Submitted by: Terry Payne
https://www.americanthinker.co
ge_consensus.html
American Thinker
October 20, 2021
The Irrelevant Climate Change 'Consensus'
By Anthony Watts <https://www.americanthinker.c
A new "peer-reviewed" paper
<https://iopscience.iop.org/ar
released from Cornell University titled "Greater than 99% Consensus on Human
Caused Climate Change in the Peer-Reviewed Scientific Literature."
(https://iopscience.iop.org/ar
The study is yet another attempt to convey the nebulous notion that
widespread scientific consensus exists regarding the primary causal factor
behind climate change. A previous study, spearheaded by climate blogger
activist John Cook, concluded in 2013 there was "97 percent consensus."
Despite near-universal acclaim and its citation by leading policymakers such
as the United Kingdom's energy minister, the study was inherently flawed.
Dr. Mike Hulme
<https://blogs.nottingham.ac.u
the-battle-of-received-wisdoms
"The '97% consensus' article is poorly conceived, poorly designed and poorly
executed. It obscures the complexities of the climate issue and it is a sign
of the desperately poor level of public and policy debate in this country
[UK] that the energy minister should cite it."
(https://blogs.nottingham.ac.u
the-battle-of-received-wisdoms
Even the Guardian -- typically a stalwart supporter of climate activism --
ran a headline stating: "The claim of a 97% consensus on global warming does
not stand up
<https://www.theguardian.com/e
l-warming> ."
(https://www.theguardian.com/e
l-warming)
After a thorough analysis, more than 100 published articles
<https://wattsupwiththat.com/2
s-on-global-warming/> shredded the study's faulty methodology and
completely rejected its postulated consensus level of 97 percent.
(https://wattsupwiththat.com/2
s-on-global-warming/)
Yet, Cook's baseless study was still used as the inspiration for today's
release from Cornell -- which, unsurprisingly, is similarly flawed.
Regarding the researchers' methodological approach, the article's press
release states, "In the study, the researchers began by examining a random
sample of 3,000 studies from the dataset of 88,125 English-language climate
papers published between 2012 and 2020."
There are many issues with this approach, the primary concern being
selection bias. The authors arbitrarily decide to look at just an eight-year
range of climate papers, neglecting to examine the large number of papers
published before 2012. This approach, therefore, conveniently "forgets" to
incorporate the significant sample of climate skeptical papers written in
response to the then-nascent concept of global warming in the 1970s.
They go on to say "case closed" even as the glaring bias of pre-selection
ensures many skeptical papers from the 1970s, when global warming first
appeared on the radar of science, to today, were excluded from the study.
Primary paper author Mark Lynas, visiting fellow with Cornell's Alliance for
Science, concludes: "We are virtually certain that the consensus is well
over 99% now and that it's pretty much case closed for any meaningful public
conversation about the reality of human-caused climate change."
To cast further shadow upon the study's conclusions beyond the glaring
selection bias problem, Lynas himself inspires reason for distrust. The lead
author has a history of climate activism.
Danish author Bjørn Lomborg, a former member of Greenpeace, penned a book
titled The Skeptical Environmentalist
<https://www.amazon.com/Skepti
0521010683> . In that book, Lomborg suggested pragmatic solutions to climate
issues. At a book signing in 2001 in Oxford, England, Lynas was caught on
video <https://www.youtube.com/watch
face of Lomborg, who was simply attempting to establish good scientific
procedure. Rather than attempting to rationally object like an academic is
expected to do, Lynas resorted to personal assault.
To further confound the aforementioned issues with the study and its
authors, the entire focus of the study is based on the flawed premise that
consensus matters, or should even be sought.
Dr. Richard Tol effectively summarizes
<https://www.theguardian.com/e
l-warming> this problem in his rebuke of this study's conclusions,
claiming, "Consensus is irrelevant in science. There are plenty of examples
in history where everyone agreed and everyone was wrong."
Indeed, there are many such examples
<https://www.discovermagazine.
n-science-in-the-last-20-years
accuracy, it merely establishes that a group of any number of individuals
congregated and agreed to a certain perspective -- which is often based on
nothing but misinformed opinions.
Author Alex Alexander explains this sociological phenomenon in his article,
"When Consensus is a Bad Way to Decide
<https://www.theunion.com/news
," "Consensus is about persuasion and compromise, not right or wrong, not
what works best. Consensus is about human interactions, which are mainly
about emotions, jumping to conclusions, and negotiation, and may or may not
include facts and analysis. Consensus is about compromise, and compromise
means that someone, maybe everyone, has to set aside an idea that may have
value in order to satisfy the group, or the leader of the group."
Even world-renowned physicist Albert Einstein recognized the fallacy of
consensus when it is applied to science. When the Nazi Party of Germany
decided they didn't like Einstein because he was Jewish, they set about to
discredit him by publishing One Hundred Authors Against Einstein
<https://link.springer.com/cha
total, 121 authors were identified as opponents to Einstein's special
relativity theory.
Einstein, one step ahead of them all, is said to have
<https://skepticalinquirer.org
n-the-rearview-mirror/> riposted, "It would not have required one hundred
authors to prove me wrong; one would have been enough."
This is the essence of science -- it only takes one author employing sound
scientific experimentation to provide effective evidence in support of a
theory or hypothesis. Needless to say, this is not how Lynas and many of his
peers have historically operated.
So, when Lynas asserts that the case is closed, he has provided little to no
valid evidence in support of his theory. More methodologically sound forays
into predicting the effects of global warming have been attempted, but their
results range everywhere from "little effect" to apocalyptic scenarios.
<https://earthobservatory.nasa
simply depends on the scientist, the specific question being asked, and the
methodology employed to test that question.
Science cannot necessarily provide us with a foolproof answer to the exact
effects that global warming may have on our planet, but one thing is
certain: science is not a popularity contest. The study released today only
further cements that consensus is completely meaningless as a means of
establishing proof.
******************************
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The
Heartland Institute.
Image: Pixabay <https://pixabay.com/service/l
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