Is Pope Francis right on climate change?

[LeafByNiggle]

Leaf, old friend, we have had many discussions about this subject for some time now.

I have maintained that man is not responsible for global warming.

In my quote that you quoted, I did not say that he was. I was just laying out the framework for how this issue might be discussed. I thought my stance in that posting was quite neutral.

I maintain that this whole subject is less about “science” and mythical environmental control than it is about politics. Those who promote this hoax are only interested in passing laws like “Cap and Trade”- - the bartering of “carbon credits”, and the redistribution of wealth from industrial nations to third world countries.

There certainly are political aspects to the question. But there is also a genuine scientific question behind it all. And those who choose to can discuss that question scientifically without bringing in politics. At least I am willing to do so. Whether other choose to do so is up to them.

I have stated that there is no evidence proving that man is capable of causing climate change.

There are those who claim there is such evidence.

I am confident of this statement because it is true and more and more people are beginning to think this way.

Circular reasoning. “I am confident this statement is true because it is true”.

Also the bandwagon fallacy: “This statement is true because more and more people are thinking it is true.”

I want to see some results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. That is science. Not consensus, not computer models, not estimates, and not conjecture.

Can you describe the level of certainty you require in any quantifiable terms? In other words, something more explicit than “more certainty than there is now”.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Hi Karen,
I checked out your Skeptical Science website. Let’s pick one myth to discuss, The 97% Consensus on Global Warming. skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm

The headline is: “What the science says: 97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.” One immediately wonders how they determined this. How did they define their population of climate experts? How did they interview them? How big was their sample? We will soon find out.

The study, Cook et al, is found here: iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article. Turns out their unit of observation was the journal article, not the individual scientist. They pulled out of the database every article that had global warming or climate change in it. I wonder how they can then quantify what all climate scientists think? Not everyone publishes. Not everyone can get their ideas published because of editorial bias. In climate science we know folks conspired to keep dissenting opinions out of the journals. Read your climategate emails guys! But let’s not rush to judgment.

What was their research question? What where they asking each journal article that they “interviewed”? From the abstract I gather it is whether it embraced or rejected the “AGW consensus.” From the Introduction we get furder (as we say in Norddakota) definition: “[whether] scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW).” Basically this is the IPCC position. OK.

We classified each abstract according to the type of research (category) and degree of endorsement. Written criteria were provided to raters for category (table 1) and level of endorsement of AGW (table 2). Explicit endorsements were divided into non-quantified (e.g., humans are contributing to global warming without quantifying the contribution) and quantified (e.g., humans are contributing more than 50% of global warming, consistent with the 2007 IPCC statement that most of the global warming since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations).

Then, to make a long story short, they had volunteers read the abstracts (around 12,000) of all these papers and rated them according their degree of agreement with the consensus.

An additional step was to solicit the actual authors for their independent and separate rating of their respective paper’s degree of agreement with the consensus.

Conclusion: From Table 3, 97.1% of the abstracts “endorsed AGW” and 98.4% of the authors did the same. So we can infer therefrom that 97% of climate experts agree with the IPCC? Nope. At the most, we can infer consensus on something trivial, namely that 97% of climate experts agree humans are causing some global warming. You see the authors (“for simplicity”) combined both categories of endorsement (humans are causing some GW and humans are causing more than 50% of GW) into one “endorses AGW” category. So we have no idea how many endorse the alarmist position.

But it is also a stretch to say they have quantified the opinion of all climate experts because that population was never defined, sampled, and surveyed. All they did was survey papers and the authors of those papers. Who knows if all climate experts are represented.

Note also they basically threw out all the “no opinion” papers. What if they expressed no opinion either way because that is the way they interpret the evidence?

So, based on my cursory examination of this paper, I have my severe doubts about the validity of its conclusions. My doubts were confirmed by Dr. Richard Tol. See richardtol.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/now-almost-two-years-old-john-cooks-97.html?view=classic.

So, it looks like more junk science.

 

[Karen107]

Hi Karen,
I checked out your Skeptical Science website. Let’s pick one myth to discuss, The 97% Consensus on Global Warming. skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm

The headline is: “What the science says: 97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.” One immediately wonders how they determined this. How did they define their population of climate experts? How did they interview them? How big was their sample? We will soon find out.

The study, Cook et al, is found here: iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article. Turns out their unit of observation was the journal article, not the individual scientist. They pulled out of the database every article that had global warming or climate change in it. I wonder how they can then quantify what all climate scientists think? Not everyone publishes. Not everyone can get their ideas published because of editorial bias. In climate science we know folks conspired to keep dissenting opinions out of the journals. Read your climategate emails guys! But let’s not rush to judgment.

