How can global warming skeptics deny the scientific consensus is important and real?

Question

Consensus is important in science. The only way it can be cleanly decided if something is "scientifically proven" is whether or not the scientific community accepts it as proven. There is no "Supreme Court" to decide, and there are always a few skeptics. The scientific community decides what the rules for proof are, and applies them.

You can personally choose to believe the Earth is 6000 years old or that NASA faked the moon landings. But that's not science. In doing so, you are rejecting science and proven scientific facts. The same is true for global warming.

The scientific consensus that global warming is real and mostly caused by us is documented by hundreds of papers in the peer reviewed literature, and the resulting support from virtually every major scientific organization.

See the hundreds of references contained in: http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html and

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

"The fact that the community overwhelmingly supports the consensus is evidenced by picking up any copy of Journal of Climate or similar, or any scientific program at the [climate] meetings. If you think there is some un-reported division, show me the hundreds of abstracts at [the meetings] on this topic that support your view - you won't be able to."

NOAA Ph.D.

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [global warming] than on any issue I know ...
You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

NOAA Ph.D.

Bob TV - You quote a few skeptics. Your own site says they're a small minority. Why believe them over the vast majority? Compact fluorescent light bulbs don't pollute, they REDUCE mercury pollution.

http://www.cityofberkeley.info/sustainable/Powerplay%20articles/16Powerplay.Mercury.CFL.html

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp

Ken C - There have been natural changes. But the scientific data clearly shows this warming is not natural. The websites above show that that's the view of the vast majority of scientists.

"Global cooling" in the 70s was the idea of just a few scientists, with little data, and no backing from any major scientific organization. The "global cooling" guys were like the minority skeptics of today, not like the majority.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

eric c- The Oreskes study is correct. The criticisms of it are the lies.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/14/1511/4868

Once again two skeptics are cited. Their views have been considered and rejected by the scientific community.

Answer 1

Well, technically we aren't looking for =proof=, since you can't prove a scientific theory. The consensus is important to lay people like you and me because it means that the science is in, and that scientists virtually all agree on the issue. I don't have the technical savvy needed to understand the more complicated bits of the theory, so at some point or another I've just got to take somebody at their word. And it helps if I know that the scientific community is backing me when I do this.

It was faulty logic brought the skeptics to the arguments against the consensus. They claim that 'consensus doesn't equal science'. And usually follow this statement up with a highly improbable analogy like 'if scientists came to a consensus about the world being flat, would you believe that too?'. Presumably to suggest that scientists would actually say something like that without a boatload of evidence to back it up. Of course you and I know better. Consensus doesn't ever come before the science, consensus is what you have when all the science has been done. But leave it to the contrarians to completely and utterly miss the point, as they seem wont to do.

Answer 2

In 1988 newsweek published an article saying global warming is real, and there was scientific consensus. So before the study of global warming even began the propaganda was already out on the so called consensus.

The Oreskes study says that there is NO disagreement in peer review literature. That is a lie. Now they are saying 90% consensus. If they lied about the Oreskes study, I am sure they are lying now.

But if consensus is proof, then why do you and others make the claim the 20th century is the warmest century on record, based on a few studies? Soon and Balinus(2003) studied over 100 temperature reconstruction records and concluded:

"Climate proxy research provides an aggregate, broad
perspective on questions regarding the reality of Little
Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period and the 20th century
surface thermometer global warming. The picture
emerges from many localities that both the Little Ice
Age and Medieval Warm epoch are widespread and
near-synchronous phenomena, as conceived by Bryson
et al. (1963), Lamb (1965) and numerous researchers
since. Overall, the 20th century does not contain the
warmest anomaly of the past millennium in most of the
proxy records, which have been sampled world-wide.
Past researchers implied that unusual 20th century
warming means a global human impact. However, the
proxies show that the 20th century is not unusually
warm or extreme."

