Former climate sceptic Jerry Taylor advocates rapid decarbonisation

[Surface Detail]

Jerry Taylor, one-time climate sceptic and former Vice President of the libertarian Cato Institute, explains in The Guardian why he now believes that we should decarbonise the economy as rapidly as possible.

Conservatives should change how they think about global warming. I did

"It took time for me to come to the realization that uncertainty is an argument for – not against – decarbonizing the economy as quickly as possible. Never before have we run an experiment where greenhouse gases were loaded into the atmosphere at today’s rates. While we don’t know precisely what will follow, we understand basic physics well enough to know that “warming is coming”. How much, and how dangerous it will be, is an open question, but we have no backup planet if the answer is a bad one."

That's one right-winger who has finally grasped that "proof" of AGW is not a prerequisite for preventative action! I wonder how long it'll take the others?

 

[longview]

Jerry Taylor, one-time climate sceptic and former Vice President of the libertarian Cato Institute, explains in The Guardian why he now believes that we should decarbonise the economy as rapidly as possible.

Conservatives should change how they think about global warming. I did

"It took time for me to come to the realization that uncertainty is an argument for – not against – decarbonizing the economy as quickly as possible. Never before have we run an experiment where greenhouse gases were loaded into the atmosphere at today’s rates. While we don’t know precisely what will follow, we understand basic physics well enough to know that “warming is coming”. How much, and how dangerous it will be, is an open question, but we have no backup planet if the answer is a bad one."

That's one right-winger who has finally grasped that "proof" of AGW is not a prerequisite for preventative action! I wonder how long it'll take the others?

We have very real problems that need to be addressed for Humanity to move forward.
These are mostly related to energy and fresh water, solving our energy problem will cover CO2 as a side effect.

 

[COTO]

It's an interesting article--risk prevention in the face of uncertainty. But the problem is that Mr. Taylor doesn't discuss--or even seem to acknowledge--the costs of "decarbonization". That is, he argues as though decarbonizing were like taking multivitamins. There's quite a bit of uncertainty about whether they provide any real benefit. If they do, great, we're benefiting from risk prevention in the face of uncertainty; if not, oh well. A few bucks for multivitamins here and there never killed anybody.

The most popular "solutions" for AGW (which I put in quotes because many are purely theoretical) will kill people. They'll send prices up, concentrate wealth, restrict supply, cut off useful technologies, and even have the potential to destabilize governments and societies. Green energy hacks here and there aren't going to cut it. The goods we consume, the products we use, and the lifestyles we're accustomed to all come straight from petroleum. Significant decarbonizing is going to be painful, it's going to hurt the burgeoning lower class a lot more than the upper one, and it's only going to be accomplished through taxation, coercion, and raw force.

One can certainly argue that AGW, left unchecked, will hit us with all these plagues in spades, and let him so argue. But Mr. Taylor's argument quite literally is to decarbonize "to hedge our bets". I'm sorry, Mr. Taylor, but unless you give us a specific idea of what you're talking about, and it amounts to something more than green energy hacks here and there, we're not "hedging" anything. We're betting the $1M pot on black, and if it comes up red, we've just run a saw blade through society--and the lower classes in particular--for no good reason.

On the other hand, if Mr. Taylor is talking about painless, largely voluntary transition toward green energy and tricks in the home to reduce waste, etc., I can endorse his argument.

 

[GodlessBrandy]

Geepers how many climate change / global warming threads are there.

First off let me say most people are completely mistaken as to what climate change really is. And I really don't have the time or the inclination to make a huge post educating anyone, so in the most simplistic of terms:

Ice core samples have shown that approximately every 150,000 years the Earth peaks then cools. Then peaks, then cools. And so forth.

The Earth is not getting hotter.

It's peaked.

The temperature is not increasing it's just not getting cooler. Think of it like an ice cube slowing melting at room temperature rather than in an oven.

The problem is we should be in the cooling trend. We are not, we are still peaking.

This clearly is caused by the rapid increase in population and manufacturing.

How long we stay peaking will determine things like glacier melting ( see ice cube above ).