What was their research question? What where they asking each journal article that they “interviewed”? From the abstract I gather it is whether it embraced or rejected the “AGW consensus.” From the Introduction we get furder (as we say in Norddakota) definition: “[whether] scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW).” Basically this is the IPCC position. OK.

Then, to make a long story short, they had volunteers read the abstracts (around 12,000) of all these papers and rated them according their degree of agreement with the consensus.

An additional step was to solicit the actual authors for their independent and separate rating of their respective paper’s degree of agreement with the consensus.

Conclusion: From Table 3, 97.1% of the abstracts “endorsed AGW” and 98.4% of the authors did the same. So we can infer therefrom that 97% of climate experts agree with the IPCC? Nope. At the most, we can infer consensus on something trivial, namely that 97% of climate experts agree humans are causing some global warming. You see the authors (“for simplicity”) combined both categories of endorsement (humans are causing some GW and humans are causing more than 50% of GW) into one “endorses AGW” category. So we have no idea how many endorse the alarmist position.

But it is also a stretch to say they have quantified the opinion of all climate experts because that population was never defined, sampled, and surveyed. All they did was survey papers and the authors of those papers. Who knows if all climate experts are represented.

Note also they basically threw out all the “no opinion” papers. What if they expressed no opinion either way because that is the way they interpret the evidence?

So, based on my cursory examination of this paper, I have my severe doubts about the validity of its conclusions. My doubts were confirmed by Dr. Richard Tol. See richardtol.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/now-almost-two-years-old-john-cooks-97.html?view=classic.

So, it looks like more junk science.

It appears to me that your blog by Dr. Richard Tol is the only thing that is based on one persons biased opinion.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

It appears to me that your blog by Dr. Richard Tol is the only thing that is based on one persons biased opinion.

Mornin Karen,

Cook et al is questionable from the get-go. How can there be 97% consensus on any scientific question, let alone in an infant science such as climate? The claim itself should cause your BS o’meter to go beep.

They are trying to infer what all climate scientists think from publications. Knowing what we know about publication bias in this field, this seems a stretch.

Even though they examined around 12,000 articles, their famous 97% is based on only 4,000 of the 12,000. IOW, they threw out 2/3rds of the data, namely those articles which did not express an opinion. How do they know if these authors didn’t express an opinion one way or another because they were undecided? So Cook et al end up only counting those with an opinion for or against.

In any event, bias was built into their sample. Professor Tol also points out:

he Cook paper is remarkable for its quality, though. Cook and colleagues studied some 12,000 papers, but did not check whether their sample is representative for the scientific literature. It isn’t. Their conclusions are about the papers they happened to look at, rather than about the literature. Attempts to replicate their sample failed: A number of papers that should have been analysed were not, for no apparent reason.

Tol adds:

Cook enlisted a small group of environmental activists to rate the claims made by the selected papers. Cook claims that the ratings were done independently, but the raters freely discussed their work. There are systematic differences between the raters. Reading the same abstracts, the raters reached remarkably different conclusions – and some raters all too often erred in the same direction. Cook’s hand-picked raters disagreed what a paper was about 33% of the time. In 63% of cases, they disagreed about the message of a paper with the authors of that paper.

The paper’s reviewers did not pick up on these things. The editor even praised the authors for the “excellent data quality” even though neither he nor the referees had had the opportunity to check the data. Then again, that same editor thinks that climate change is like the rise of Nazi Germany. Two years after publication, Cook admitted that data quality is indeed low.

And it appears the bias of the researchers themselves helps explain the result. Skeptical Science is a cheerleader for the global warming movement and the climate science establishment. Tol concludes:

Cook thus broke a key rule of scientific data collection: Observations should never follow from the conclusions. Medical tests are double-blind for good reason. You cannot change how to collect data, and how much, after having seen the results.

Cook’s team may, perhaps unwittingly, have worked towards a given conclusion. And indeed, the observations are different, significantly and materially, between the three phases of data collection. The entire study should therefore be dismissed.

And then, as is often the case with post-normal scientists like Cook et al, there is the inevitable conduct unbecoming real scientists:

Requests for the data were met with evasion and foot-dragging, a clear breach of the publisher’s policy on validation and reproduction, yet defended by an editorial board member of the journal as “exemplary scientific conduct”.

