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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.
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.
That fixes it.
Global climate change is happening now with current negative results https://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Threats-to-Wildlife/Global-Warming/Global-Warming-is-Happening-Now.aspx. Moreover, how would you feel if previous generations had taken your attitude about lead in gasoline or about the ozone layer because it wouldn't happen to be a problem for a few years?
Setting aside that it is unclear that 100% of cartographers believed anything like that, considering that it was known since Ancient Greece that the Earth was round, a cartographer, particularly in that period, did not work under the scientific method.
In any case, I am less concerned with the truth of the statement as I am with the effects and the proposed solutions. There's some pretty crazy shit out there for how people want to deal with the issue, some of it impossible unless you end modern civilization.
If the effect is that we get some more tornadoes and hurricanes and ice melt and all of that, its a problem but not insurmountable. We'd have to move people away from the seacoasts a bit and some island nations would cease to exist above the waves. Not good, but not worth chucking civilization for, since even more people would die or be extremely inconvenienced without it. We've dealt with climate change before as humans lived through Ice Ages and a Little Ice Age in recent memory. So, let's not go doing anything rash.
If it means we end up like Venus, that's a much bigger problem. I don't think anyone is suggesting that, however.
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?
Silence is a state of mime.
The problems don't start till 2100, and I'll be dead by then. Global warming is future people's problem, NOT mine!
This is the true consensus, exampled by humanity's action (or lack thereof.) I personally don't care what/who caused it, blaming is pointless. The fact nothing is changing to slow it down (if that's even possible at this point, science is still out on that) is all I really care about, and there's of course the 'I won't be around to see the effects.' thought too.
From the few articles I've read, it seems like even if we stopped all CO2 emissions this very instant, we're still in for some rough changes to the climate. So it's pretty easy to get on board with the 'future humans are fucked, no matter what, so why even care?' line of thought.
But again, blaming does nothing, it doesn't fix anything, it doesn't make positive changes. So just spinning our wheels doing 'science' to prove the science is right. How about some solutions people? And cutting emissions is not going to fly, we need a different solution than just cutting emissions, we're past the cutting emissions is gunna amount to much of anything. And it's never going to happen anyway, so solutions that work with the emissions are what is needed.
Every "denier" or sceptic I've ever dealt with accuses the politicians of trying to monetize it, and the scientists as being on the take. IMHO its a case of projection.
C|N>K
Of course your seemingly reasonable argument in favor of the status quo falls flat when you realize that the dollar cost of fixing the problem is actually less than the dollar cost of dealing with the ever-increasing problems.
The Guardian is a newspaper. It's reporting on a scientific article published in a peer reviewed journal. If you don't like The Guardian, you can read the original article (both are linked in the summary). If you don't like science... well, I don't know what to say.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
"Some sort of impact" sounds like weasel words to me. The linked paper shows six independent studies that all agree; the consensus of 90-100% of scientists is that:
human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century
Which is a much stronger statement than you make out. Also, agreement with this position is correlated with expertise.
The exact climate sensitivity is still being debated, but your links are nearly five years out of date.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
A more accurate statement:
Not really.
1. Over 90% of scientists think the Earth is more likely to be warming up than cooling down.
Yes, that's what TFA says.
Even skeptics usually agree with this.
Actually, the reason for studies like this is because there are plenty of "skeptics" (read, "deniers") who do NOT agree with this. Every time there's a story on Slashdot about climate change, there's a whole group of people who come out of the woodwork and try to cite how the data from the past X number of years is bad and the warming trend isn't real, etc. Or global cooling was a thing not so long ago. Or whatever.
Yes, legitimate "skeptics" about the role of humans in climate change do generally believe that the planet is still warming. But there are plenty of others who dispute that.
2. Most of these scientists said humans had some sort of impact on the climate, but exactly how much was under debate.
Actually, most of the studies cited in TFA required that the respondents committed to belief that humans were a "significant" contributor to climate change, and some asked respondents whether humans were the "dominant" cause. The wording varied from study to study, and you can read the details in the full metastudy.
Regardless, most of the studies in TFA imply something much stronger than your statement.
In fact, the consensus view at present is that the impact of CO2 is overestimated.
Nope. That's not the current consensus view. There have been some studies which have rejected the more dire models for CO2. But your links are a few years old. Basically, your links are referring to issues where models didn't predict the "slowdown" in climate change that happened in the early 2000s. It has now picked up again.
And this is likely just due to random elements in a chaotic system. Subsequent studies have suggested that randomness in the earth's climate from year-to-year probably has multiple times the amount of impact that alterations to the CO2 model (or other factors, like sunlight absorption models, ocean absorption models, etc.) have.
Bottom line: the validity of these models has to be judged over longer timespans, to avoid the year-to-year blips in a chaotic system. With that taken into account, the general CO2 models likely aren't that far off.
Who needs the scientific method when we have CONSENSUS? Let's just call it a day and go home now.
Consensus is PART of the scientific method. It's the only way we actually get to DO "science".
Imagine "science" without the possibility of consensus:
"Hey, that whole gravity thing could be bogus! I know other researchers have verified it thousands of times, but maybe they're wrong. Let's just do some calibration tests every day in the lab to be sure stuff doesn't randomly start floating UP instead of falling down. After all, we can't accept consensus!"