 

[TrueScotsman]

It's an interesting article--risk prevention in the face of uncertainty. But the problem is that Mr. Taylor doesn't discuss--or even seem to acknowledge--the costs of "decarbonization". That is, he argues as though decarbonizing were like taking multivitamins. There's quite a bit of uncertainty about whether they provide any real benefit. If they do, great, we're benefiting from risk prevention in the face of uncertainty; if not, oh well. A few bucks for multivitamins here and there never killed anybody.

The most popular "solutions" for AGW (which I put in quotes because many are purely theoretical) will kill people. They'll send prices up, concentrate wealth, restrict supply, cut off useful technologies, and even have the potential to destabilize governments and societies. Green energy hacks here and there aren't going to cut it. The goods we consume, the products we use, and the lifestyles we're accustomed to all come straight from petroleum. Significant decarbonizing is going to be painful, it's going to hurt the burgeoning lower class a lot more than the upper one, and it's only going to be accomplished through taxation, coercion, and raw force.

One can certainly argue that AGW, left unchecked, will hit us with all these plagues in spades, and let him so argue. But Mr. Taylor's argument quite literally is to decarbonize "to hedge our bets". I'm sorry, Mr. Taylor, but unless you give us a specific idea of what you're talking about, and it amounts to something more than green energy hacks here and there, we're not "hedging" anything. We're betting the $1M pot on black, and if it comes up red, we've just run a saw blade through society--and the lower classes in particular--for no good reason.

On the other hand, if Mr. Taylor is talking about painless, largely voluntary transition toward green energy and tricks in the home to reduce waste, etc., I can endorse his argument.

The costs of not decarbonizing? We will sell the world for the sake of something imaginary to humanity?

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

We have very real problems that need to be addressed for Humanity to move forward.
These are mostly related to energy and fresh water, solving our energy problem will cover CO2 as a side effect.

Depends on how we tackle the energy problem but I daresay that if we were to build a sufficient number of THORIUM based nuclear reactors (Thorium reactors CANNOT MELT DOWN) we would have a relative glut of electricity, some of which we could harness to capture atmospheric carbon, some of which we could use to further install desal facilities.

 

[Praxas]

We have very real problems that need to be addressed for Humanity to move forward.
These are mostly related to energy and fresh water, solving our energy problem will cover CO2 as a side effect.

On the bolded is something that the GOP fights against every day. The GOP and the right doesn't want to support items that will help solve our energy problems.

 

[COTO]

The costs of not decarbonizing? We will sell the world for the sake of something imaginary to humanity?

If you're arguing there are no costs to decarbonizing, I don't quite know what to say to you.

Even the most ardent AGW consensus supporters readily acknowledge there are massive--globally unprecedented--costs, both in terms of freedom and quality of life, inherent in the kind of decarbonization needed to "solve" (again, as a theoretical estimate) the problem.

This is one of the reasons why agencies like the IPCC emphasize the consequences of inaction so dearly. You can only reasonably ask people to make major sacrifices if those sacrifices yield still greater benefits.

If I've misinterpreted your remark, please disregard.

 

[longview]

On the bolded is something that the GOP fights against every day. The GOP and the right doesn't want to support items that will help solve our energy problems.

I am not sure I agree, but mostly because humanities energy problem has little to do with US government policy.
The real problem is that we simply do not have enough natural hydrocarbons in the ground to allow the
entire population of the world to live a first world lifestyle, should they choose to.
It is more about having a farmer in sub Sahara Africa being able to grow and harvest his crops,
and live in a home with running water and a good enough supply of electricity for devices like
refrigerators, light, and fans, ect.

 

[TrueScotsman]

If you're arguing there are no costs to decarbonizing, I don't quite know what to say to you.

Even the most ardent AGW consensus supporters readily acknowledge there are massive--globally unprecedented--costs, both in terms of freedom and quality of life, inherent in the kind of decarbonization needed to "solve" (again, as a theoretical estimate) the problem.

