I want to increase knowledge about global warming. I see that thousands of scientists disagree. Is this correct? If so what percentage of the total is this?
2007-09-29 03:48:01 · 12 answers · asked by PHILOMENA D 1 in Environment ➔ Global Warming
It's almost impossible to count noses, because most scientists don't seek publicity and don't take public positions on things.
It's much easier to count actual scientific work. For example, Madhav L Khandekar has compiled a bibliography of 68 recent peer-reviewed papers that could be considered to challenge, in some respect, the consensus view on global warming.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/files/documents/Madhav%20bibliography%20SHORT%20VERSION%20Feb%206-07.pdf
By contrast, the latest IPCC report, which represents the consensus view, contains references to 4,617 papers.
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
By that measure, about 98.5% of the science done recently supports the consensus.
I don't know where you get the "thousands of scientists" figure. Scientific American puts the number of skeptics worldwide at perhaps 200 (out of thousands of climate scientists worldwide)
http://www.sciam.com/page.cfm?section=sidebar&articleID=0004F43C-DC1A-1C6E-84A9809EC588EF21
... and Wikipedia could find less than 40.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_global_warming_consensus
2007-09-29 06:36:42 · answer #1 · answered by Keith P 7 · 4⤊ 0⤋
The best figure I have been able to obtain as to the number of scientists in the world is 60 million (about 1 person in every 1000) but I don't have any breakdown as to what disciplines they fall into.
As there has never been a worldwide poll of scientists to determine the number of beleivers / non beleivers in global warming it's hard to say how many agree GW is man-made.
What you can do is to count the number of scientific organisations that don't agree that global warming is mand-made. When you do that you get a figure of 1 (the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and it looks like they're about to do an about turn).
Skeptics often make reference to a poll of scientists (known as the Oregon Petition) that claims 18,000 signatories from scientists that oppose the mainstream view that humans are contrinuting to global warming. If that were the sum total then it represents approx 0.3% of scientists.
Within the scientific community it's accepted that more than 98% of scientists consider global warming to be partly manmade. Within the disciplines related to climate the figure is higher and amongst climatologists themselves the figure will exceed 99.9% (I am one, I've worked with them for years and of the tens of thousands around the world I know of just 6 that would say humans are not contributing to global warming).
2007-09-30 06:04:26 · answer #2 · answered by Trevor 7 · 3⤊ 1⤋
What is your definition of a scientist? My definition of a scientist is a person who has an earned PhD from a reputable university in the physical sciences. There are approximately 60,000 physicists (from survey in Physics Today) in the US and Canada. There are at least 3X that number worldwide. Chemists, biologists and other physical scientists are more numerous than physicists by a factor of 4 or more. As noted in posts above there are 40 -200 credentialed skeptics worldwide. You do the math.
If you consider anyone who has an opinion on the subject to be a scientist, then yes you can swell the ranks of the skeptics into the thousands, if not millions.
2007-09-29 07:49:15 · answer #3 · answered by d/dx+d/dy+d/dz 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Global Warming is both man and natural.
Why its natural.
1. The sun heats up the earth causing natural warming of the earth
2. Natural pollutants Ex dust, pyroclastic flow from volcano's, dirt, pollen can cause problems if there concentrated enough.
3. When the last ice age occurred (about 11,000 years ago)
Why its man made
1. Were putting pollution into the atmosphere where it meets up with the ozone layer. Then the pollution reacts to the ozone layer, forming bad ozone and destroying the ozone layer
2. Car exhaust (biggest pollutant)
3. Landfill
4. Population VS environment (if there is a high amount of people in one place it puts SO much stress on the environment causing problems)
5. Air planes
6. Oil Spills
Well the list goes on and on. It would take me hours to list the millions of ways were polluting the environment.
2007-09-29 04:00:46 · answer #4 · answered by ♥ Pompey and The Red Devils! 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The vast majority of scientists (even many "skeptics" like Richard Lindzen) agree that global warming is real and mostly caused by us, because of the data. There are no "thousands" that disagree (see the last quote).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know.
Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point,You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."
Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA
"The fact that the community overwhelmingly supports the consensus is evidenced by picking up any copy of Journal of Climate or similar, any scientific program at the meetings, or simply going to talk to scientists. I challenge you, if you think there is some un-reported division, show me the hundreds of abstracts that support your view - you won't be able to. You can argue whether the consensus is correct, or what it really implies, but you can't credibly argue it doesn't exist."
Dr. James Baker - NOAA
2007-09-29 04:04:02 · answer #5 · answered by Bob 7 · 5⤊ 1⤋
There is a really good paper by the New Scientist at http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn11462
It answers many questions. I think it is generally accepted now that man is making a massive contribution to climate change, regardless of other factors which may also exacerbate it. Essentially we are speeding it up making it difficult to for the planets organisms to adapt.
2007-10-01 23:35:24 · answer #6 · answered by Lynds 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Without the sun there is no heat and solar cycles, changes in orbit and other factors than Man affect how warm the Earth is. Pure numbers of people agreeing on something does not make it true. Remember that Columbus was laughed at, because the vast majority of people agreed that the world was flat. Galileo was nearly burned at the stake for saying the Earth revolved around the Sun, another "fact" that everyone agreed on that was wrong.
Since the same type of tactics are used against those who disagree that Man is the main cause of GW as were used against Columbus and Galileo and since the GW supporters need to lie about the climate of the past to make their models look better, use just the data they want so their predictions will come out as they want them to, I have strong reservations about their "truth". There is also a strong Leftist political push for GW because it will give the Left power and tax money to buy votes.
2007-09-29 05:01:33 · answer #7 · answered by Taganan 3 · 2⤊ 4⤋
Nice question, I remember hearing it was about 99% which tallies with Kieth P's answer.
Note how the sceptics drift into conspiracy theory territory when some well refernced answers are posted...
Answers really is a great place to be an armchair phycologist.
2007-09-29 10:41:33 · answer #8 · answered by John Sol 4 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Rent the movie " An inconvenient truth." It explains everything including charts, graphs, and real knowledge from scientists. Really good documentary. It was an amazing film.
2007-09-29 03:56:55 · answer #9 · answered by Scarlett 4 · 2⤊ 2⤋
Yes - You are correct. About 40 - 45% of scientist believe that global warming is caused by man. The rest believe that the Sun is the source of heat on Earth.
Nothing remains constant through out the universe. The Sun warms and cools as a part of natural occurrences.
2007-09-29 03:55:10 · answer #10 · answered by Dr Jello 7 · 0⤊ 7⤋