Answer 3

Ummm what consensus. The National Organization for Climatologists came out with a statement signed by over 9,345 climatologists that states there is NO consensus since the data is NOT solid. Right now global warming is still classified as theory amongst scientists not fact. Real science embraces debate, not discourages it. Only those with a hidden agenda try to squelch debate and opposing views. Show me one scientist that can absolutely claim global warming is real and that will be the first one. Mars is undergoing a warming too, with the same conditions but you ignore that, how scientific can you really be? Piece of advise, stop reading blogs and go to another topic, this one is beyond your comprehension. Thanks for the easy 2 points.

Answer 4

Let's say for a moment there is Global Warming, and that we all believe it is real. Most feel it is not Man Made. How do the scientists explain the Global Warming that Almost eliminated Reptiles, and allowed Dinosaurs to Flourish for 220,000,000 years?
Then that Global Cooling, killed off the Dinosaurs, allowing Mammals to grow?
Then the Global Warming 3,000,000 years ago that allowed the earliest precursors of Man to begin? Then the Global Cooling, that allowed the Neanderthal Man to flourish in Europe and the Middle East during the Ice Age? Then the Global Warming that caused the downfall of the Neanderthal (Lack of being able to adapt) which allowed Homo Sapien (Modern Man) to become the "Human Life Form"?
I fail to see how Man had ANY effect on the thousands of Global Warming or Global Cooling Cycles that went on throughout the ages, Millions of years before Man was even around?
Finally, how did we go from the 1970's, with Scientists Predicting the Next Ice Age from Man Made Global Cooling, and Trust Me, with all the fervor that we now have Scientist predicting Global Warming? Essentially using the same data?
Just food for thought.
If we want to talk about Pollution being bad, let's say so and EVERYONE do their part. I do.
But as far as a Panic over Man Made Global Warming, I have to pass, as the Same Scientist will also tell you that this climate change has happened Thousands of Times over the last 500,000,000 on Earth...

Answer 5

The "skeptics" aren't skeptics in the philosophical sense (I doubt they even know who the Skeptics were). As to why they disregard the scientific consensus--its obviousl they don't understand science, the proces of scientific debate, or what a consensus means.

You have to realise that culturally, if not literally, these people are all bound up in the religious right-wing subculture. For them, because they've been told "environmentalism" is "liberal ideology" (which it isn't, of course) it is quite literally an article of faith that it must therefore be false.

They also don't realize--because they've been taught--and follow the example of people like Bush who believe--that sceintific questions are subject to the same kind of debate and can beresolved by the same methods as political questions. Good example being the efforts of Bush to change the outcome of the scientific debate by ordering the censoring of scientific reports.

These people realy believe that such methods can affect the scientific results!

Answer 6

Certain Christian fundamentalist beliefs dictate that the earth's resources are bounty for the taking; but, if something were to happen, then surely it is a sign of the Apocalypse, at which point all believers go to Heaven, and, well... Al Gore and his kind to Hell.

from:
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/
"Many Christian fundamentalists feel that concern for the future of our planet is irrelevant, because it has no future. They believe we are living in the End Time, when the son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. They may also believe, along with millions of other Christian fundamentalists, that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming Apocalypse.

We are not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. The 231 legislators (all but five of them Republicans) who received an average 80 percent approval rating or higher from the leading religious-right organizations make up more than 40 percent of the U.S. Congress."

Being that Al Gore has become the prominent figurehead for environmental consciousness - and of course he is a "liberal" - the issue of Global Warming has become politicized, scientific consensus be "damned".

Many, many of the Republicans in Congress are strongly influenced by the Religious Right. Therefore, in order to appease the fundamentalists and conservative and profitable industries, they continue to deny that Global Warming is being substantially influenced by human activities.

Then it becomes all "about the economy, stupid." The U.S. is one of the last nations to not ratify the Kyoto Protocol because "it would be bad for the economy."