Cook hoped to hold back some data, but his internet security is on par with his statistical skills, and the alleged hacker was not intimidated by the University of Queensland’s legal threats. Cook’s employer argued that releasing rater identities would violate a confidentiality agreement. That agreement does not exist.

Cook first argued that releasing time stamps would serve no scientific purpose. This is odd. Cook’s raters essentially filled out a giant questionnaire. Survey researchers routinely collect time stamps, and so did Cook. Interviewees sometimes tire and rush through the last questions. Time stamps reveal that.

Cook later argued that time stamps were never collected. They were. They show that one of Cook’s raters inspected 675 abstracts within 72 hours, a superhuman effort.

The time stamps also reveal something far more serious. After collecting data for 8 weeks, there were 4 weeks of data analysis, followed by 3 more weeks of data collection. The same people collected and analysed the data. After more analysis, the paper classification scheme was changed and yet more data collected.

BTW, Dr. Tol has been an IPCC lead author.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Montford did this opinion piece which gives an overview.

business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/meaningless-consensus-on-climate-change

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

this also is illuminating:

daviddfriedman.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/a-climate-falsehood-you-can-check-for.html

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Friedman (see above) shows that Cook misrepresents his own research! Here is the quote from Cook himself from another paper (Bedford and Cook):

Of the 4,014 abstracts that expressed a position on the issue of human-induced climate change, Cook et al. (2013) found that over 97% endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause. Less than 2% of the abstracts rejected this view.

But Friedman correctly observes:

It follows that the sentence I quoted from Bedford and Cook is false. Cook et. al. did not find that “over 97% endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.” (emphasis mine). Any interested reader can check that it is false by simply comparing the two papers of which Cook is a co-author. John Cook surely knows the contents of his own paper. Hence the sentence in question is a deliberate lie.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Karen (and anyone else), defend Cook et al, if you can.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Even though they examined around 12,000 articles, their famous 97% is based on only 4,000 of the 12,000. IOW, they threw out 2/3rds of the data, namely those articles which did not express an opinion. How do they know if these authors didn’t express an opinion one way or another because they were undecided? So Cook et al end up only counting those with an opinion for or against.

You are right on many of your criticisms of the Cook paper, but not this one. When an author does not express an opinion on AGW, it doesn’t mean he is undecided about the question. It just means his paper does not strictly address that question.

Consider that the initial selection of 12,000 papers was based on keyword hits like “global warming” or “climate change”. There and be many reasons for a paper to be indexed with one of these keywords. For example, a paper entitled “Calibration Methods for Remote Satelite Measurements of Atmospheric Temperature” could very well have climate change as an indexing keyword because one of the chief uses of satellite temperature measurements is in climate change research. But such a paper would not be expected to take a position on whether the earth is actually heating up, much less whether man is the main cause. The existence of this paper gives no information about the author’s position on this question. It certainly does not imply he is undecided. Statistically the only appropriate thing to do is to omit the paper from the study. The only effect this omission has is to reduce the final number of papers in the study. It does cast doubt on whatever conclusion may be reached from the remaining papers.

 

[lynnvinc]

1. There is a considerable amount of opinion, conjecture and theoretical language in the document.

Not regarding the science of AGW and other environmental problems. That is presented in a straight-forward manner and as the basis for having a dialogue about what we need to do about it.

1. He is not teaching on a subject which is a matter of faith or morals, and he has certainly not indicated that the teaching is infallible.

“Thou shalt not kill” is a precept in the Bible and in many other religions. Likewise it is considered wrong to harm and destroy people’s health and property, or destroy ecosystems which provide means of survival.

Note also that the Bible doesn’t specify that some methods of harming and killing people, such as with knives, are wrong, while others, such as by poison, are okay.

Since LS presents in a straight-forward manner as accepted science the links between our actions and these environmental and human harms, then those precepts about killing and harming apply and LS most certainly IS a matter of morals.

RE faith, there is nothing in LS that contradicts our faith in God and Jesus Christ, and in fact the Pope claims that the Church is alive and in dialogue with historical developments:

“121. … Christianity, in fidelity to its own identity and the rich deposit of truth which it has received from Jesus Christ, continues to reflect on these issues in fruitful dialogue with changing historical situations. In doing so, it reveals its eternal newness.”

Just because AGW was not mentioned in the Bible, does not mean we can and should get by with harming people through the environmental harms of today.

1. Pope Francis has addressed *Laudato Si *to all people. (An encyclical addressed only to the Catholic faithful is more authoritative) He is therefore not delivering teaching which is binding, and within the encyclical he speaks of the need for dialogue, discussion and growth in learning on these matters.

