# Do you think global warming will be as bad as people say? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 12, 2014, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092 "2014-10-12T05:44:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/41 "2014-10-14T19:08:28Z")
> [@davida03801](#): > > We have been in global warming for the past 10,000 years or so. Glaciers that were 5,000 to 10,000 feet high over the northern latitudes melted, the seas rose 600 feet or so. Our ancestors survived all of that, so why you think we not in the future ? > > Personally, I feel we have more concerns of a turn to sever cold weather, than warming. There are studies pointing at the “Arab Spring” and the Syria unrest coming as a result of the food shortages brought by the extreme drought in the area and Russia, with climate change being a likely factor, most likely by making it worse that it could had been. > **[Review: Two New Studies on Syria, Drought, Climate Change, Natural Resource...](https://climateandsecurity.org/2014/03/review-two-new-studies-on-syria-drought-climate-change-natural-resource-management-and-the-uprising/)** > > In February of 2012 (updated in our report The Arab Spring and Climate Change in 2013) we wrote about drought and natural resource mismanagement in Syria in the past decade, the displacement of abo… As many pointed before most of the shortages can be blamed on the inefficiency and lack of readiness and corruption of the regimes in the area; so yeah, if we had less people and less asshole rulers and we all allowed the flow of people affected around we would survive with much of a fuzz. Unfortunately Russia will have to change a lot regarding their xenophobia and a lot of it also in the USA because we will have to deal with the flow of refugees caused first by the changes, and then by the warfare those changes are likely to bring. While I’m an optimist in that we will survive, I’m a pessimist in the sense that a lot of the very bad things that could be avoided will happen, as there is not much preparation thanks to the idea by some powerful groups that nothing is happening. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/42 "2014-10-14T19:16:16Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > It will probably be partly true and partly exaggerated. That’s more or less my feeling as well. I’m sure global warming is a fact, but I also doubt that it’ll just go unchecked forevermore. At some point, there will be some weather patterns or clusters of natural disasters that can conclusively be pointed at as caused by global warming, and something will be done- geoengineering, and stricter pollution laws most likely. Right now, the big problem is that despite the climatologists’ hockey stick graphs, the actual everyday impact has been negligible for your average person, and the science is abstract. People don’t see it, so they don’t see a threat, and now they have people screaming the opposite, and saying that they need to change their lifestyles drastically to fix something that’s been going on more than 100 years, and hasn’t done anything that they can see. I can understand why less science-literate people might be skeptical. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/43 "2014-10-14T19:16:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > As bad as _who_ says it’ll be? There are some who say that Everest will be underwater, and those people are quite simply wrong. Um, who says this? And who, other than Der, claim that civilization comes to an end? The worst case scenario that I’ve seen is that parts of the [northeastern US](http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/what-price-global-warming/) become [uninhabitable](http://www.ecoworld.com/animals/mammals/deadly-high-temps-possible-future.html). But that won’t end civilization in and of itself. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/44 "2014-10-14T19:34:54Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > About the ice age coming in the 70’s: Most scientists then did report that warming was coming ( and they were correct)… To be clear: I do believe that the Earth is growing warmer. (I’d say I ‘know’, but I must trust the experts who actually do know since IANA scientist myself.) I was merely providing corroboration that there were people in the '70s saying that another ice age might be coming, and that a decade or so ago there was a hypothesis that an ice age may be brough about by global warming. I wish people would understand the difference between weather and climate, and global warming and climate change. Just because you have a big snow storm doesn’t mean there’s no global warming, and just because there _is_ global warming doesn’t mean you’re not going to have snow. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/45 "2014-10-14T20:29:45Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > As a teen in the late-'70s I heard about a possible ice age coming. Yeah, well, the pieces I recall from that time period typically did not say “_There is an Ice Age coming_”, they were more like “_Ice Age Coming_\*?