Climate change deniers often cite sources other than experts in climate science to support their position. They would have a tough time finding actual experts in the field to agree with them.
As geochemist James Lawrence Powell continues to prove, the only people still debating whether or not climate change is “real,” and caused by human activity, are the ones who aren’t doing the actual research. In an update to his ongoing project of reviewing the literature on global warming, Powell went through every scientific study published in a peer-review journal during the calendar year 2013, finding 10,885 in total (more on his methodology here). Of those, a mere two rejected anthropogenic global warming…
Adding this new data to his previous findings, Powell estimates that the going rate for climate denial in scientific research is about 1 in 1,000. The outliers, he adds, “have had no discernible influence on science.” From this, he comes up with a theory of his own:
Very few of the most vocal global warming deniers, those who write op-eds and blogs and testify to congressional committees, have ever written a peer-reviewed article in which they say explicitly that anthropogenic global warming is false. Why? Because then they would have to provide the evidence and, evidently, they don’t have it.
What can we conclude?
1. There a mountain of scientific evidence in favor of anthropogenic global warming and no convincing evidence against it.
2. Those who deny anthropogenic global warming have no alternative theory to explain the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 and global temperature.
These two facts together mean that the so-called debate over global warming is an illusion, a hoax conjured up by a handful of apostate scientists and a misguided and sometimes colluding media, aided and abetted by funding from fossil fuel companies and right wing foundations.
Cross posted at The Moderate Voice
“1. There a mountain of scientific evidence in favor of anthropogenic global warming and no convincing evidence against it.
2. Those who deny anthropogenic global warming have no alternative theory to explain the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 and global temperature.”
So, in #1 he claims there is no contradictory evidence, an din #2 he supplies it himself.
Everyone and his uncle agrees that CO2 emissions have reached stratospheric levels, mainly from Asia, but the only result we see is a near-20-year stasis in global temperatures.
By the way, have you missed me? Don’t answer that question!
We’ve already discussed the false claims that the planet has stopped warming so I won’t bother this this again, especially as we are in the middle of the regional finals. (I don’t know of the US obsession with basketball this time of year is something which you are aware of on your side of the Atlantic.) I did look for another quick link debunking this.
Alas, Ron, ‘netball’ (as I think of it) being possibly the most tedious game on earth has not achieved fame ‘over here’.
Alas, I snorted with derision at your link to a supposed refutation of the *fact* that global temperatures have not moved for years. From a quick glance they seemed to want to measure everything, absolutely everything including possibly my inside leg, in order to find some – any – stat that would support their failing forecasts.
I would suggest a better check is a graph showing an amalgamation of the three terrestrial and two satellite measures which are usually taken as the best approximations of that elusive entity we call ‘global temperature. Put altogether those five readings show *NO INCREASE* for 13 years and 2 months. Go further back and you will find warming but not at an alarming rate. Remember – during this 13-year stasis in temperatures man-made CO2 has been pumping out at colossal rates – and you ‘warmers’ told us that was the cause of heating! So where is it?
In the last *9* years those five readings combined indicate a *drop* in global temperatures and when compared to IPCC forecasts(!) they show the IPCC was out by 0.18c p.a.
If you project the last nine years forward over a century it indicates that the IPCC *over* forecast by 1.97c.
Perhaps you and your allies need yet further measurements to prop up your theories, so why not try measuring the snove on your front lawn!
Sorry, that should read: snow on your front lawn.
It looks like there were 10,883 scientific studies in 2013 disagreeing with you, and two agreeing.
Basketball tedious? Are you sure we are talking about the same sport? Baseball is tedious, in my opinion a real bore. Hockey might also be called tedious because of the low scores. Basketball is hardly tedious.
For whatever it is worth, there is still a lot of snow on my front lawn. It was much nicer last week when I was in Florida.
No, there are five different methods of measuring global temperatures which are generally recognised as being the most reliable, two of which are satellite readings. If you amalgamate them all the result is that for the past 13 years and two months there has been NO warming.
I repeat, the ‘warmers’ insist that CO2 emissions will drive temperatures through the roof – and they haven’t despite the Asian pumping out the stuff at new record levels.
Just for the record, of course global temperatures change, sometimes up, sometimes down, they always have done since the globe was created – and a good thing too because stasis would have been a disaster.
I wish we could go with your opinion rather than the view of virtually all the scientists working in the field.
Unfortunately when science has bad news it does not yield to opposing opinions, and it looks like things are only getting worse despite all the attempts of science deniers to cherry pick the facts they prefer.
It is not a matter of opinion, Ron. These are the five organisations who are reckoned to be the best at reading global temperatures, including two of them which are satellite-based:
HadCRUT4: Met Office UK
RSS Remote Sensing Systems
UAH University of Alabama in Huntsville
NCDC National Climate Data Centre
GISS Goddard Institute for Space Studies
If you merge their monthly anomalies together they will show slight warming up until about 13 years ago when, instead of the rocketing temperatures forecast by the IPCC, there was stasis.
According to your own (less than) dearly beloved EPA: “[Carbon] Emissions increased by over 16 times between 1900 and 2008 and by about 1.5 times between 1990 and 2008.”
So I ask again – where’s the heat?
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
No need to tell you who said that!
Again, your cherry picking of the data differs from the interpretation of virtually every scientist in the field.
More here: An apparent hiatus in global warming?
Happily, I do not have to read the whole thing because the last sentence of the opening paragraph says it all:
“Global warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.”
So you mean that after several decades of warming in the atmosphere which was the original basis for the AGW theory, suddenly the heat decides to go somewhere else! Funny, no-one mentioned that ‘back in the day’. But when the forecasts made on the basis of obviously dodgy models went wrong, then suddenly there must be – has to be – just gotta be – another explanation, like, all the heat went somewhere else, not quite sure where but, er, somewhere, anywhere . . . !
Do me a favour!
You are not only cherry picking a single sentence, you are misinterpreting what the sentence says to fit your biases.
Science does not work like that. You need to consider the facts, not twist a line and claim it means something entirely different from what the article says.
But that is why virtually every scientist in the field has come to a different conclusion than you have.
Frankly, Ron, I have come to the conclusion after several years of following this controversy that there are very few scientists on the warmer side, but then, I go by Feynman’s description of good science.
You most certainly are not going by Feynman’s description of good science.
I was going to leave it there but as for some reason I think you live somewhere near Chicago, I thought it only decent to congratulate you on ‘enjoying’ the coldest four months *on record*. Still, if the central heating goes you can always burn copies of the IPCC report to help keep warm!
I’m a few hours from Chicago (by car) but close enough to also have a colder than usual winter, following several warmer than usual years. That does not change the fact that on average it is getting warmer, and the IPCC predictions have been on track. More extreme weather is among their predictions. Their predictions have been turning out to not only be coming true, but at the worse end of the spectrum.
Typical climate change denier, thinking that because it is cold outside in one place for one period of time we can’t be having global warming.