JoNova: Science, carbon, climate and tax » Consensus

Professor points out, it’s a less-than-nobel consensus

Joanne Nova — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:13:09 +0000

Garth Paltridge is an Australian atmospheric physicist with 45 years experience. He worked with CSIRO, the WMO, NOAA, and as Professor and Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Oceans Studies. He has explained why he’s skeptical of the theory of man-made global warming in his book – The Climate Caper: Facts and Fallacies of Global Warming. Here he explains how a scientific “consensus” can be bought. There’s more than one good reason why argument-from-authority is a fallacy. — Jo

A less-than-nobel consensus

Guest Post by Garth Paltridge

We hear that Julia Gillard is happy to have the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the Australian Academy of Science on her side while making her arguments for a carbon tax. Well of course she is. She and her predecessor bought them. And bought them but good. Over the last couple of years her Department of Climate Change (the DCC) gave them 27 million dollars in the form of research grants. That pays a fair swag of the salaries of the CSIRO and Bureau climate scientists who make up the majority of all employed climate scientists in Australia.

University climate researchers, while [...]

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What does it take for a worldwide consensus? Just 75 opinions.

Joanne Nova — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 16:53:51 +0000

It’s true, 97%-of-experts agree the world is going to hell in a handcart. It’s part of the frontline toolkit used by the Big Scare Campaign.

Do a google search on “97% of climate scientists agree” and 3,920,000 links turn up.

Like everything in the Big Scare Campaign, a tiny semi-dried kernel of truth becomes inflated, distorted and repeated into a planetary group chant. Here’s how one small online survey was distilled to the point where the opinions of 75 climate scientists doing a 2 minute online survey could be headlined up as: “97 percent of scientists say man-made climate change is real”. (Worse — for those of us with a scientific bent — this mantra to the imaginary Gods of Science is even referred to as “Scientific” evidence.)

In August 2010, the HockeySchtick site pointed out the 97% figure was just 75 self selected scientists. As as example of the way the chant is spun, the author, “MS” linked to the unSkepticalScience site and the screen image that John Cook posted in an article titled: “Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public”.

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Don’t miss the fact that the graphic is subtitled “SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE”. [...]

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Consensus? What consensus?

JoNova — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:17:36 +0000

How many scientists does it take to prove the debate is not over? More than 30,000 scientists have signed The Petition Project. More than 9,000 of them have PhDs (not that that proves anything about carbon, but it does prove something about the myth of “consensus”). The petition’s wording is unequivocal:

“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.” Source: www.petitionproject.org

The Petition Project is funded by donations from individuals and run by volunteers. It receives no money from industry or companies. In late 2007, The Petition Project re-did the petition to verify names again.

AGW says: Everyone knows the petition is bogus and filled with duplicate and fake names.

Skeptics say: Name 10 fakes.

NOTE: This is potentially distracting. Science is not democratic. The numbers and qualifications on either side don’t matter except to put an [...]

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The consensus is fake

JoNova — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:33:48 +0000

Eminent Professors have taken the extraordinary step of writing another open letter to Congress to warn them again that there is no consensus and they are being deceived. The brand name Science is being used for a power grab. Decades of good-will has been stolen by the hunters from big finance and wannabe autocrats. It’s time for scientists everywhere to stand up and be counted. Write to your associations. Write to your elected representatives. Tell the people on the bus on the way to work!* It will be too late after the deals are signed… — JoNova

Team of Scientists’ Open Letter To U.S. Senators: ‘Claim of consensus is fake’

Science group ‘reviewing its stance on global warming’ after 160 physicists sign petition

Monday, November 02, 2009 – By Marc Morano – Climate Depot

The following letter was sent to all 100 U.S. Senator’s on October 29, 2009 by a team of scientists. The letter is reproduced in full below:

A GAGGLE IS NOT A CONSENSUS

You have recently received a letter from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), purporting to convey a “consensus” of the scientific community that immediate and drastic action is needed to avert [...]

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