2005 map of Kyoto Protocol Supporters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2005.png

Of course, having to enact policies to regulate old school industries who have, until recently, been able to utilize resources and produce pollution w/o much accountability, threatens their practices and jeopardizes their profit margins. As an example, petroleum (everyone must purchase gas for their cars from a very small number of providers) is an energy source that creates many gases associated w/ Global Warming. If there is a shift in public consciousness re: the detrimental effects of using petroleum, that means policies might be put into place to search for alternatives, which begins to threaten the industry's market. Of course, these industries, such as the petroleum industry, become desperate to quote or fund research that discounts "global scientific consensus", so as to create dissent and protect their profits, minimizing chances that new policies will affect business as usual. Then, we have a pocket of "scientific findings" countering that which has been globally validated and vetted by other scientists (not just a poll, as another poster here has mentioned, but they actually look at the research and methodology and validate it as sound and correct before signing off). Conservative politicians w/ the influence of the religious right, then have the "facts" to stick w/ the business as usual model, and shut down those damn liberals from "controlling us." Interesting, too, that many of these Republicans also have their hands in the petroleum/energy industry.

Being that we are rather tribal (i.e. partisan), Yahoo posters here want their team to win, so it is easy to discount globally vetted and reviewed scientific research by latching onto opinions rather than looking for truth.

Answer 7

Because they're in denial. You can tell them facts all you want, but they won't listen.

The message is too big, this is a defense mechanism to deal with it. It's a hard pill to swallow.

Scientists need to stop scaring people and instead lead the way by showing people what to do. The scare tactics, though scientifically proven, do not work, plain and simple.

You'll can easily attract people to the cause by providing guides, instead of scaring them.

Fear of hell doesn't stop people from being bad. But if you encourage them to be good, instead of scaring them into it, you'll find that people will do the right thing.

Answer 8

There is no consensus. Pull your head out of the sand.

Do some research on the research of Professor Mann. It's all you need to know about global warming. It was peer reviewed, cited in Al Gore's movie and the 2000 IPCC report. Now it has been so discredited that it is hardly mentioned. Data was manipulated, conveniently truncated and cherry picked.

Answer 9

Two important problems need to be solved.

First, how is CO2 related to increase in global heat. Does it cause global heat? What is the historical evidence? When compared to the high level of CO2 emissions by the oceans and other natural CO2 emitters, also absorption and the natural balance that takes place by the earth itself may mitigate the minuscule amount of CO2(in comparison) that humans produce.

Second, no measurement can be precise enough to say that there is an increase of 1 degree. We can't even be that precise in measuring the temp in a single city or a yard of space let alone the variations that occur when measuring global temperature.

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Check out these sites. None of them have any political agendas:

http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/news/nytimes.html

http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/temprec/fai_temp.GIF

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070601/pl_afp/usnasaclimatewarming

http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95000606

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/06/010615071248.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1009452.stm

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Countries following the Kyoto Protocol are encouraged to pollute in order to control CO2 emissions. For instance, toxic mercury light bulbs and other florescent material replacing the light bulb. Releasing of poisonous HFC-23 into the atmosphere is encouraged to prevent the release of natural CO2. Carbon credits are big business and oil companies are making big profits.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,,2093850,00.html

Read it all the way through. It will shock you.

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They call it a consensus?

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=22003a0d-37cc-4399-8bcc-39cd20bed2f6&k=0

To be quite honest, I really wasn't all that involved in investigating GW until this consensus thing came out. After that, most scientists felt quite indignant, especially ones who had their names put on the consensus. All the scientists in the movie The Great Warming Swindle are also in that "consenses" of scientists in the IPCC report who agree even though they were skeptics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f8v5du5_ag

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By the way, check this out:

http://www.prwatch.org/books/experts.html

even though I don't agree with it's treatment of GW since there is real science that contradicts CO2 theory, it's excellent at showing how organisations are all in it to cash in and profit by manipulating public opinion through"experts."

We've entered an eery age indeed!

Answer 10

First, there is no consensus. There are plenty of respected scientists who have their doubts.

Second, things are proven in science by using the scientific method, not by taking a poll.

Third, you need to get a clue and stop blindly accepting the gospel of Al Gore.