“…dialogue, discussion and growth in learning on these matters.” Does not sound like “settled science” to me.

The Pope uses the term dialogue in several ways, but not regarding whether the basic science of AGW is in question. You really need to read the whole of LS with an open mind.

For one thing the phrase “dialogue, discussion and growth in learning on these matters” does not appear in the encyclical, and it seems you may be getting your information from secondary, biased sources.

Here are some direct quotes with the term “dialogue”:

“3…In my Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, I wrote to all the members of the Church with the aim of encouraging ongoing missionary renewal. In this Encyclical, I would like to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home.”
Note that it is appropriate and customary to use the term “dialogue” when engaging in the larger community and others outside the Church and outside Christianity.

In the following, the term “dialogue” refers to a discussion about what we need to do regarding the real and actual environmental problems caused by us, some places including the words “action” or “solutions”:

“14. I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all…”

“15…In light of this reflection, I will advance some broader proposals for dialogue and action which would involve each of us as individuals, and also affect international policy.”

"60. Finally, we need to acknowledge that different approaches and lines of thought have emerged regarding this situation and its possible solutions. At one extreme, we find those who doggedly uphold the myth of progress …At the other extreme are those who view men and women and all their interventions as no more than a threat, …Viable future scenarios will have to be generated between these extremes, since there is no one path to a solution. This makes a variety of proposals possible, all capable of entering into dialogue with a view to developing comprehensive solutions.

“163. So far I have attempted to take stock of our present situation, pointing to the cracks in the planet that we inhabit as well as to the profoundly human causes of environmental degradation. …now we shall try to outline the major paths of dialogue which can help us escape the spiral of self-destruction which currently engulfs us.”

“201…The gravity of the ecological crisis demands that we all look to the common good,
embarking on a path of dialogue which demands patience, self-discipline and generosity, always keeping in mind that ‘realities are greater than ideas.’”

CHAPTER 5 – LINES OF APPROACH AND ACTION – has a series of sections with headings re dialogue, beginning on page 48:

I. DIALOGUE ON THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
II. DIALOGUE FOR NEW NATIONAL AND LOCAL POLICIES
II. DIALOGUE AND TRANSPARENCY IN DECISION-MAKING
IV. POLITICS AND ECONOMY IN DIALOGUE FOR HUMAN FULFILMENT
V. RELIGIONS IN DIALOGUE WITH SCIENCE

---

The Pope is indeed indicating that we must mitigate these problems. However, he is leaving it up to us how to do it, because there are many ways. He does not indicate we should hold our breath or starve to death to mitigate – the whole thrust is how we can live fully and deeply, not just in a material sense but in a sense that truly fulfills.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

You are right on many of your criticisms of the Cook paper, but not this one. When an author does not express an opinion on AGW, it doesn’t mean he is undecided about the question. It just means his paper does not strictly address that question.

Consider that the initial selection of 12,000 papers was based on keyword hits like “global warming” or “climate change”. There and be many reasons for a paper to be indexed with one of these keywords. For example, a paper entitled “Calibration Methods for Remote Satelite Measurements of Atmospheric Temperature” could very well have climate change as an indexing keyword because one of the chief uses of satellite temperature measurements is in climate change research. But such a paper would not be expected to take a position on whether the earth is actually heating up, much less whether man is the main cause. The existence of this paper gives no information about the author’s position on this question. It certainly does not imply he is undecided. Statistically the only appropriate thing to do is to omit the paper from the study. The only effect this omission has is to reduce the final number of papers in the study. It does cast doubt on whatever conclusion may be reached from the remaining papers.

Thanks Leaf. Point taken.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

…
The Pope is indeed indicating that we must mitigate these problems. However, he is leaving it up to us how to do it, because there are many ways. He does not indicate we should hold our breath or starve to death to mitigate – the whole thrust is how we can live fully and deeply, not just in a material sense but in a sense that truly fulfills.

It seems clear to me, both from the text of LS and how the Vatican in general has conducted itself before, during, and after the roll-out of the encyclical, that this pope believes in human caused catastrophic global warming. You are right in saying that he is not specific about the means of mitigation, but it inescapable that if we are going to drastically cut our CO2 emissions (the IPCC position which he embraces), then we have to drastically cut fossil fuel production and consumption. And he seems to be oblivious to the costs of doing so, especially as they fall on the poor and the environment.

