“97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate change is real.”
If you’re like me, then you’ve probably heard that statement dozens, if not hundreds, of times. The media makes this claim so much that you think – and I’ve thought – that there must be some truth to this it. But what exactly does this statement mean? It’s all really vague. I mean, what points do the climate scientists exactly agree on, and how exactly did they prove those statements that they agree on?
What if I told you that the process that allowed that statement to come into existence is really very convoluted, illogical, and that there’s nothing scientific at all behind the statement? Just keep in mind that when people make that statement, what they’re really saying that we need to drastically reduce, even eliminate, our carbon dioxide emissions. Specifically, they’re saying we need to eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels.
It is true that consuming fossil fuels for our energy needs releases and slowly increases the amount of carbon dioxide found in the atmosphere. But there is a tremendous upside to using fossil fuels for energy. What is that upside? Fossil fuels are cheap, plentiful, and reliable. They make our modern civilization possible, and they do it on a scale that no other form of energy can match at the present time.
This is where the statement that is the title of this article enters into our conversation – especially by those people who are opponents of using fossil fuels. They say: “97 percent of climate scientist agree that climate change is real.” To be honest with you, this statement is rather vague. It says nothing about what it actually, specifically means. It tells us nothing of the magnitude of the problem, and if there really is one. Are they talking about global warming? If they are, are they saying that this warming is mild and controllable, or are they saying that it’s extreme, runaway, and disastrous to us and the rest of the planet, like the people pushing the concept of a “climate emergency” endorse? Oh, and like I asked at the beginning of the article, what specific points about climate change do scientists exactly agree on, and how exactly did these scientists prove their statements?
And then something else happens: people come along and add things to that vague “97 percent” statement. Let me give you an example. Someone might say that “97 percent of climate scientist have confirmed that climate change is actually taking place, and that human activity is the primary agent that’s responsible for this climate change.” So, people that make this kind of statement don’t go into specifics as to how they came to this conclusion, what they mean, what kind of change is taking place, or how impactful that change is. And then the same people might go on and say something even worse: “The world will change, and that change will happen dramatically for the worse.” Geesh! Talk about alarmism, all based on connecting some dots that don’t actually exist!
Think about what these people are doing. And what are they doing? They’re making an equivocation where one does not exist. From that standpoint, they are making the fallacy of equivocation. In other words, they’re using the same term, but using that same term in different, and often contradictory ways. Besides, 97 percent of climate scientists never actually said the thing people are insinuating that they did, let alone the false equivocation based on that claim.
So, Where Did This Statement Come From? How Was it Formed?
This whole thing begs a question: where did this “97 percent” statement come from? How was it formed? We find that one of the primary places where this statement came from was from a survey of scientific papers that was taken by one John Cook, who was a climate communications fellow for the Global Change Institute in Australia. In his survey, dated to around 2013, he “discovered” that “over 97 percent [of those scientific papers that he used for his survey] endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.”
Let’s take the last part of that statement – “main cause.” What does “main cause” mean? It means over 50 percent of the cause. For example, if you come to a conclusion that the sun causes 49 percent of global warming, and greenhouse gases are causing 51 percent of global warming, you can say that greenhouse gases are the “main cause” of global warming, even though, in this case, it’s just a little more than half of the total cause. Something just needs to be over 50 percent of the cause to be considered the “main cause.”
Secondly, later reviews of all scientific papers that talk about the environment, climate change, and global warming, have discovered that only about 2 percent of them – that is, one in fifty – actually makes the claim that human beings are the main cause of recent warming. That means that a vast majority of scientific papers don’t actually make that claim – that humans are the main cause of recent warming trends.
So that begs another question: how did John Cook actually reach the conclusion that he did? The answer goes something like this: He first added all of the scientific papers that explicitly said that there was human-made global warming. Keep in mind that many of these papers didn’t actually say how much they believed we contributed to this warming. Secondly, he included papers that didn’t even explicitly mention that there was human-made global warming, but he included them because he thought they implied it in their writings.
Think about this – a scientific researcher has an obligation to report correctly and accurately his or her findings. In this case, John Cook was not being very honest, forthcoming, or accurate in his findings. And his inaccuracy is used by Hollywood, by leftist politicians, and our left-leaning media, who are pushing a doomsday narrative to frighten and scare us into thinking that climate change is much more catastrophic than it actually is – that we are in a “climate emergency”
So, What Does Science Actually Say About Climate Change?