This is one of the reasons why agencies like the IPCC emphasize the consequences of inaction so dearly. You can only reasonably ask people to make major sacrifices if those sacrifices yield still greater benefits.

If I've misinterpreted your remark, please disregard.

Of course there are costs? Lol!

I'm asking you about the cost of doing nothing? I've never met so many people with such strong faith, in the face of insurmountable evidence.

 

[COTO]

Of course there are costs? Lol!

I'm asking you about the cost of doing nothing? I've never met so many people with such strong faith, in the face of insurmountable evidence.

I'm reasonably convinced the climate is changing.

I'm less convinced CO2 production by man is the predominant factor. This (modest) skepticism is based in evidence.

Still less convinced that drastic reduction of CO2 production in Western nations will have any meaningful impact, or is indeed the best way to mitigate climate change. There are plenty of brilliant minds in the "we can and should just cope with it" camp.

Still less convinced that reduction of CO2 output won't happen on its own, via market forces, as green technology matures.

Doubly less convinced that the leading coercive proposals for CO2 reduction (i.e. cap and trade, geoengineering) will have any impact whatsoever reducing CO2--and this much is based on a mountain of evidence.

And certainly skeptical that the trillions we'd spend and the sacrifices we'd make in an attempt to mitigate climate change couldn't be spent on projects--including environmental projects--of greater priority.

 

[Surface Detail]

I'm reasonably convinced the climate is changing.

I'm less convinced CO2 production by man is the predominant factor. This (modest) skepticism is based in evidence.

Still less convinced that drastic reduction of CO2 production in Western nations will have any meaningful impact, or is indeed the best way to mitigate climate change. There are plenty of brilliant minds in the "we can and should just cope with it" camp.

Still less convinced that reduction of CO2 output won't happen on its own, via market forces, as green technology matures.

Doubly less convinced that the leading coercive proposals for CO2 reduction (i.e. cap and trade, geoengineering) will have any impact whatsoever reducing CO2--and this much is based on a mountain of evidence.

And certainly skeptical that the trillions we'd spend and the sacrifices we'd make in an attempt to mitigate climate change couldn't be spent on projects--including environmental projects--of greater priority.

Then you are simply uninformed. There is overwhelming scientific consensus that the current rapid increase in global temperature is almost entirely due to the large amount of greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere by humans. It is the consequences of this increase that are less certain but which, as Jerry Taylor argues, we need to be prepared for.

 

[COTO]

There is overwhelming scientific consensus that the current rapid increase in global temperature is almost entirely due to the large amount of greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere by humans.

Intending no ill will towards the scientists, acknowledging the consensus may be accurate, but meanwhile knowing the state of climate modeling, the history of climate modeling, the history of the consensus, and the state of contrary science, I worry that "overwhelming scientific consensus" and $1.75 might well buy us a $1.75 cup of coffee in this case.

One specific criticism: There's much public confusion about climate scientists whose research explicitly supports the AGW hypothesis versus scientists whose research simply doesn't contradict it. There's a literal world of difference between the two, and I've noticed that the reports, UN bulletins, eco- think tanks, and pop science magazines--for some odd reason--habitually don't bother with the distinction. Likewise, I've never seen such resources make a distinction between research supporting the theory that climate is changing and research supporting the AGW hypothesis specifically.

We can't simply tally the number of papers that include a nod to the AGW consensus in their text and label these "pro-consensus". For the vast majority of us in academia, funding is based on how well we can tune our research into something grant agencies (and the private sector) are willing to fund. This isn't a secret. We have mandatory training programs and exhaustive workshops on how to bludgeon our research into "hot topic" domains.

An unfortunate consequence of this is that a lot of effort goes into tying our many niches of research into a master thesis (or consensus) that may have little or nothing to do with the narrow field we're actually researching. All it takes is a few nods and winks in the introduction (e.g. "Climate change is the biggest threat..."), some gesticulating and weasel-wording in the results/conclusions (e.g. "This will likely have impacts on xyz, which would contribute to climate change...") and voila!, a paper goes from un-fundable, low-search rank, low impact, 16 citations total to "part of the consensus"--a vessel of money and exposure, with prestige for our institution. All for a few harmless words. You may think it's disingenuous, but it's ubiquitous, and it's survival.