\*\*\*” I think there was a book or two, but they got CT-level circulation. > [@phreesh](#): > > I believe that humans are influencing the climate - namely increasing GHGs in the atmosphere. However, I believe that we will stop short of changing the climate considerably from today. > > I believe in human ingenuity and I believe we will make changes and introduce new technologies that will help us deal with a changing climate and eventually reverse the effect. We did it for acid rain and the ozone and we will do it for climate change. The biggest concern for global warming is the likely positive feedbacks, most notably in the permafrost. If the taiga and the tundra start to melt, a lot of CH[sub]4[/sub] will be released, and that is a major greenhouse gas. Global warming is likely to accelerate itself, and there is not a lot we can do, even now, to change that. Restoring the Amazon rainforest, if it it were possible, and expanding the boreal forests at breakneck speed would probably help a lot, but we have to do that starting right now, yesterday. One faintly bright spot is the possibility that sea level rise will be less extreme than imagined because a lot more water will be in the air (not sure how much there is to that theory), but the likely changes to local climates will not be good. One major problem we would face is that if the arable zones move north (a questionable hypothesis), our crop-growing land will start to be competing with the forests we want for carbon-sequestration. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/46 "2014-10-14T20:58:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > … global warming has already killed many millions of people… > > We cannot change quickly enough to prevent all harmful effects of global warming, since some of the harmful effects have already occurred. We can, however, still make a big difference. Will we? To the first snippet: Do tell. And with a cite… To the last question: Not if it costs us any real, proximate, pain, we won’t. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/47 "2014-10-14T21:06:04Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 98% of experts: Yes. > Chief Pedant’s HO: No. > > Final score: 1-1. I guess we should call it a toss-up. Gonna be 0-1 against the Pedant when TEOTWAWKI craps out for AGW Alarmists. Kudos, though, to those who thought up the theme that being skeptical of AGW Alarmism is tantamount to being skeptical of science. It’s very effective in silencing critics, many of whom are in fact scientific boobs. We have much larger, more impossible-to-correct crises that will eventually relegate AGW to the back burner way before it’s time to fry. Overpopulation. A little starvation. Some serious loss of natural habitat chewed up to feed the masses. Maybe a nice comet, or earthquake, or rogue virus, or nukes theft… Wars, maybe. I’ll letcha know which one it was as soon as it becomes the Great Cause du Jour and displaces AGW from being the little pet of Chicken Little wannabes who just love being in the know and holders of Great Wisdom. Not to mention BFFs with “98 % of Experts.” I had a ball mocking Y2K alarmists. It’s kind of nice to have a new Club to ridicule for their sincerity and holier-than-thouness. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/48 "2014-10-14T21:15:03Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > There are studies pointing at the “Arab Spring” and the Syria unrest coming as a result of the food shortages brought by the extreme drought in the area and Russia, with climate change being a likely factor, most likely by making it worse that it could had been. 98% of AGW Alarmists agree with you. Lest they be considered “unscientific.” ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/49 "2014-10-14T21:22:52Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I had a ball mocking Y2K alarmists. I had a ball mocking them too as I investigated the issue when deploying new computer at the UC Berkeley library. And as I investigated this issue, the reality is that the ones in the Y2K corner are the ones that use conspiracy and misleading information like them. They will continue to just fail. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/50 "2014-10-14T21:25:23Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > 98% of AGW Alarmists agree with you. Lest they be considered “unscientific.” They are called active scientists and they are not alarmists, they are not emeritus nor on the payroll of denier organizations or just plain McScientists. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/51 "2014-10-14T21:27:37Z")
**Chief Pedant** , do you actually have an argument (with scientific evidence) of why global warming won’t have a major impact? Any rebuttal beyond “it’s alarmist so I don’t want to believe it. And oh yeah, Y2K.” ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/52 "2014-10-14T21:30:35Z")
In the 1970s, there was some speculation that we were due for another ice age and perhaps global warming would short circuit it. I don’t recall any firm ice age predictions, although I cannot certify there weren’t any. Someone lumped global warming as another example of a BS prediction. So you think that it was a waste to ban CFCs and preserve the ozone layer? After that, nothing you say is worth looking at. As for the OP, we are already seeing effects. No, no particular weather event can be definitely traced to global warming, but there have been too many anomalous events recently. I just read about a town in Southern California that has not had running water in five months! Imagine not being able to turn your tap and get water. For five months. I think its bad but I won’t be around to see it. