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The Myth of the Climate Change '97%'
Wall Street Journal ^ | May 26, 2014 | JOSEPH BAST And ROY SPENCER

Posted on 05/26/2014 6:04:18 PM PDT by nickcarraway

What is the origin of the false belief—constantly repeated—that almost all scientists agree about global warming?

Last week Secretary of State John Kerry warned graduating students at Boston College of the "crippling consequences" of climate change. "Ninety-seven percent of the world's scientists," he added, "tell us this is urgent."

Where did Mr. Kerry get the 97% figure? Perhaps from his boss, President Obama, who tweeted on May 16 that "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." Or maybe from NASA, which posted (in more measured language) on its website, "Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities."

Yet the assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is a man-made, urgent problem is a fiction. The so-called consensus comes from a handful of surveys and abstract-counting exercises that have been contradicted by more reliable research.

One frequently cited source for the consensus is a 2004 opinion essay published in Science magazine by Naomi Oreskes, a science historian now at Harvard. She claimed to have examined abstracts of 928 articles published in scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and found that 75% supported the view that human activities are responsible for most of the observed warming over the previous 50 years while none directly dissented.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Government
KEYWORDS: climategate; globalwarming; hoax
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To: nickcarraway

53% of all cited percentages use made up numbers

4 out of five dentists recommend Trident. The fifth dentist makes piles of money filling cavities.


21 posted on 05/26/2014 7:29:51 PM PDT by themidnightskulker
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To: ArtDodger

dang- you beat me.


22 posted on 05/26/2014 7:29:51 PM PDT by themidnightskulker
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnICFjDn97o

I think Abbott and Costello were climate scientists!


23 posted on 05/26/2014 7:30:03 PM PDT by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts 2013 is 1933 REBORN)
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To: GrandJediMasterYoda

The left hand rule.


24 posted on 05/26/2014 7:30:46 PM PDT by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts 2013 is 1933 REBORN)
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To: ArtDodger

I thought Abe Lincoln posted that.


25 posted on 05/26/2014 7:35:28 PM PDT by wastedyears (I'm a pessimist, I say plenty of negative things. Consider it a warning of sorts.)
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To: nickcarraway

Can someone post a link so this article can be READ? Thanks!


26 posted on 05/26/2014 7:47:02 PM PDT by golux
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To: nickcarraway

I’m 97% positive that Kerry is a lying sack of sh**.

Actually, more than 97% positive.


27 posted on 05/26/2014 8:01:53 PM PDT by headstamp 2 (What would Scooby do?)
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To: nickcarraway

Somebody been hittin’ da happy smoke. 97%? ROTFL! Morons! I stayed up late the other night waiting for the spectacular meteor light show the “scientists” told us was going to happen. And these jerks want us to believe their “global warming” bull****. I don’t think so.


28 posted on 05/26/2014 8:03:05 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Obama's smidgens are coming home to roost.)
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To: Ken522
.. so how did it go from 75% to 97%? Evolution?

They silenced 22% of the scientists.

29 posted on 05/26/2014 8:14:18 PM PDT by gitmo (If your theology doesn't become your biography, what good is it?)
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To: Hugin

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/

from your link:

It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

The survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.

According to the newly published survey of geoscientists and engineers, merely 36 percent of respondents fit the “Comply with Kyoto” model. The scientists in this group “express the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause.”


30 posted on 05/26/2014 8:43:50 PM PDT by GOPJ (Someone explain why {the MSM} uses the term 'liberal' to describe totalitarian sociopaths. BruceinOz)
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To: nickcarraway
I can do without the irritating WSJ "Subscribe now" BS, without the ability actually to read the article.
Why do people post those links?

Try this one...

Read Article

31 posted on 05/26/2014 8:49:42 PM PDT by publius911 ( Politicians come and go... but the (union) bureaucracy lives and grows forever.)
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To: jonascord

Josef Goebbels knew and realized this long time ago.


32 posted on 05/26/2014 8:49:45 PM PDT by saintgermaine
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To: jonascord
If you repeat the Big Lie often enough, it becomes the Revealed Truth... It's how Progressivism works.


(thanks Chip Bok)

33 posted on 05/26/2014 9:52:59 PM PDT by skeptoid (the thought plickens)
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To: ThunderSleeps
OK. 10,000+ questionnaires went out.

You see, only about 3100 and change bothered to return the survey. (actually pretty good response if you ask me) However, of those only 157 self-identified as climate scientists. Our intrepid grad student somewhat arbitrarily decided that only 79 of these were fit to call themselves climate scientists, so those were the only ones he counted.

This is rather vague, as to where the 97% came from.
There were 81 respondents of the first question which were chosen to represent the original 10,000+ inquiries.
Of those, all 81 gave the desired response to the first question, but 2 failed to do so to the second question. The second question asked if the anthropogenic contribution contributed significantly to the "global warming."
Thus, 79 out of 81 climate "scientists" comes to 97%.

And the grand fraud was born.

Yes, we are expected to infer that the 97% refers to the original 10,000+ questionnaires, rather than the arbitrary 81 chosen to generate the answer the fraudulent graduate student desired..

34 posted on 05/26/2014 10:16:13 PM PDT by publius911 ( Politicians come and go... but the (union) bureaucracy lives and grows forever.)
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To: publius911

And the claim even thus derived is mild. Is some “significant” element of this “anthropogenic.” That’s not “most.”


35 posted on 05/27/2014 1:03:52 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: Freeping Since 2001
“The “97 percent” figure in the Zimmerman/Doran survey represents the views of only 79 respondents who listed climate science as an area of expertise and said they published more than half of their recent peer-reviewed papers on climate change. Seventy-nine scientists—of the 3,146 who responded to the survey—does not a consensus make.”

The other question is how many of the 79 respondents have a vested interest in man made global warming? They should excuse themselves because they are biased because they do not want to lose their funding.

36 posted on 05/27/2014 3:06:50 AM PDT by olezip (Time obliterates the fictions of opinion and confirms the decisions of nature. ~ Cicero)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
7 minus 5 is 2. Take two 2s. Add of of them to the 7 and you get a 9. Add the other 2 to the 5 and you get 7. Put them together and, et voila, QED, you have 97. It’s the Democrat scientific method at work.

Except they don't call it that. They call it "common core" now.

37 posted on 05/27/2014 3:22:40 AM PDT by Fresh Wind (The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.)
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To: ThunderSleeps
The second question was do you think mankind has had a significant impact on this warming. Hmm, guess you pretty much have to have answered yes to the other one, or tacitly approve of a yes there to even answer this question. The weasel word in it is "significant." Well, what is "significant"???

In scientific language, the word "significant" has a very specific meaning. It means that the probability of an observation being random rather than being a result of the specific experimental conditions is less than 5%--or, as we scientists express it, the P value is less than 0.05. (P<0.05). Scientists use many weasel words (it reflects our acknowledgement that we can be wrong), but "significant" is not one of them.

38 posted on 05/27/2014 4:37:52 AM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: exDemMom

Yet it is being expanded beyond the capability of science in the situation. We cannot conduct two worlds, a control world without anthropogenic input and an observation world with it, and make observations for both at the depth possible with modern meteorology.


39 posted on 05/27/2014 7:39:30 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: exDemMom

Except that is not the context. Significant was not used to describe the likihood, but it was used as a magnitude, so its meaning is unclear.


40 posted on 05/27/2014 9:20:45 AM PDT by Always Right
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