ft high, peppered across the Monadhlaith mountains overlooking the Loch.

….read it all….

Remember what the two top Google scientist in charge of their renewable energy program just said?

We came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.

[…..]

“Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear. All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.”

But asking someone who has swallowed this story is like beating a dead horse. They will tell me — to my face — that mankind releasing CO2 into the atmosphere is driving weather changes (MRCTV FILE).

I will point out a graph that shows in the past couple of decades man has produced more CO2 combined from the previous 100-years, overlayed to the temperature staying the same for over 18-years (in fact, falling a bit since 2005), and this MAJOR, FOUNDATIONAL belief being shown false doesn’t sway their “belief” towards rethinking their previously held paradigm.

Study-after-study, notes that CO2 productions lags behind temperature rising… not the other way around (as the above video notes). IN OTHER WORDS, many proponents of anthropogenic global warming that view man’s harmful creation of CO2 as a driving force behind the issue seem to have the “script flipped,” to put it mildly.

Here is just one example of “The Phase Relation Between Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide And Global Temperature,” discussed at THE HOCKEY SCHTICK:

As well as ICE-CORES showing a higher PPM of CO2 in our past than today:

  • A new stomatal proxy-based record of CO2 concentrations ([CO2]), based on Betula nana (dwarf birch) leaves from the Hässeldala Port sedimentary sequence in south-eastern Sweden, is presented. The record is of high chronological resolution and spans most of Greenland Interstadial 1 (GI-1a to 1c, Allerød pollen zone), Greenland Stadial 1 (GS-1, Younger Dryas pollen zone) and the very beginning of the Holocene (Preboreal pollen zone). The record clearly demonstrates that i) [CO2] were significantly higher than usually reported for the Last Termination and ii) the overall pattern of CO2 evolution through the studied time period is fairly dynamic, with significant abrupt fluctuations in [CO2] when the climate moved from interstadial to stadial state and vice versa. A new loss-on-ignition chemical record (used here as a proxy for temperature) lends independent support to the Hässeldala Port [CO2] record. The large-amplitude fluctuations around the climate change transitions may indicate unstable climates and that “tipping-point” situations were involved in Last Termination climate evolution. The scenario presented here is in contrast to [CO2] records reconstructed from air bubbles trapped in ice, which indicate lower concentrations and a gradual, linear increase of [CO2] through time. The prevalent explanation for the main climate forcer during the Last Termination being ocean circulation patterns needs to re-examined, and a larger role for atmospheric [CO2] considered. (HOCKEY SCHTICK | PAPER)

But really, an increased CO2 has been historically beneficial to our planet, as well as theoretically good for us. See Also, “Dr. William Happer Speaking To The Benefits Of CO2.”

This comes by way of Gay Patriot (sadly closed now), and shows how scientific the party of science is:

Bypassing Congress yet again, Obama today announced a unilateral imposition of carbon dioxide emission limits for electrical power plants.

Even the NYTimes admits the regulations will have no discernible impact on Global  CO2 levels. They will, however, cost $50 Billion per year in regulatory costs, raise energy bills an average of $1,200 per family per year, and destroy 224,000 jobs annually through 2030.

The Administration promises none of those outcomes will happen, but then, they also promised “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” and “We will be the most transparent administration in history.”

Obama is justifying his dictatorial imposition of carbon dioxide regulations partly on the basis that carbon causes asthma and heart attacks.

You read that right. Carbon. Causes. Asthma.

Party of science my ass.

…read more…

Climate scientist Dr. Murry Salby, Professor and Climate Chair at Macquarie University, Australia explains in a recent, highly-recommended lecture presented at Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, Germany, why man-made CO2 is not the driver of atmospheric CO2 or climate change.

