From the Wall Street Journal, Joseph Bast and Roy Spencer wrote The Myth of the Climate Change ‘97%’ [1]:
Excerpt:
Surveys of meteorologists repeatedly find a majority oppose the alleged consensus. Only 39.5% of 1,854 American Meteorological Society members who responded to a survey in 2012 said man-made global warming is dangerous.
Finally, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—which claims to speak for more than 2,500 scientists—is probably the most frequently cited source for the consensus. Its latest report claims that “human interference with the climate system is occurring, and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems.” Yet relatively few have either written on or reviewed research having to do with the key question: How much of the temperature increase and other climate changes observed in the 20th century was caused by man-made greenhouse-gas emissions? The IPCC lists only 41 authors and editors of the relevant chapter of the Fifth Assessment Report addressing “anthropogenic and natural radiative forcing.”
Of the various petitions on global warming circulated for signatures by scientists, the one by the Petition Project [2], a group of physicists and physical chemists based in La Jolla, Calif., has by far the most signatures—more than 31,000 (more than 9,000 with a Ph.D.). It was most recently published in 2009, and most signers were added or reaffirmed since 2007. The petition states that “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of . . . carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
We could go on, but the larger point is plain. There is no basis for the claim that 97% of scientists believe that man-made climate change is a dangerous problem.
HKO
Common sense skepticism should pause for a 97% consensus on ANYTHING, especial a subject as variable and uncertain as climate. This is like the 99% percent of the vote that tyrants claim in sham elections and like sham elections this deliberately false consensus comes with raw intimidation and the squelching of dissent.
It is one of the oldest statistical sleights to survey a large group but select a small subgroup and only report the group that confirms your bias or desired results. Remember the Crest commercial of decades ago that reported a test group has 34% few cavities. They did not report that was only one of a hundred groups, some with widely different and unreported outcomes.
Even the word ‘consensus’ is purely political. But as Winston Churchill noted “A lie makes it way around the world before the truth can get its pants on.”
That Obama and Kerry would parrot such rot is indicative of how much politics has polluted science.