This isn't to say there aren't a lot of genuinely pro-consensus papers, and I'm certainly not claiming we should summarily throw out volumes of research because of the dismal political realities of academia, but I'd bet you gold nuggets to chicken nuggets that if we actually dove deep into the corpus of research the UN calls "pro-consensus" in any given year, and parsed out which papers yield results that genuinely support the "panic now!" AGW hypothesis versus papers that support far less dire hypotheses, versus those that support only the "climate is changing" hypothesis, versus those that simply pay lip service to the consensus, the vaunted "overwhelming scientific consensus" would be far less overwhelming than you presently believe. We could reasonably wind up with only a tiny fraction of the total bulk genuinely inside "panic now!" territory.

You can't divorce the science of the issue from the politics of it, or from the unsavoury realities of academic research. You simply can't. It's the damnable reality. Healthy skepticism of the "overwhelming scientific consensus" logically follows from this.

 

[flogger]

Then you are simply uninformed. There is overwhelming scientific consensus that the current rapid increase in global temperature is almost entirely due to the large amount of greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere by humans. It is the consequences of this increase that are less certain but which, as Jerry Taylor argues, we need to be prepared for.

And has that overwhelming 'scientific consensus' ever actually been polled or can prove that there is in fact anything wrong with our climactic conditions that put them beyond the bounds of normal post glacial climate variability ?

 

[Surface Detail]

Intending no ill will towards the scientists, acknowledging the consensus may be accurate, but meanwhile knowing the state of climate modeling, the history of climate modeling, the history of the consensus, and the state of contrary science, I worry that "overwhelming scientific consensus" and $1.75 might well buy us a $1.75 cup of coffee in this case.

One specific criticism: There's much public confusion about climate scientists whose research explicitly supports the AGW hypothesis versus scientists whose research simply doesn't contradict it. There's a literal world of difference between the two, and I've noticed that the reports, UN bulletins, eco- think tanks, and pop science magazines--for some odd reason--habitually don't bother with the distinction. Likewise, I've never seen such resources make a distinction between research supporting the theory that climate is changing and research supporting the AGW hypothesis specifically.

We can't simply tally the number of papers that include a nod to the AGW consensus in their text and label these "pro-consensus". For the vast majority of us in academia, funding is based on how well we can tune our research into something grant agencies (and the private sector) are willing to fund. This isn't a secret. We have mandatory training programs and exhaustive workshops on how to bludgeon our research into "hot topic" domains.

An unfortunate consequence of this is that a lot of effort goes into tying our many niches of research into a master thesis (or consensus) that may have little or nothing to do with the narrow field we're actually researching. All it takes is a few nods and winks in the introduction (e.g. "Climate change is the biggest threat..."), some gesticulating and weasel-wording in the results/conclusions (e.g. "This will likely have impacts on xyz, which would contribute to climate change...") and voila!, a paper goes from un-fundable, low-search rank, low impact, 16 citations total to "part of the consensus"--a vessel of money and exposure, with prestige for our institution. All for a few harmless words. You may think it's disingenuous, but it's ubiquitous, and it's survival.

This isn't to say there aren't a lot of genuinely pro-consensus papers, and I'm certainly not claiming we should summarily throw out volumes of research because of the dismal political realities of academia, but I'd bet you gold nuggets to chicken nuggets that if we actually dove deep into the corpus of research the UN calls "pro-consensus" in any given year, and parsed out which papers yield results that genuinely support the "panic now!" AGW hypothesis versus papers that support far less dire hypotheses, versus those that support only the "climate is changing" hypothesis, versus those that simply pay lip service to the consensus, the vaunted "overwhelming scientific consensus" would be far less overwhelming than you presently believe. We could reasonably wind up with only a tiny fraction of the total bulk genuinely inside "panic now!" territory.

You can't divorce the science of the issue from the politics of it, or from the unsavoury realities of academic research. You simply can't. It's the damnable reality. Healthy skepticism of the "overwhelming scientific consensus" logically follows from this.