(“Part 2“)

Dr. Salby demonstrates:

  • CO2 lags temperature on both short [~1-2 year] and long [~1000 year] time scales
  • The IPCC claim that “All of the increases [in CO2 concentrations since pre-industrial times] are caused by human activity” is impossible
  • “Man-made emissions of CO2 are clearly not the source of atmospheric CO2 levels”
  • Satellite observations show the highest levels of CO2 are present over non-industrialized regions, e.g. the Amazon, not over industrialized regions
  • 96% of CO2 emissions are from natural sources, only 4% is man-made
  • Net global emissions from all sources correlate almost perfectly with short-term temperature changes [R2=.93] rather than man-made emissions
  • Methane levels are also controlled by temperature, not man-made emissions
  • Climate model predictions track only a single independent variable – CO2 – and disregard all the other, much more important independent variables including clouds and water vapor.
  • The 1% of the global energy budget controlled by CO2 cannot wag the other 99%
  • Climate models have been falsified by observations over the past 15+ years
  • Climate models have no predictive value
  • Feynman’s quote “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with the data, it’s wrong” applies to the theory of man-made global warming.

See and Read More HERE

The 97% Consensus Myth (Links and Videos)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Video Description:

Marc Morano of Climate Depot interviewed on the Jan Mickelson show (WHO radio’s ~ Feb 3rd, 2015).

One of the main topics is the 97% consensus of scientists who agree man is the main prognosticator of global warming. Below are some links to many articles refuting this unscientific [if it were true] consensus:

♛ Global Warming Alarmists Caught Doctoring ’97-Percent Consensus’ Claims (Forbes);
♛ (WSJ) The Myth of the Climate Change ‘97%’; What is the origin of the false belief that almost all scientists agree about global warming? (Hockey Schtick);
♛ 97 Articles Refuting The “97% Consensus” (Popular Technology);
♛ 97% Study Falsely Classifies Scientists’ Papers, according to the scientists that published them (Popular Technology)
♛ Cooking Climate Consensus Data: “97% of Scientists Affirm AGW” Debunked (New American);
♛ Only 65 Scientists of 12,000 Make up Alleged 97% on Climate Change and Global Warming Consensus According to Breakdown of Cook et al study, say Friends of Science (Climate Change Dispatch);
♛ Undersecretary of Energy for Science For Obama Rejects “Scientism” (RPT);
♛ 100% Consensus ~ As If More Were Needed (RPT).
♛ The myth of ‘settled science’ – When the left shuts down debate, it’s time for skepticism (Washington Times)
♛ Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis (Forbes)
♛ Debunking the 97% ‘consensus’ on global warming (American Spectator)
♛ Richard Tol’s Excellent Summary of the Flaws in Cook et al. (2013) – The Infamous 97% Consensus Paper (WUWT – See Dr. Tol’s blog)
♛ The 97% Cook Consensus – when will Environ Res Letters retract it? (JoNova)
♛ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Debunks ‘97% Consensus’ Claim (Breitbart)
♛ The 97 Percent Climate Change Consensus That Wasn’t (Heartland)

No matter what you think of the following long and short lists… the bottom line is this, WAY more than 75-Climatologists think that man is either not the main contributor to global warming at all, or that global warming is not a catastrophe waiting to happen:

He mentioned most of the experts KNOW how CO2 affects climate. He says he does not and doesn’t think they do either. This has nothing to do with the supposed “consensus” of experts — 97% — who “say” it is driven by mankind. This is known as anthropogenic global warming, of AGW. The myth of the 97% started with ONLY 75-out-of-77 climatologists saying they believe man is the primary cause.

Yes, you heard me correctly, seventy-five.

Another study has undergrads and non-specialists (bloggers) search through many articles in peer reviewed journals, and noting that a large majority supported the AGW position. The problem was that they were not specialized in the field of science… AND… they only read the abstracts, not the peer reviewed paper itself. Many of the scientists behind the papers “said” to support AGW rejected that idea. So the specialists THEMSELVES said their papers cannot be read to support the AGW position.

Another study (pictured in the graph above) tries to save an earlier one with tainted information based on abstracts — a very UNSCIENTIFIC way to get to consensus (that is, relying on abstracts). Not only was this study based on abstracts, again, non specialists categorized them. Yet another study was merely based on search parameters/results. Here is more info (mainly links) for the not-faint-of-heart.

