consensus
gregladen | April 5, 2017Last week, House Representative Lamar Smith held yet another masturbatory hearing to promote climate science denial. Smith is bought and paid for by Big Oil, so that is the most obvious reason he and his Republican colleagues would put on such a dog and pony show, complete with a chorus of three science deniers (Judith Curry, Roger Pielke Jr, and John Cristy). I don't know why they invited actual and respected climate scientist Mike Mann, because all he did was ruin everything by stating facts, dispelling alt-facts, and making well timed Princess Bride references.
The hearings were called "…
gregladen | September 20, 2016By important, I mean people who have their hands on the levers of power, more or less, in areas that affect energy policy.
I don't really care if Uncle Bob doesn't accept climate change. Uncle Bob votes for right wing yahoos anyway, that wasn't going to change. Why should it matter what Uncle Bob thinks?
Unless Uncle Bob is a top policy actor involve din climate and energy issues at the federal level or in Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, or Ohio. Right?
The Climate Constituencies Project looked at these folks (Uncle Bob's colleagues as described) to see where they stand on climate change…
gregladen | August 25, 2015A new paper examines what is behind the ~2% of climate change related peer reviewed research that run contrary to widely accepted scientific consensus on climate change to see why those papers are wrong.
There is a scientific consensus that increasing greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere causes surface warming, and that CO2 is a major greenhouse gas. This consensus is based on physics. We don't need to observe the effects of human greenhouse gas pollution to know this. There is consensus that human burning of fossil fuel causes an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. We don't need…
gregladen | February 17, 2015Are there cultural differences between those who accept and generally understand the current consensus on climate change science and those who don't? One gets the sense that there is, but it is possible to explore this in more detail.
I took the public Twitter profile descriptions, written by individual Twitterers, from two different Twitter lists that I maintain, and made word clouds out of them. The first is a list of "Global warming deniers." People get on this list when they actively deny climate change science in Twitter exchanges with me (or that I observe). There are 309 members as…
gregladen | December 20, 2014Enough! That's Peter Doran's opinion on the "debate" about a scientific consensus on climate change. There clearly is one -- a strong one. So why do the public and the politicians think otherwise? Why the big disconnect between what the vast majority of scientists know to be fact, and what the public thinks. Dr. Doran blames the way media reports on science, and he blames a few of the loud voices on the right. He presents an idea to change a lot of the minds of people who deny the scientific consensus on climate change which will hopefully lead politicians to action. Peter Doran is a…
gregladen | September 7, 2014This is a big thing. Starting just now, 97 different top experts on climate change, starting with Michael Mann (author of this book), one per hour, will have a say about the consensus. This is being run by Skeptical Science.
From Dana Nuccitelli's post at The Guardian,
Research has shown that when people are aware of the expert consensus, they’re more likely to accept the fact that humans are causing global warming, and also more likely to support taking action to address the problem. Hence the consensus gap is a significant roadblock preventing us from tackling global warming.
To help…
illconsidered | June 27, 2014Consensus, Criticism, Communication | Planet3.0.
This is a well written and comprehensive discussion of the "97% consensus" message, have a look!
illconsidered | November 29, 2010Consensus is a dirty word when it comes to climate change experts, but put in just about any other context, expert consensus is what we all would want. This Marc Roberts cartoon casts that issue in the best light:
Just imagine getting medical assistance from Lord Cristopher Monckton... Oh look! We don't have to imagine.
I began to think that Viscount Monckton might be a formidable opponent during the debate. Then he told me that he has discovered a new drug that is a complete cure for two-thirds of known diseases - and that he expects it to go into clinical trials soon. I asked him…
tlambert | February 12, 2009Eric Pooley writes about the consensus amongst economists on global warming. While they disagree on exactly what we should do, they agree on two things: the cost of inaction is much greater than the cost of action, and the cost of action is only about 1% of GDP. He concludes:
Journalists have missed the economic consensus partly because economists are such a querulous bunch--they argue bitterly among themselves even when they agree. When I asked Stavins about the Stern Review, for example, he criticized Stern's methodology and didn't mention that he concurs with most of Stern's broad…
illconsidered | November 11, 2008How far do you have to lower your standards if you are the Heartland Institute and want four Texans for a list of "experts" on global warming?
Pretty low. Despite "dozens if not hundreds" of working climate scientists in Texas, to get four deniers for their list, the Heartland Institute had to use an energy expert, a policy analyst, an emergency physician and a petroleum engineer!
Like damning with faint praise, that list says alot about the opinions of the actual community of experts.
illconsidered | October 3, 2007So says a recent poll from PIPA. They agree on exactly what, you ask?
"Human activity, including industry and transportation, is a significant cause of climate change" says 79% of the globe.
Nine out of ten say that action is necessary to address global warming. A substantial majority (65%) choose the strongest position, saying that "it is necessary to take major steps starting very soon."
Interestingly enough, India does not seem to share the rest of the world's opinion (not to mention the findings of the latest IPCC report) and comes in at only 49% agreement! Not good news politically…
illconsidered | May 25, 2006This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.
Objection:
More and more the models share all the same assumptions, so of course they all agree! And every year fewer scientists dare to speak out against the findings of the IPCC, this is a clear indication of the pressure there is to conform.
Answer:
The improving agreement of model results and the increasingly similar physical representations of the climate system from model to model may well look like just sharing code, or tweaking til things…
illconsidered | April 25, 2006This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.
Objection:
All those institutional position statements are fine, but by their very nature they hide the debate and the variety of individual positions. The real debate is in the scientific journals.
Answer:
This is a fair point. Group position statements are designed to smooth over debate and unite the different points of view that individuals may have. The best indicator of what individual scientists think is in the current scientific literature,…
illconsidered | March 25, 2006This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.
Objection:
Sure, Oreskes found no one bucking the consensus, but her paper was overturned by Benny Peiser who did the exact same study and found very different results.
Answer:
True, Benny Peiser did attempt a similar study and submitted it as a letter to Science responding to the Oreske study. But for very good reasons, it was not published.
Peiser claimed to find 34 articles that fell into his "reject or doubt the consensus view" category. This is…
illconsidered | February 25, 2006This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.
Objection:
Global Warming is just a hoax perpetrated by environmental extremists and liberals who want an excuse for more big government.
Answer:
Here is a list of "enviro-Nazis" and "left-wing loonies" who believe that Anthropogenic Global Warming is real and well supported by sound science:
NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) - http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - http://www.…
illconsidered | February 25, 2006This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.
Objection:
Climate is complicated and there are lots of competing theories and unsolved mysteries. Until this is all worked out one can't claim there is consensus on Global Warming Theory and until there is we should not take any actions.
Answer:
Sure there are plenty of unsolved problems and active debates in climate science. But if you look at the research papers coming out these days, the debates are about things like why model predictions of…