You've lost your bet already. Many people have already dove into the corpus of research into climate change, and they have all found that the vast majority of papers expressing an opinion on AGW endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. See, for example, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature.

What you are expressing is not healthy scepticism. It is irrational denial.

 

[COTO]

You've lost your bet already. Many people have already dove into the corpus of research into climate change, and they have all found that the vast majority of papers expressing an opinion on AGW endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. See, for example, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature.

What you are expressing is not healthy scepticism. It is irrational denial.

This is an honest question: Did you read my entire post?

"We can't simply tally the number of papers that include a nod to the AGW consensus in their text and label these "pro-consensus"." is plainly stated. Yet having gone to some lengths to explain this, you present me with a metaanalysis of climate paper abstracts that tallies the number of papers that include a nod to the AGW consensus in their text. And not only this, but from a keyword-filtered 20-year cross-section of literature.

Also plainly stated: Yes, there are going to be a lot of abstracts with nods to the consensus. There are going to be a lot of papers with "climate change" and "AGW" in their keyword lists. There are going to be a lot of introductions that decry the evils of man-made climate change, a lot of citations of pro-AGW papers, and a lot of conclusions that reassert the correctness of the consensus. This does not mean the specific research conducted in all these papers--or even the majority of them--bolsters the consensus. It is a regrettable artifact of the way research is funded, and, to some degree, a consequence of how peer-reviewed literature works. Analyzing abstracts, or polling researchers to slot their papers into one of three boxes, is not a deep dive. It is a rock skimming the surface.

If you can find any metastudies that take a healthy sample of climate literature cited by the UN in any one year and actually dive deep into each one, not just looking for nods, winks, affirmations, and citations, but seeking a critical answer to the question "Do the data and results of this paper truly support the AGW consensus, or are the authors simply accepting it and affirming it as a premise?", I urge you to post it here. I'd be most interested.

The reason for the deep dive, I've already explained. The reason for the one-year cross section is that it limits the number of times any one author or research group is represented in the sample, which can be heavily distorted in multi-year sections.

More generally: This won't be a profitable debate for either of us unless you read all of what I've written, not just the first two paragraphs. I realize I go on at times, but please consider my arguments in their entirety.

 

[Surface Detail]

This is an honest question: Did you read my entire post?

"We can't simply tally the number of papers that include a nod to the AGW consensus in their text and label these "pro-consensus"." is plainly stated. Yet having gone to some lengths to explain this, you present me with a metaanalysis of climate paper abstracts that tallies the number of papers that include a nod to the AGW consensus in their text. And not only this, but from a keyword-filtered 20-year cross-section of literature.

Also plainly stated: Yes, there are going to be a lot of abstracts with nods to the consensus. There are going to be a lot of papers with "climate change" and "AGW" in their keyword lists. There are going to be a lot of introductions that decry the evils of man-made climate change, a lot of citations of pro-AGW papers, and a lot of conclusions that reassert the correctness of the consensus. This does not mean the specific research conducted in all these papers--or even the majority of them--bolsters the consensus. It is a regrettable artifact of the way research is funded, and, to some degree, a consequence of how peer-reviewed literature works. Analyzing abstracts, or polling researchers to slot their papers into one of three boxes, is not a deep dive. It is a rock skimming the surface.

If you can find any metastudies that take a healthy sample of climate literature cited by the UN in any one year and actually dive deep into each one, not just looking for nods, winks, affirmations, and citations, but seeking a critical answer to the question "Do the data and results of this paper truly support the AGW consensus, or are the authors simply accepting it and affirming it as a premise?", I urge you to post it here. I'd be most interested.

The reason for the deep dive, I've already explained. The reason for the one-year cross section is that it limits the number of times any one author or research group is represented in the sample, which can be heavily distorted in multi-year sections.

More generally: This won't be a profitable debate for either of us unless you read all of what I've written, not just the first two paragraphs. I realize I go on at times, but please consider my arguments in their entirety.