In reality, nearly half of specialists in the fields related reject man causing climates change.

And a good portion of those that do reject the claim that it is detrimental to our planet.

Only 13% saw relatively little danger (ratings of 1 to 3 on a 10-point scale); the rest were about evenly split between the 44% who see moderate to high danger (ratings of 4 to 7) and 41% who see very high or grave danger (ratings of 8 to 10). (Forbes)

Here is a list of scientists with varying views on the cause of “Climate Change,” and here is a list of 31,000 who stand against man as the primary cause.

(Click Graph To See Previously Hidden Data)

We’ve all been subjected to the incessant “97% of scientists agree …global warming…blah blah” meme, which is nothing more than another statistical fabrication by John Cook and his collection of “anything for the cause” zealots. As has been previously pointed out on WUWT, when you look at the methodology used to reach that number, the veracity of the result falls apart, badly. You see, it turns out that Cook simply employed his band of “Skeptical Science” (SkS) eco-zealots to rate papers, rather than letting all authors of the papers rate their own work (Note: many authors weren’t even contacted and their papers wrongly rated, see here). The result was that the “97% consensus” was a survey of the SkS raters beliefs and interpretations, rather than a survey of the authors opinions of their own science abstracts. Essentially it was pal-review by an activist group with a strong bias towards a particular outcome as demonstrated by the name “the consensus project”.

[….]

Dr. Judith Curry writes:

Look at the views in column 1, then look at the % in the rightmost column:  52% state the the warming since 1850 is mostly anthropogenic.  One common categorization would categorize the other 48%  as ‘deniers’.

So, the inconvenient truth here is that about half of the world’s largest organization of meteorological and climate professionals don’t think humans are “mostly” the cause of Anthropogenic Global Warming the rest will probably get smeared as “deniers”

(Read More at WUWT)

[….]

I wish to note, that, the truth was not a 97% consensus, but that about half disagreed with man causing it. Which is about the same percentage Dr. Happer says on CNBC:

Even the “Father of Climatology” (so all the programs in universities are because of him) says it’s B.S.

100% Consensus ~ As If More Were Needed

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Climate Depot:

97% ‘Consensus’ shatters: Purdue U. Survey: Only 50% Of Scientists Blame Mankind for Climate Change

‘While 90 percent of scientists and climatologists surveyed thought the climate was changing, only about 50.4 percent contended that humans were the primary cause of these changes. More shocking was that just 53 percent of climatologists surveyed thought “Climate change is occurring, and it is caused mostly by human activities.” While that number of climatologists was small, the result is still significant.’

‘In 2010, Marc Morano released a collection of more than 1000 scientists who “challenged man-made global warming claims.” Similarly the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change aggregated “thousands of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that do not support” man-made climate change.’

What is the real consensus?

…The Obama administration and environmental groups have long claimed 97 percent of scientists agree that human activity is causing the Earth to warm, but there’s a new consensus they may be less willing to acknowledge.

Using the same methodology as the vaunted “97 percent” paper by researcher John Cook, two climate scientists have made a bold discovery: virtually all climate scientists agree that global warming has “stopped” or “slowed down” in recent years.

“[W]e didn’t find a single paper on the topic that argued the rate of global warming has not slowed (or even stopped) in recent years,” wrote scientists Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger with the libertarian Cato Institute.

“This is in direct opposition to the IPCC’s contention that global warming is accelerating, and supports arguments that the amount of warming that will occur over the remainder of the 21st century as a result of human fossil fuel usage will be at the low end of the IPCC projections, or even lower,” the tw scientists added. “Low-end warming yields low-end impacts.”…

~ BarbWire

The “Will” of the “Hammer” Destroy O’s Straw-Man

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Gateway Pundit

The Special Report All-Star Panel weighed in after President Obama touted the success of ObamaCare in remarks at the White House, lashing out at Republican critics.

