Is there a scientific consensus? Or not?

Your link doesn’t work but never mind, the George C Marshall Institute is an Exxon Funded shill organisation. It’s been given in excess of $6.5 million to refute the science of global warming. Nearly all the key personnel are also directly linked with Exxon and have received further funding though other sources, all the usual culprits are there including Frederick Seitz, David Legates, Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Ross McKitrick, Sherwood Idso, Craig Idso, Patrick Michaels, William Happer, Steve McIntyre, John Christy, Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen.

Is there a scientific consensus – every single scientific organisation in the world accepts the reality of global warming, as does virtually every individual scientist. Clearly there is an overwhelming consensus.

This question has been asked again and again and again. It seems the notion within the minds of the skeptics and deniers is that unless there’s a universal 100% agreement then global warming isn’t happening. In adopting this stance would you agree with the small minority of people who conclude that the Earth is the centre of the solar system, that smoking is good for you, that cancer doesn’t exist, that the Earth is flat, that gravity is a myth etc etc.

There is almost never a 100% consensus on anything, so by extension of denier logic then virtually nothing exists.

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EDIT: You’re falling into the hole that Jim keeps digging for himself by making a lot of false assumptions based on what you perceive to be the case. You state that my politics are left wing. In that case please tell me how I voted in the recent UK election.

When you say my answers are irrelevant what you actually mean is that you disagree with them. Please establish their irrelevance.

If a scientist disagrees with an assumption or theory I take great interest as I want to know what their reasons are and to learn from them. There are, and have been, many instances when I have gone against the majority scientific view.

You state that I am overjoyed at dismissing the scientific method. Again, please provide your evidence for this.

The biased video might have said that 10% of the APS believes in the global warming theory but that’s not what the APS themselves say. Their National Policy states that “The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring” http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm

You then go on to allude that it’s all about the money. Hmmm, I have other qualifications that would enable me to get a much better paid job than working in climatology so it’s clearly not about money. Just for the record, where funding is provided the funding body will almost certainly require independent auditing and anyone misappropriating such funding risks criminal and civil prosecution. There’s also this assumption (ignorance) amongst skeptics that the only work climate scientists do involves climate change – this is a small part of a much wider field, in my case it’s about 10% of the work I do.

The easy money is to be made by joining the denier groups funded by the oil and power companies. Lindzen for example charges $2,500 a day to refute global warming and his organisations have benefited to the tune of more than $25 million from the oil and power industries

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard...

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/ScienceCop/commen...

You then claim that it’s a scam. I have to assume therefore that you are able to disprove the laws of quantum physics, this after all, is what dictates global warming.

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EDIT: TO JIM.

Yet again you’re wrong, glad to see you’re maintaining your 100% track record. Have I ever stated that I have an animus toward oil companies – of course I haven’t, this is just yet another example of your ability to distance yourself from reality.

Please find one single example, anywhere in anything I’ve ever written, that shows an aversion to oil companies. What you probably don’t realise is that a large proportion of my family’s income comes from the petrochemical industry, three generations ago my family founded one of the largest such companies and it has served my family well. I have a lot to thank the oil industry for and am certainly not averse to it.

As you have unintentionally pointed out, it depends who you ask.

It also depends on who does the asking, how the questions are phrased, whether you read abstracts or entire papers, what journals you survey, whether you avoid certain demographics, etc.

Surveys, polls and the like are statistical tools. And we all know (or should know) that statistics can be misused, often grossly.

My favorite example is this:

If you do X, there is a 40% increase in Y. That's a common statistical representation. But let's look at this in a numerically identical way yet with a complete different point of view. If you do X, there is an increase in Y from 1 in one million to 1.4 in one million. These two statements make the same accurate claim yet are presented very differently. And on the surface, you would worry a lot more about the first one than the second. And that's not even messing with the numbers.

If it all comes down to semantics, what good is discussing any of this anyway? You can't argue with numbers. The numbers support the theory. The only weapon that deniers have against the numbers? Words. They pick apart the individual meaning of words and phrases without any regard for the underlying theory.

