What percent of qualified scientists believe humans are contributing to global warming?

Question

There seems to be a lot of confusion on this.

Any reference to a survey would be appreciated.

Answer 1

This is - given the spin - a very fair question, unfortunately I cannot give you an exact number, there were various efforts when it was clear this was going to become a political football issue to "drum up support" , so for instance there are "petitions" with thousands of signatures on them, but these are largely not qualified, where skeptical or advocate pollsters would go to conventions for the American Medical Association or American Dental Association and ask for signatures in return for some parting gift only then later claiming that 4000 out of 5000 "Scientists" support or are skeptical about global warming. As nice as it sounds, this is largely a red-herring.

There is a very large majority of scientists whom support the idea of global warming and anthropogenic climate change in general. hundreds of surveys and studies and meta-surveys have long since confirmed that this is occurring and that mankind has and is contributed to the concern.

However, there is a minority viewpoint held by several dozen climate scientists who feel - for various reasons - that the climate is not changing or that the change is not primarily human-caused, however, personally speaking , I find that alot of the scientists - appear to have been "compromised" at some point.

Dr. Sallie Baliunas is often cited by anti-global warming advocates, and while has done valuable work in her field (solar variation), that work does not indicate any rise or fall in solar output which can be correlated to terrestrial temperature variation.

It seems clear (in my opinion) that Dr. Baliunas is fairly compromised due to her previous involvements as she was also closely involved with Exxon/Mobile in the late 1980's with spearheading and debunking the "junk science" and myth that CFC gasses were causing the ozone hole. Well, legislation was still passed and what do you know , CFC gasses have started to reduce out of the atmosphere and the ozone hole damage has peaked and started to repair itself.

Regarding this particular theme of inquiry regarding global warming, this line of inquiry also leads to a favorite red-herring that "other planets" are warming, this is also not completely accurate, there are other planets experiencing temperature variation, but the quality of the data supporting that assertion (in one case two single temperature readings over 25 years), is less than could be hoped for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas

Exxon recently decided - with the new Democratic congress and the anticipation of further Republican losses in 2008 that they prefered to have a "seat at the table" regarding the discussion of future US policy regarding climate change, and have therefore done two things, one, they eliminated - or significantly reduced funding for the "Competetive Enterprise Institute" which largely supported skeptical viewpoints on climate change.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16593606

It is largely already the case that the minority viewpoint is falling away, given that the overwhelming amount and quality of data supporting human affected climate change is as compelling as it is.

Personally, I view a legitimate contrarian viewpoint as highly valuable however, this is only in so far as we can suffer from tunnel vision on some matters and that fundamental/basic science might go untried or unresearched.

Answer 2

There's more dollars in proving man contributes to global warming that the opposite. Follow the money.

Want to do something that makes sense?

You can do more about global warming by setting your thermostat at 60 degrees in the winter and 80 degrees in the summer and by driving at 55 mph instead of 70 mph than anything the government can accomplish.

The environmental community wants to see energy prices double to FORCE you to make these changes. Why not do them and not have prices double? Do you know why prices will double? Taxes on carbon. Who gets the carbon tax money? Government. Get the drift at why the government is so willing to buy into global warming? Energy Star appliances are often so expensive that upgrading makes no economic sense. But if your gas or electric rates go up 50 percent, then maybe all of us bad people will pay attention.

The green lobby, heavily supported by wind and solar groups, have sold this concept. Wind and solar want the government to mandate green energy. When that happens, the price (because of demand and very limited supply) will skyrocket. These wonderfully noble people will make Enron et. al. look like Robin Hood.

Answer 3

On the order of 99%. There are no perfect surveys, but this data is useful (the Wiki article is not opinion, simply EASILY verifiable facts).

EVERY major scientific organization says that it's mostly due to man.

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

Check out this very relevant question:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtTd0HzJbsqk8.hyXHkweDDsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071210150727AAeMekO

Even many "skeptics" admit that man is responsible for a significant amount of it, though their estimates may be lower than the 75%-95% of the mainstream.

These quotes are also good info. The last has never been refuted.

"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."

NASA's Gavin Schmidt

Answer 4

It looks like100 percent. It is hard to count every qualified scientist, but since we know that none of them think that Global warming is not real and none of them think that it isn't being caused by mankind, what is left is the other 100 percent.

I know, maybe somewhere, there is a qualified climatologist who thinks otherwise. When that scientist comes forward, we can count him/her as a qualified disbeliever. Until then, we still have 100 percent.

Answer 5

That shouldn't make any difference.

Science should be based on facts, not the opinions of like minded thinkers.

Answer 6

allmost 96% of them . iam not kidding.