“We now know that the number of Americans who’ve signed up for private insurance in the marketplaces has grown to eight million people. … They said nobody would sign up. They were wrong about that. They said it would be unaffordable for the country. They were wrong about that,” Obama said.

George Will noted that Obama’s remarks were a “tour de force of Obama rhetoric,” criticizing the president for attacking a “straw man” by claiming that the GOP said “nobody would sign up.”

“No Republican ever said any such thing,” said Will, adding that Obama then moved on to declaring the debate over, as he has done with other issues like climate change and gay marriage.

Charles Krauthammer disputed the notion that the new health care law is working, saying doctors, hospitals, and insurers are getting a “worse deal” and in the end consumers will be hurt the most.

“It’s working in that it exists. It breathes,” he said, questioning how Obama can link reduced health care costs from the recession to the ObamaCare implementation.

“It couldn’t possibly have retroactively affected last year’s numbers. I mean, he makes this stuff up with a brazenness that is almost admirable,” said Krauthammer.

Another “Consensus” Mantra Bites the Dust!

Published by Papa Giorgio

An old Aussie video:

Breitbart adds to the idea of the “Cooked” Cook paper with a real survey:

Nearly six in ten climate scientists don’t adhere to the so-called “consensus” on man-made climate change, a new study by the Dutch government has found. The results contradict the oft-cited claim that there is a 97 percent consensus amongst climate scientists that humans are responsible for global warming.

The study, by the PBL Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency, a government body, invited 6550 scientists working in climate related fields, including climate physics, climate impact, and mitigation, to take part in a survey on their views of climate science.

Of the 1868 who responded, just 43 percent agreed with the IPCC that “It is extremely likely {95%+ certainty} that more than half of [global warming] from 1951 to 2010 was caused by [human activity]”. Even with the “don’t knows” removed that figure increases only to 47 percent, still leaving a majority of climate scientists who do not subscribe to the IPCC’s statement.

The findings directly contradict the claim that 97 percent of climate scientists endorse the view that humans are responsible for global warming, as first made by Cook et al in a paper published in Environment Research Letters.

Cook’s paper has since been extremely widely debunked, yet so ingrained has the 97 percent consensus claim become that The Guardian has an entire section named after it, and President Obama has cited it on Twitter.

Commenting on the new study, Australian climate blogger Joanne Nova said: “Finally there is a decent survey on the topic, and it shows that less than half of what we would call “climate scientists” who research the topic and for the most part, publish in the peer reviewed literature, would agree with the IPCC’s main conclusions. Only 43% of climate scientists agree with the IPCC “97%” certainty.”…

…read it all…

When the IPCC ‘disappeared’ the Medieval Warm Period

I have to post this because someone on Facebook posted this link to a revised chart (the original is here). The new chart, even has MORE of a devastating “consensus.”

I didn’t know where to find something on this brand-new chart. So I cautioned the guys on Facebook that I have a feeling that this “consensus” was derived wrongly and will end up in the waste bin with this popular one pictured below:

A Previous “Consensus” Busted

(Click Graph To See Previously Hidden Data)

We’ve all been subjected to the incessant “97% of scientists agree …global warming…blah blah” meme, which is nothing more than another statistical fabrication by John Cook and his collection of “anything for the cause” zealots. As has been previously pointed out on WUWT, when you look at the methodology used to reach that number, the veracity of the result falls apart, badly. You see, it turns out that Cook simply employed his band of “Skeptical Science” (SkS) eco-zealots to rate papers, rather than letting all authors of the papers rate their own work (Note: many authors weren’t even contacted and their papers wrongly rated, see here). The result was that the “97% consensus” was a survey of the SkS raters beliefs and interpretations, rather than a survey of the authors opinions of their own science abstracts. Essentially it was pal-review by an activist group with a strong bias towards a particular outcome as demonstrated by the name “the consensus project”.

[….]