To me, this is hugely disturbing, for he is obviously placing his trust in an institution, the IPCC, which has proved utterly unworthy of that trust.

He and his climate periti also give large hints that their true beliefs are more radical than the text of LS itself. For example, leading up to the roll-out they prevented any dissenting voices to be heard. Afterwards they have invited folks like Naomi Klein, an unabashed communist, to speak at the Vatican. NAOMI KLEIN!, fer cryin out loud. What is going on here?

 

[Ender]

You are right on many of your criticisms of the Cook paper, but not this one. When an author does not express an opinion on AGW, it doesn’t mean he is undecided about the question. It just means his paper does not strictly address that question.

… Statistically the only appropriate thing to do is to omit the paper from the study. The only effect this omission has is to reduce the final number of papers in the study. It does cast doubt on whatever conclusion may be reached from the remaining papers.

There are (at least) two problems with this approach. First, by reporting that 12,000 papers were examined, it implies that the 97% number applies to all of them (and by extension to all climate scientists), not just to that fraction that expressed an opinion. Just look at the way this statistic is used: “97% of climate scientists believe in AGW” is typically the way this is expressed. And it is absolutely not true even by the claims of the paper itself.

Second, the fact that two-thirds of the papers took no position at all cannot simply be dismissed as irrelevant. It may well be true that a particular study never addressed any aspect of global warming or man’s contribution, but there is no justification for assuming that all 8,000 of them were such papers and that therefore no scientists are undecided about the cause of the warming. That’s not just an invalid assumption it is an absurd one.

Suppose just one paper out of the 12,000 had expressed an overt belief in AGW. Would that justify the assertion that 100% of climate scientists believe in it? The fact that this claim would be nonsensical shouldn’t hide the fact that this is the approach used by the Cook paper.

Ender

 

[lynnvinc]

It seems clear to me, both from the text of LS and how the Vatican in general has conducted itself before, during, and after the roll-out of the encyclical, that this pope believes in human caused catastrophic global warming. You are right in saying that he is not specific about the means of mitigation, but it inescapable that if we are going to drastically cut our CO2 emissions (the IPCC position which he embraces), then we have to drastically cut fossil fuel production and consumption. And he seems to be oblivious to the costs of doing so, especially as they fall on the poor and the environment…

Actually we have reduced out GHG emissions (and concomitant pollution) by more than 60% below our 1990 level, and have saved many $1000s without lowering our living standard to boot. And that’s not counting the fact we have nearly always lived within 1 or 2 miles of work and shops since 1969 when we married so as to save finite resources for future generations.

Rocky Mountain Institute (energy efficient institute) has found that the U.S. could lower its greenhouse gases by 75% without lowering productivity. Some businesses even lowered theirs on some of their operations by 95% - see www.natcap.org and www.rmi.org

There are plenty of ways to lower one’s GHG emissions cost-effectively without any sacrifice (and with savings $$). That itself logistically speaking will take at least a decade or so. After that, when our economy and households are down to a 60 or 70% reduction, we can see if we might need to sacrifice one or two iota. Or, new energy/resource conservation/efficiency and/or alt energy tech may have been developed and we won’t have to sacrifice.

With all that money we save, we can then give more to the poor and even help them to become more energy/resource efficient/conservative and really be on the road to prosperity.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness and ALL things will be added unto you.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

There are (at least) two problems with this approach. First, by reporting that 12,000 papers were examined, it implies that the 97% number applies to all of them (and by extension to all climate scientists), not just to that fraction that expressed an opinion. Just look at the way this statistic is used: “97% of climate scientists believe in AGW” is typically the way this is expressed. And it is absolutely not true even by the claims of the paper itself.

This is standard statistical sampling practice. When it is difficult or impossible to poll 100% of the people represented, just take an unbiased sample of that group. Unbiased in this context means that the selection criteria do not systematically favor one outcome or another. In this case, the sampling criteria was that the person has published an article expressing an opinion about global warming. One might argue that editorial bias is systematically suppressing dissenting articles. Even if this is so, it would be very surprising if that suppression were strong enough to silently suppress enough dissent to make 80% agreement into 97% agreement, much less make a minority view appear like it represents 97% of the group. If there were that much suppression, we would be hearing a much bigger uproar from the suppressed.

Second, the fact that two-thirds of the papers took no position at all cannot simply be dismissed as irrelevant. It may well be true that a particular study never addressed any aspect of global warming or man’s contribution, but there is no justification for assuming that all 8,000 of them were such papers and that therefore no scientists are undecided about the cause of the warming. That’s not just an invalid assumption it is an absurd one.