Since I’ve explained to you that the rhetoric about 97 percent of climate scientists is based on flawed thinking, what is the reality about climate change? What do scientists actually believe about climate change? What does science actually say about it? It’s interesting to note that, as the climate has changed very little, the voices of the climate alarmists have gotten louder and louder.
So, when it comes to understanding the narrative about climate change, there are three different groups of people to consider. First are the people associated with the scientific part of the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change or IPCC – Working Group 1. These people are comprised of scientists who, for the most part, believe that recent climate change is based on humanity’s use of coal, oil, and natural gas for our energy needs – that is, the burning of fossil fuels, which increases carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is heating up the Earth.
The second group is comprised of scientists who are skeptical of the whole climate alarmism going on, and, for the most part, don’t see the increase in our CO2 emissions into the atmosphere as a particularly grave problem.
The third group aren’t comprised of scientists at all, but are made up of environmental activists, politicians, and the media. I’ll talk more about this group in a moment, but before I do, I need to discuss one other thing.
So, if you’re a scientist in the first or second group, there are some conclusions that both groups tend to agree on when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions, our climate, and the Earth warming up. So, what are these conclusions?
1. There are many reasons that can affect the climate, and make it change. This includes the sun, cloud formations, oceans, and orbital variations. And these are just a few of the many factors that can impact our planet’s climate and temperature.
2. The Earth’s climate is always changing. It has for hundreds of millions, even billions, of years.
3. Life on Earth would not be possible without carbon dioxide, CO2. Adding extra CO2 to the atmosphere could lead to some slight warming.
4. The optimum level of CO2 in the atmosphere for plant growth is about 4-5 times more than what we find in the atmosphere right now. Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere can increase plant growth and lead to increased agricultural and forest productivity, meaning more food for a growing population.
5. For most of Earth’s history, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was significantly higher than it is now. In fact, during the Cambrian Explosion in the distant past, a time period when life on Earth became much more diverse and complex, the level of CO2 was about 10 times what it is today. This would seem to suggest that increasing the amount of CO2 would be good for life on Earth, and help spur on more biodiversity.
6. Since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1800’s, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing.
7. Since that time period, the temperature of the Earth has been increasing, but only ever so slightly. How much? Only by about 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
8. It’s only since the 1960’s that humanity has had CO2 emissions significant enough to actually play a role in climate change. How much role? That leads us to number 9 next:
9. Scientists cannot make a confident prediction about the Earth’s future temperature, or its future climate, given the enormous complexity of the climate. For example, in the summer of 2017, scientific models predicted that Hurricane Irma would hit the east coast of Florida around Miami, but then the hurricane changed course and went into the Gulf of Mexico instead. Scientists couldn’t accurately predict a hurricane’s path just two days in advance, given the complexity of the climate; how can we expect them to predict the entire world’s future temperature decades in advance?
It’s interesting to note that neither the first group of scientists, representing UN-IPCC, and the second group, which represents skeptical scientists, agree that burning of fossil fuels will lead to catastrophe, like the climate alarmists push. So, why are so many people frightened out of their wits, freaking out at a fever pitch? This leads us to the third group of people.
Remember, I told you that this third group of people is comprised of environmental activists, politicians, and the media. If the evidence tells us that using fossil fuels for our energy needs won’t lead to catastrophe, and that all it will do is slightly warm up the climate, and create conditions that increase the growth rate of plants, then why all of the alarmism by this third group of people? Because they all have something to gain by pushing that narrative. If you’re a politician, what you want is money and power. If you’re the media, the alarmism in this story gives you more viewers and allows you to make more money. If you’re an environmentalist, you gain by getting more credibility for your cause and for your organization, which allows it to make more money, and helps to confirm your near-religious devotion to something that really isn’t all that true. The doomsday scenario, no matter how dead-in-the-water it is, makes money. It really does.
If you knew the specific scale of climate change caused by our carbon dioxide emissions, you wouldn’t be so afraid, now would you? Of course, there are many other “what if’s” to think about when it comes to climate change.