Dr. Judith Curry writes:

Look at the views in column 1, then look at the % in the rightmost column:  52% state the the warming since 1850 is mostly anthropogenic.  One common categorization would categorize the other 48%  as ‘deniers’.

So, the inconvenient truth here is that about half of the world’s largest organization of meteorological and climate professionals don’t think humans are “mostly” the cause of Anthropogenic Global Warming the rest will probably get smeared as “deniers”

(Read More at WUWT)

[….]

I wish to note, that, the truth was not a 97% consensus, but that about half disagreed with man causing it. Which is about the same percentage Dr. Happer says on CNBC:

So I verbalized my thoughts on this new information, multiple times, even posting the 97% graph a couple times as well as the below cations that this new “consensus” was probably going to fall by the wayside. Here is what I said:

…Of course, polls of scientists are not evidence about our climate. But it is evidence that one of the main forms of argument “97% of climate scientists say man-made warming is real” is not just meaningless, but misleading. It’s PR, not science….

…I posted a graphic [like the one above — 97% vs. what it really is ~ 52%] that includes the full range that activists involved in getting $$$$ like to say, “CONSENSUS” (like your [~ Michael B.] original 2,259 vs. 1). I will end up responding specifically to your OP, but my original graphic is similar, in that, many said 97% of specialist agree global warming is happening. The study did not really say that, it inferred it by keeping information hidden.

“Wow, the list is pretty impressive …It’s Oreskes done right.”

– Luboš Motl, Ph.D. Theoretical Physics

“I really appreciate your important effort in compiling the list.”

– Willie Soon, Ph.D. Astrophysicist and Geoscientist

“A tour de force list of scientific papers…”

– Robert M. Carter, Ph.D. Palaeontology

“…it’s a very useful resource. Thanks to the pop tech team.”

– Joanne Nova, Author of The Skeptics Handbook

“I do confess a degree of fascination with Poptech’s list…”

– John Cook, Skeptical Science

† The list has been cited by Scientists (1, 2) and Professors (3)

My skeptical opponents continued with the mantra:

Jason H. said this:

…Overwhelming consensus is overwhelming. Fail harder…

…If this is not scientific consensus, what in the world would a consensus look like?…

Michael B. said this (by the way, he posted the original article):

…The topic of this debate is whether there is scientific consensus….

So, because I was at a loss, I tweeted a couple of people I know via being a fan, and I got a response via Hockey Schtick, Who shot me over to Popular Technology.net …

…so you know ~ as I am writing this ~ the new rebuttal went up! Here is the new rebuttal to the actual Facebook link and subsequent debate:

(Mouse over to see original)

James Powell continues to demonstrate his computer illiteracy by doing worthless database searches in an intellectually dishonest propaganda campaign. He updated his previous meaningless analysis in continued blissful ignorance that the ‘Web of Science’ database does not have a “peer-reviewed” only filter and the existence of a search phrase in a returned result does not determine it’s context. Thus, all that can be claimed is there were 2,258 meaningless search results not “peer-reviewed climate articles” for a query of the ‘Web of Science’ database – with 1 chosen by strawman argument.

1. The context of how the “search phrases” were used in all the results was never determined.

2. The results are padded by not using the search qualifier “anthropogenic”.

3. The 2,258 results cannot be claimed to be peer-reviewed as the Web of Science does not have a peer-reviewed only filter.

4. It is a strawman argument that most skeptics deny or reject that man can have an influence on the climate, but rather if there is any cause for alarm.

1. Context Matters

The existence of a search phrase in a returned result does not determine its context. So making any arguments for or against an implied position relating to the use of a phrase by simply looking at numerical result totals is impossible. Powell never determined the context of how the search phrases were used in all the results.

2. Padding the Results

Powell padded his search results total by using the phrases; “global warming” and/or “global climate change” instead of “anthropogenic global warming” [man-made global warming] or “anthropogenic global climate change” [man-made global climate change], which would have significantly reduced the number of returned results. Without the qualifier “anthropogenic”, results are included where no claim of explicit endorsement or rejection of ACC/AGW can be made.