If you bothered reading the paper that I cited, you'd see that it does indeed go beyond a survey of abstracts. When the authors of the papers in question were asked to rate them themselves, an even higher proportion endorsed the consensus.

Also, you are chasing a false premise. Given that the basic mechanism of AGW is almost universally accepted in the scientific world, it makes no sense for papers on the topic to keep reaffirming that mechanism, just as authors of papers in the field of astronomy don't usually feel the need to keep reaffirming the heliocentric model of the solar system. Rather, most papers on climate change are concerned with the consequences and ramifications of AGW, not the fact of its existence!

A little less condescension on your part would also be appreciated. I did read all of your post; I just chose to comment on the part that I found to be the most obviously incorrect.

 

[PoS]

And has that overwhelming 'scientific consensus' ever actually been polled or can prove that there is in fact anything wrong with our climactic conditions that put them beyond the bounds of normal post glacial climate variability ?

I dont know why alarmists keep pointing out to this consensus thing as proof of any sort. Science isnt decided by consensus but by who is right. Even the consensus reasoning is bogus too because the stats are cherry picked when the vast majority of scientists actually have no opinion or dont know.

 

[Surface Detail]

I dont know why alarmists keep pointing out to this consensus thing as proof of any sort. Science isnt decided by consensus but by who is right. Even the consensus reasoning is bogus too because the stats are cherry picked when the vast majority of scientists actually have no opinion or dont know.

Total bull****. The vast majority of scientists agree with the consensus that humans are primarily responsible for the warming observed during the last century. That's what makes it a consensus! That is also why it is the position of every single national and international scientific body it the world.

Edit: It is also basic physics. If you substantially increase the proportion of the main non-condensing greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, as humans have done, the earth will warm. It's not rocket science!

 

[PoS]

Total bull****. The vast majority of scientists agree with the consensus that humans are primarily responsible for the warming observed during the last century. That's what makes it a consensus! That is also why it is the position of every single national and international scientific body it the world.

Edit: It is also basic physics. If you substantially increase the proportion of the main non-condensing greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, as humans have done, the earth will warm. It's not rocket science!

No, youre wrong.

Global warming controversy - Wikipedia

A 2013 study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters analyzed 11,944 abstracts from papers published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature between 1991 and 2011, identified by searching the ISI Web of Science citation index engine for the text strings "global climate change" or "global warming". The authors found that 3974 of the abstracts expressed a position on anthropogenic global warming, and that 97.1% of those endorsed the consensus that humans are causing global warming. The authors found that of the 11,944 abstracts, 3896 endorsed that consensus, 7930 took no position on it, 78 rejected the consensus, and 40 expressed uncertainty about it.

So out of nearly 12K abstracts, almost 8K took no position on it.

As opposed to 3896 that endorsed it.

So which is bigger?

7930 or 3896?

Do the math.

 

[COTO]

If you bothered reading the paper that I cited, you'd see that it does indeed go beyond a survey of abstracts. When the authors of the papers in question were asked to rate them themselves, an even higher proportion endorsed the consensus.

I indeed saw this, and it's also presented as a major result in the abstract.

I assure you, if I put consensus-affirming language in my abstract, and consensus-affirming language in my grant proposals, and consensus-affirming weasel words in my conclusions, when asked directly whether I support the consensus or not, I'm going to reply "Yes".

I briefly thought about checking the 'No' box, and writing in the margin, "FYI: I just put the nods and citations in there to qualify for grants. It's window dressing. My research has little or nothing to do with AGW, much less proving its existence. You may call me disingenuous or a liar--and please don't show this admission to anyone on a grant committee--but I'm simply doing what I need to do to survive in academia. And hey, if the correctness of the hypothesis boosts the influence and significance of my work by proxy, it's icing on the cake." But then I realized I like my job, I like funding, I like colleagues who don't despise me, and I like my work to have significance, and the urge passed.

Also, you are chasing a false premise. Given that the basic mechanism of AGW is almost universally accepted in the scientific world, it makes no sense for papers on the topic to keep reaffirming that mechanism, just as authors of papers in the field of astronomy don't usually feel the need to keep reaffirming the heliocentric model of the solar system. Rather, most papers on climate change are concerned with the consequences and ramifications of AGW, not the fact of its existence!