"Well, I was going to do a chemistry experiment today, but I don't really believe that whole atomic theory of matter. I mean, there's 'consensus' on the idea that molecules are made up of atoms, and a substance has consistent properties based on that. But maybe water isn't really made up of H2O. Maybe if I zap it with electricity, it will turn out that it's actually made of microscopic gnomes! The gnomes could be magically giving the illusion of molecular structure. Before I start my chem experiments, I need to be sure my hypothetical gnomes aren't going to ruin the properties of my solvent. So let's test for gnomes every day!"
Obviously these are ridiculous examples. But actual science in practice requires that we accept a bunch of "givens" to actually make progress. Those are generally derived through scientific consensus. Yes, sometimes even those fundamental assumptions are shown to be wrong, at which point we have a "paradigm shift" (in Thomas Kuhn's terms) or modify the "hard core of our research program" (in Imre Lakatos's terms).
But "normal science" simply couldn't operate without foundational assumptions. Acting like there's no role for consensus in science is just ridiculous.
Now -- I understand that there may be greater range for doubt in the scientific community about how climate change works exactly than, say, for the basic idea of gravity or that water molecules are H2O. That's reflected in TFA -- the numbers vary from 90% to 99% consensus... I assume for gravity and water the numbers would be more like 99.999%.
There's still room for people to try to question the foundational assumptions within normal science. But TFA notes that for most scientists, they consider questioning the assumption itself to be less worthy of attention than refining the models within the paradigm. That's how science works... in reality. The bizarre pseudo-Popperian nonsense that sometimes gets spouted around here that "every scientific fact is always up for falsification!" simply isn't true.
If your lab equipment seemed to indicate that your water was made of tiny gnomes, the vast majority of scientists would probably assume there was something wrong with the equipment -- or that someone was playing a prank. And that would be a heck of a lot more likely than that they had just falsified the atomic theory of matter by discovering tiny magical gnomes that produced the illusion of molecular structure. Realizing this is part of being a scientist, and that involves accepting current consensus about foundational concepts.
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the historyWhen people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
"According to Google Scholar and Yokohama National University, Dr. Itoh has not published any work in the area of climate change in peer-reviewed science journals." (http://www.desmogblog.com/kiminori-itoh).
Also of interest is this which is the article which (for some reason) you seem to have copied verbatim. Not sure why, since the guy who was actually in the debate says:
I had a debate with a denier on Google+ the other day. He quoted 18 scientists to support his argument. But when I actually had a close look at them, they weren’t very persuasive. Of the 18, only 12 of the quotes were specifically denying man-made climate change. The rest were just peripheral. And of the 12 that specifically denied it, only 1 was from an actual climate scientist (Dr. Steven M. Japar).
Really, you shouldn't post things that can be so easily googled.
I agree with your sentiment.
I've found a few intelligent people who adamantly deny global warming, and their reasoning usually revolves around "If someone says don't do something or something bad will happen, it's purely an attempt to control you".
I somewhat understand that as the call against terrorism has always seemed like a giant power/vote grab to me, but then again we're all free to see the numbers of how little terrorism is a threat in day to day life.
The fact that different scientists all over the world do studies and come to a general consensus just makes them nervous of a global conspiracy instead of it might be the underlying truth, or somehow by default the more experts that agree on something the wronger it is.
The universal truth for these people is authority is bad and will always try to lie to you and screw you 100% of the time. I'm not sure how you educate against such an absolutist view.
It's turtles all the way down.
Strange how the naturalist position is that species extinction is perfectly to be expected, even essential, in the context of evolution. Unless it happens now, where it is some sort of moral travesty.
Ah, the famous "it would have happened anyway" fallacy. According to your logic, we shouldn't investigate homicides and prosecute murderers, as people will die anyway.
Basic scientific fact: all species drive the evolution of all other species, and thus form interdependent chains. Natural extinctions tend to be caused by calamities that hit very nearly *all* species at once, meaning the leftovers can start from scratch.
Taking out species one at a time however is almost entirely unprecedented in evolutionary history, and it happening repeatedly in a short space of time IS entirely unprecedented in evolutionary history. There is no way to know how the death of *any* species will end up impacting us (contrary to common belief: we are not special or any less dependent on the interdependent networks of species than any other). The cause of our own species end could be the extinction of one unknown single-celled organism we didn't even know existed. That is an entirely LIKELY scientific scenario.
The main reason to preserve biodiversity is because it's utterly impossible to even begin to predict the impact of any extinction on all other species -and we're one of the species being impacted.
Extinction is part of nature, but so are we - extinction should be something we, like all other species, try to avoid - not something we fucking cause. There will never be a time when doing so is not self-defeating to the point of insanity.
Seriously "things go extinct naturally so we can cause whatever extinctions we want and it doesn't matter" has about the same effect on a biologist as you would have on a physicist if you told him you were busy banging two pieces of subcritical uranium together to keep warm.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Scientists now are not trying to prove that human-made global warming is true, they are trying to quantify it, like they always did. The consensus is simply the result of error margins being smaller.
The error is still present though, and it is big, that's why now we don't know much besides "global warming is happening" and that's why research is still going on.
Quantifying is very important because we have solutions but none of them are without drawbacks. There is the solution of doing nothing, which may not be that bad, and there are ridiculous solutions like covering the oceans with white stuff and there is everything in between.