Others alarmists have been challenged to search for the phrase, “anthropogenic climate change” using Oreskes (2004) methods and they only got 108 returned results.

“I did the search [in Web of Science] for “anthropogenic climate change” the other day and got something like 108 papers.” – Barry Bickmore, Professor at Brigham Young University

These low number of results are not useful to sell the type of propaganda alarmists like Powell are looking for.

3. Peer-Reviewed?

In his methods, Powell filtered his results by the ‘articles’ document type which includes content that may not be peer-reviewed depending on the specific journal,

Document Type Descriptions (Web of Science)

“Article: Reports of research on original works. Includes research papers, features, brief communications, case reports, technical notes, chronology, and full papers that were presented at a symposium or conference.

Categories like these have been the subject of debate and confusion in relation to their peer-review status:

“…three categories of articles have been published: review articles up to 10 000 words, original articles of 2500–5000 words and brief communications of 1000–2000 words. Only the first two categories were subject to peer review and brief communications were being published without this quality check.” – Health Information and Libraries Journal

“Because of trends in submissions, Nature’s Brief Communications will bow out at the end of the year. […] False rumours that the section was not peer reviewed have occasionally circulated.” – Nature

4. Strawman argument

Actual skeptic arguments include that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is exaggerated or inconsequential, such as those made by Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT and John R. Christy, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science at UHA. Skeptics unanimously reject that there is any cause for alarm.

End Result!?

(2013) In a true sense of irony Powell uses his meaningless analysis as a defense of Oreskes (2004) which is considered useless by world renowned climate experts,

“Analyses like these by people who don’t know the field are useless. A good example is Naomi Oreskes work.” – Tom Wigley, Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

He then attempts to smear skeptics as “global warming deniers”. This is a dishonest ad hominem as skeptics believe there has been a global temperature increase of a fraction of a degree since the end of the little ice age.

Powell’s pie chart is simply propaganda for those who are intellectual dishonest and want to be intentionally misleading about actual skeptic arguments or the over 1100 peer-reviewed papers that support them….

[….]

(2014) He intentionally ignores actual skeptic arguments, which includes the 993-page NIPCC report, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science – supported entirely by the peer-reviewed literature and 1000+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm.

Instead he hopes his propaganda will be picked up by the media and used by those who are intellectual dishonest and want to be intentionally misleading….

(Popular Technology)

…read more…

I wanted to end with this video. Why?

Because Sen. Inhofe quotes Obama as saying this, noted at Junk Science:

“But the flipside is we also know that the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated five or 10 years ago, and that the future…in part, is going to depend on our willingness to deal with something that we may not be able to see or smell the way you could when the Chicago River was on fire, or at least could have caught on fire, but is in some ways more serious, more fundamental,” Obama said.

Because of that seriousness, Obama said he’s willing to hear out “a different approach” to dealing with the issue. What he won’t consider though, he said, are ideas from climate change deniers.

Warming has stopped longer than that! About 17-years. So, Sen. Inhofe asked the EPA for any stats to back up this claim… the predictable outcome is seen below:

`Scientific Consensus` Lacks Science (Patrick Michaels of Cato and Harold Doiron of the Right Climate Stuff) ~ Serious Saturday

Published by Papa Giorgio

Global-warming alarmists continually refer to a “scientific consensus” to support drastic policy proposals. They insist on peer-reviewed publications as the standard for debate, while ignoring that standard when the standard will not support their hysterical claims. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report had notable examples, such as Amazongate (where rain-forest sensitivity to small changes in rainfall were well publicized, but were based on a blog post from an activist website); and the widely hyped, but wildly unscientific, claims of the imminent demise of Himalayan glaciers. The federal government also publishes a climate assessment report. Patrick Michaels of Cato and Harold Doiron of the Right Climate Stuff team have analyzed the draft of the most recent National Climate Assessment and found its scientific rigor to be wanting.