On the contrary, no assumption at all is made about the 8,000 omitted papers or their authors. Omitting them at this point is just recognizing that the initial selection criteria (the computerized keyword search which yielded the 12,000 papers) was overly broad. If there were a quick computerized means of selecting all the papers that expressed a view on global warming, they would have used it first, gotten their 4,000 papers directly, and we would not be having this conversation. The only deception would be if Cook had claimed that the final statistics were calculated using 12,000 papers. As far as I know, he did not do that (although some popular retellings of his paper may have made that error - I don’t know). But it is a moot point because 4,000 is still stastically sufficient to make the claims Cook did.

 

[Karen107]

Hi Ender, I may not put my words in as eloquently as others but here’s my response to your post.

There are (at least) two problems with this approach. First, by reporting that 12,000 papers were examined, it implies that the 97% number applies to all of them (and by extension to all climate scientists), not just to that fraction that expressed an opinion. Just look at the way this statistic is used: “97% of climate scientists believe in AGW” is typically the way this is expressed. And it is absolutely not true even by the claims of the paper itself.

I don’t think that’s what was said on the website rather this was said:

A follow-up study by the Skeptical Science team of over 12,000 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subjects of ‘global warming’ and ‘global climate change’ published between 1991 and 2011** found that of the papers taking a position on the cause of global warming,** over 97% agreed that humans are causing it (Cook 2013). The scientific authors of the papers were also contacted and asked to rate their own papers, and again over 97% whose papers took a position on the cause said humans are causing global warming.

skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm

Second, the fact that two-thirds of the papers took no position at all cannot simply be dismissed as irrelevant. It may well be true that a particular study never addressed any aspect of global warming or man’s contribution, but there is no justification for assuming that all 8,000 of them were such papers and that therefore no scientists are undecided about the cause of the warming. That’s not just an invalid assumption it is an absurd one.

Suppose just one paper out of the 12,000 had expressed an overt belief in AGW. Would that justify the assertion that 100% of climate scientists believe in it? The fact that this claim would be nonsensical shouldn’t hide the fact that this is the approach used by the Cook paper.

Ender

I believe the problem with that approach is that if a person showed no opinion one way or the other on the matter of global warming than why would they be included in the study? I also believe it is relevant that if 2/3rds of scientists papers on climate change and global warming were discarded from the study because it shows that there are a very small amount of scientists arguing the case FOR global cooling or no AGW. Not that they are taking no position, it’s that they are accepting the position believed among scientists… So if there were more scientists who were convinced that AGW is a myth they’d be more vocal about it and more papers would have been included in the study showing an opposition to ones who said AGW is a very real situation…What I’m hearing from the opposite point of view is coming from is the financial peeps/newspapers/far right conservatives who are making it more of a political issue than a scientific one… And it also appears to me that the way of those denying climate change is to manufacturing a way to discredit the scientists so the truth be quieted for other reasons other than scientific reasons.

 

[Karen107]

.What I’m hearing from the opposite point of view is coming from is the financial peeps/newspapers/far right conservatives who are making it more of a political issue than a scientific one… And it also appears to me that the way of those denying climate change is to manufacturing a way to discredit the scientists so the truth be quieted for other reasons other than scientific reasons.

Rebuttal from a business financial paper…really??

Montford did this opinion piece which gives an overview.

business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/meaningless-consensus-on-climate-change

 

[Karen107]

David Friedman a academic economist…who admits he’s not a scientist.

this also is illuminating:

daviddfriedman.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/a-climate-falsehood-you-can-check-for.html

 

[Karen107]

I And he seems to be oblivious to the costs of doing so, especially as they fall on the poor and the environment.

Another Doomsdayer comment about the money again as if this hasn’t been thought out by the Pope or others. Ie. see Lynns last post… IMO, it’s been my experience that when we use more fuel efficient energy conscience appliances it actually saves us in fuel costs instead of costing us more so we should expand and continue on in that direction. What we are living in is a haste makes waste world and I love it when the Pope tells it straight out like telling us to stop buying more food than we can consume. He’s full of a lot of good advice! Lets not continue to buy disposable bottle waters folks! It only takes a second to fill a reusable bottle in your tap, lots cheaper too!..

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Rebuttal from a business financial paper…really??

Hi Karen,

I don spose it would even matter if it were published an oil and gas journal or the Ladies Home Journal. Tis the content that matters. Montford has been covering climate science for some time. You really should read his books.