You're absolutely right, and it makes the case for skepticism all the stronger. Which should we value more in a debate about the reality of AGW: the paper whose results actually speak one way or the other as to the truth of the hypothesis, or the paper that assumes the hypothesis to be true and endeavours to predict or quantify the consequences under this premise?

To use your analogy in astronomy, I don't need to know which physical theory on the origins of gravity--still a hot topic in physics--will ultimately prove correct to study, say, the impact of meteor strikes on Earth. I can quite simply state (in more formal language) "We don't know exactly how gravity works, but we know it's a thing, we know how it acts in normal spacetime, and here's a dump truck of citations to papers on gravity, Newtonian mechanics, and non-Newtonian mechanics. We're going to assume Newtonian mechanics and look at meteor strikes on Earth." The main differences being that Newtonian mechanics are far less complicated than climate, theories of gravity are far less controversial than theories of climate change and its causes, and unlike the climate sciences, a physicist probably doesn't have to plug the "gravity exists" consensus in order to get funding and exposure. At least I hope not.

A little less condescension on your part would also be appreciated. I did read all of your post; I just chose to comment on the part that I found to be the most obviously incorrect.

I apologize for getting on your case, then. I wanted to emphasize (and still do) that the parameters of the cited study completely divorce it from the kind of deep analysis I'm claiming is necessary.

 

[Surface Detail]

No, youre wrong.

Global warming controversy - Wikipedia



So out of nearly 12K abstracts, almost 8K took no position on it.

As opposed to 3896 that endorsed it.

So which is bigger?

7930 or 3896?

Do the math.

Comprehension comes before math.

The fact that a scientific paper takes no position on AGW does not mean that its authors have no opinion on or don't know about its reality. Scientific papers are usually focussed on one particular area of a topic, and the basics are taken as given.

In geology, for example, very few papers explicitly state that the Earth is (roughly) spherical rather than flat; it is simply assumed as a given. This does not mean that the authors of these papers have no opinion on or don't know whether the Earth is flat or not!

 

[PoS]

Comprehension comes before math.

The fact that a scientific paper takes no position on AGW does not mean that its authors have no opinion on or don't know about its reality. Scientific papers are usually focussed on one particular area of a topic, and the basics are taken as given.

In geology, for example, very few papers explicitly state that the Earth is (roughly) spherical rather than flat; it is simply assumed as a given. This does not mean that the authors of these papers have no opinion on or don't know whether the Earth is flat or not!

So only those that profess an opinion should be counted?

Nope. Wrong. I go with the majority who have not expressed an opinion. Why? Because climate is complex, has many variables in it, and not everything is understood. Those uncertainties alone, plus the inherent unreliability of climate modeling, is more than enough for me to be skeptical of the effects of AGW and of the doomsayer predictions with regards to it.

 

[flogger]

I dont know why alarmists keep pointing out to this consensus thing as proof of any sort. Science isnt decided by consensus but by who is right. Even the consensus reasoning is bogus too because the stats are cherry picked when the vast majority of scientists actually have no opinion or dont know.

Unlike with politics in science it only takes one scientist to be proved right for any alleged 'consensus' to instantly disappear.

Consensus is a word from the political vocabulary not the scientific one hence the existence IPCC ,a political organisation created by governments for governments :wink:

 

[flogger]

So only those that profess an opinion should be counted?

Nope. Wrong. I go with the majority who have not expressed an opinion. Why? Because climate is complex, has many variables in it, and not everything is understood. Those uncertainties alone, plus the inherent unreliability of climate modeling, is more than enough for me to be skeptical of the effects of AGW and of the doomsayer predictions with regards to it.

Suffice it to say without such highly subjective and politically sponsored climate modelling there is no crisis

As I have said many times before this agenda is all about controlling people not climate. If you can do that (and make it seem virtuous by indoctrinating AGW guilt) the money and power quickly follow