Unfortunately, if you put up a chart or a table on the news and discuss the numbers, everyone's eyes glaze over. Argue against the theory with rhetoric and fear-mongering and people pick up on it.

That's what happens when you politicize a scientific issue.

In religious skill its that we are god's little ones and he loves each individual human beings. In medical skill i do not truly recognize although the actual incontrovertible actuality that human beings are so complicated and different than many different existence varieties and that we are waiting to have many thoughts and thoughts makes us except for something else of the species like reason, love, and so on. animals are waiting to experience lots of the sentiments yet no longer on the point of human beings. although the actual incontrovertible actuality that human beings are waiting to achieve this a lot, that is necessary, on condition that you're making it so. One is able to grow to be a good looking individual and impact the right results of assorted issues. you may say that there is those who stay miserably properly even a number of them will beg for his or her lives. There truly isn't one answer many won't be able to have their own perspectives.

You shittin' me? Direct quote

"Although if you poll their membership our guess is that if we look at the physical society, something like a third of the membership agrees with us [deniers], some of them very strongly, that this is disgraceful. And probably another third just couldn't care less, you know, they don't have time. I don't know how many of them are zealots; I would guess maybe 10% are zealots". (starting at 77:10)

A vague reference to some video where deniers guess at the percentage of APS members who agree with them does not constitute a poll or survey. You really had to dig deep for this one, eh?

And you can add another APS member to pegminer's poll. I fully support the theory of AGW.

The last time climate scientists were as ?united? as they are today, we were told:

New York Times, May 21, 1975.

"A major cooling of the planet is widely considered inevitable because it is well established that the Northern Hemisphere's climate has been getting cooler since about 1950".

Science News, March 1, 1975

?Most climate scientists now expect a full-blown 10,000-year ice age".

Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976

?Climate scientists are united in their prediction of extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation".

Global Ecology, 1971

?The continued rapid cooling of the Earth means that a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery"

International Wildlife, July 1975.

"The world's climatologists are agreed that we must prepare for the next ice age"

Science Digest, February 1973

?As a result of ominous signs that the Earth's climate is cooling down, meteorologists are unanimous in predicting that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century, triggering catastrophic famines?.

Newsweek cover story, April 28th 1975

"The Cooling World: Armadillos are fleeing south from Nebraska, and heat-seeking snails are retreating from Central European forests.?

Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 27, 1974

?The North Atlantic is cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool. Glaciers have begun to advance and growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter."

Before we spend billions of pounds on daft schemes, should we not wait to see if the "experts" change their minds again?

Your link that doesn't work reminds me of Fermat, purporting to have a proof of his famous theorem, but not enough room in the margins to write it down.

I'll give you a poll of one APS member--me. I believe in it. That's one hundred percent of APS members that I have polled, which I think trumps a broken link to some video from the Marshall Institute.

Oh, and I should add that jim z is right about me not having any particular dislike of oil companies or the oil business, it's an interesting application of geophysical principles. I've even threatened to find a surplus oil pump jack, and put it in my front yard, because I think it would look cool and also drive the homeowner's association crazy. I do object to spreading disinformation, though, which Exxon was caught doing. As long as they don't do that, and own up to their mistakes (like BP needs to), then I have no problems at all with them.

<< Do you know of an alarmist that doesn't? It reveals their politics, not their level of knowledge>>

I don't like the oil companies, and I am a conserrvative.

BTW, after the oil spill you will be seeing a lot of conservative candidates now not liking the oil companies (except Rand Paul, of course).

I guess evolution must be a hoax as well since there are some 'scientists' (According to the Discovery Institute anyways) that doubt it.

http://www.physorg.com/news11005.html

Trevor sure has an animus toward oil companies. Do you know of an alarmist that doesn't? It reveals their politics, not their level of knowledge. With the exception of maybe Pegminer, I don't, but I digress. You labeled it correctly as PC. PC is left wing nonsense that most decent left wingers don't even believe but it is used to attempt to squelch any dissent. People just don't want to be bothered by the PC pushers (there is a better discriptive noun but won't use it) and similarly those who disagree with the catastrophic warming croud don't want to get hounded or blacklisted or whatever.