Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumOnce Again Class: There. Is. No. Climate. "Debate". Among. Scientists.
Its a well-known and widely cited statistic: 97 percent of scientific experts agree that human-caused climate change is real. The consensus has been supported by numerous studies and yet the idea that the statistic is made up, or wrong, is still a common position among climate doubters and a major tool used to foster public uncertainty about climate change.
Now, researchers have reinforced this finding of a scientific consensus once again in a new paper, published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The paper finds that an overwhelming majority of climate experts agree on the issue, and that even though the contrarian movement begs to differ there is no substantial scientific debate about it.
While the consensus has been documented by many studies over the years, the most widely cited is a 2013 paper led by John Cook of the University of Queenslands Global Change Institute. The study examined thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers and found that, among those papers that took a position on the causes of climate change, 97.1 percent of them supported the idea that global warming is caused by humans.
Earlier this year, however, University of Sussex professor Richard Tol published a comment criticizing the 2013 study and suggesting that 97 percent may be too high a figure. In his comment, Tol returned to some of the published research on the consensus and re-examined the accompanying data, noting that Cooks paper did not include studies that took no position on climate change, and that surveys including scientists who dont study climate tend to have somewhat lower rates of consensus. After examining the comment, however, Cook and a team of other researchers concluded that these arguments were problematic at best. In their new paper, they re-examined the published literature on the climate consensus, finding that the 97 percent calculation remains a robust and well-supported statistic.
EDIT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/15/research-shows-yet-again-that-theres-no-scientific-debate-about-climate-change/?postshare=7761460754113552&tid=ss_tw-bottom
CompanyFirstSergeant
(1,558 posts)any idea what I was talking about.
As Forrest Gump may say: 'I don't know anything about climate change...'
But why was I able to dig fence-post-holes in FEBRUARY in upstate New York??????
Nay
(12,051 posts)says there's no human-caused climate change, why, there's no consensus in the minds of his fellow idiots! And some of these fellow idiots are very powerful and rich people who have their own reasons for muddying the waters over climate change.
Of course, as long as we keep giving the idiots the time of day, they'll keep on braying their nonsense.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)They are unsure if, at +2c we are massively fucked, totally goat fucked, or Mongolian cluster fucked.
CompanyFirstSergeant
(1,558 posts)Hurricane Sandy Fucked is quite enough, thank you.
hatrack
(59,599 posts)But then, I haven't been keeping up with my studies as I should.
So Far From Heaven
(354 posts)the real debate we're having is the 2 degree mark.
Most (including me) think that is not achievable. So we're probably Mongolian cluster fucked at best.
We have at most 20 years to keep co2(atm) below 500 ppm, and that doesn't include the cost of methane releases from mining and/or temperature sequestered or industrial usage of aerosols and cfcs. The only candidate that has the nerve to address the issue as being comparable to fighting a war is Bernie. He just has the wrong advisers on how to go about it.
AuntPatsy
(9,904 posts)Interesting interview from the director of OMG. More and more people are awakening from thier self induced hypnotic need not to worry about the melting, I just have little faith we were quick enough to stop the train in motion.....