Consensus On Consensus: Climate Experts Agree On Human-Caused Global Warming (theguardian.com)

mspohr quotes a report from The Guardian written by Dana Nuccitelli, environmental scientist and contributor to SkepticalScience.com: There is an overwhelming expert scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. Authors of seven previous climate consensus studies -- including Naomi Oreskes, Peter Doran, William Anderegg, Bart Verheggen, Ed Maibach, J. Stuart Carlton, John Cook, [Dana Nuccitelli] and six of her colleagues -- have co-authored a new paper that should settle this question once and for all. The two key conclusions from the paper are: 1) Depending on exactly how you measure the expert consensus, it's somewhere between 90% and 100% that agree humans are responsible for climate change, with most of our studies finding 97% consensus among publishing climate scientists. 2) The greater the climate expertise among those surveyed, the higher the consensus on human-caused global warming.

Quoted from IOPscience: Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%-100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. A survey of authors of those papers also supported a 97% consensus. Tol comes to a different conclusion using results from surveys of non-experts such as economic geologists and a self-selected group of those who reject the consensus. We demonstrate that this outcome is not unexpected because the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science. At one point, Tol also reduces the apparent consensus by assuming that abstracts that do not explicitly state the cause of global warming ('no position') represent non-endorsement, an approach that if applied elsewhere would reject consensus on well-established theories such as plate tectonics. We examine the available studies and conclude that the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies.

Comments

Problems, problems....

[wbr1]

I do not doubt that GW is happening. And I agree that it is likely mostly AGW. However, current ideas at stopping it are useless.

Carbon caps are shit. 1% increases in efficiency here and there are shit.

This leaves a few options:
1. A tech breakthrough in energy production.
2. Massive decrease in energy consumption, meaning a loss of lifestyle for a couple billion people.
3. A stopgap until item 1 happens. This means nukes.

Why is it we are not afraid to dump tons of radioactive elements into the air from coal plants (dilute yes), not to mention the ash and slag? We are not afraid to blow mountains to bits to do this: http://explore.org/photos/6235..., but we are afraid to set aside areas for relatively safe plants and storage? WTF is wrong with us as a species where we will keep giving money to barbaric warlords for fossil fuels, but not invest in better sources? Who is responsible for the drumbeat of fear that prevents makes this our current reality?

Re:Problems, problems....

[Namarrgon]

Actually, economists have been saying for decades that a price on carbon is the most effective way to reduce emissions with least impact on the economy. And increases in efficiency have saved hundreds of billions annually.

Further, we've already had tech breakthroughs in energy production, with solar and wind to name a few. These have allowed us to decouple emissions growth from economic growth for the first time in history. With renewable energy prices still dropping and storage technology improving fast, even fully-green baseline power is already achievable; no further breakthroughs required, and we don't need to slash our energy consumption either.

For the record, I believe nukes should still be on the table, as there are cases where they still make the most sense. But their advantages have to be balanced against their price (both full-lifecycle cost, and potential failure risks), so I don't expect them to be widespread.