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/53 "2014-10-14T22:00:19Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > As for the OP, we are already seeing effects. No, no particular weather event can be definitely traced to global warming, but there have been too many anomalous events recently. I just read about a town in Southern California that has not had running water in five months! Imagine not being able to turn your tap and get water. For five months. I think its bad but I won’t be around to see it. Not your fault, but I have seen many examples of media getting wrong that bit about “we can not definitely trace an event to global warming”. It is not a bad thing to say with the context, but it gets bad when the context is omitted, many times it is framed as being equal to “therefore no global warming”, they are wrong in the sense that they ignore how the issue is related to probability. But the main mistake they make is to not point out also the other problem of the warmth growing in the background. Regardless of the cause of the event, natural or caused by AGW, the extreme weather events are getting worse thanks to the increase in energy and matter that the warming causes. It is more intense in the areas where hurricanes and tornadoes appear and in the Southwest the warming increase makes the droughts worse. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/54 "2014-10-14T22:10:51Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > **Chief Pedant** , do you actually have an argument (with scientific evidence) of why global warming won’t have a major impact? Any rebuttal beyond “it’s alarmist so I don’t want to believe it. And oh yeah, Y2K.” This is IMHO. And except for diehards who find significance stamping out anti-AGW sentiment wherever they find it, not the place for debate. I am not very interested in AGW, pro or con. I am an observer of human nature, and am interested in why we think the way we think and why we become so vested in it. I make a general observation that we are almost never right with our predictions and that there is a tendency to skew in a direction of TEOTWAWKI. AGW has become a contest of predicting the most dire outcome and producing papers in support of that. Stuff comes out my nose laughing when I see GIGObuster embracing the idea that AGW has caused whatever political/religous strife he just posted above. We get stuff wrong. We get it wrong en masse. In particular we get very forward looking predictions badly wrong. Statistically/historically we’ll be badly wrong about how bad AGW will be, and we are already wrong about where it ranks as far as Troubles Facing Humanity. My main complaint is that more proximate problems that are less solvable are easily an order of magnitude greater than AGW. They just aren’t fun and they don’t have a solution. So, for example, our burgeoning third-world population as it comes online with development is going to push the earth to the brink of what it can support–and maybe beyond. Our proclivity for borrowing is going to bite us in the ass way before AGW does. The ecological catastrophe of supporting the future population dwarfs AGW. But no one has a reasonable solution, so you don’t get the high-and-mighty haughtiness of Great Cause Superiority 'Cuz I Know What To Do To Fix It discussing it. On the other hand, you can be an AGW Crusader and preach the Message with total fervor even if you can’t understand a single parameterization in the AOGCMs. That’s just too much Signficance to pass up, especially with religious faith fading. And you get to be BFFs with smart people. Another goodie. You get to say things like, “98% of Scientists agree with this science.” (And look at me; I am erudite enough to be with the Scientists!) (When the market starts shorting Florida beachfront, that’s when you’ll know AGW has become a prediction worth listening to. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/55 "2014-10-14T22:31:57Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > It is more intense in the areas where hurricanes… Are you referring to last year’s North Atlantic hurricane season, or this year’s? Or is that weather variation again, and only AGW when the ACE is higher than average? ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/56 "2014-10-14T22:35:48Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > My main complaint is that more proximate problems that are less solvable are easily an order of magnitude greater than AGW. They just aren’t fun and they don’t have a solution. So, for example, our burgeoning third-world population as it comes online with development is going to push the earth to the brink of what it can support–and maybe beyond. Our proclivity for borrowing is going to bite us in the ass way before AGW does. > > The ecological catastrophe of supporting the future population dwarfs AGW. A couple points: first, it sounds like you do believe some predictions, like the negative impacts of overpopulation, increased demand for resources by third-world countries, and unsustainable debt. So it’s specifically the predicted impacts of AGW that you don’t believe, not simply “we are almost never right with our predictions.” Is there something in the science that leads you to this opinion? Second, I agree with you that AGW is certainly not the only threat facing us, and the ones you list are indeed very severe. But this is a complex system and it’s not easy to separate causes. If a million people starve in a famine, is it because of overpopulation or because the changed climate reduced food production? Probably both. If the U.S. goes deeper into debt paying for damage from massive wildfires and hurricanes, is that a debt problem or climate problem? Again, it’s both. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/57 "2014-10-15T00:21:55Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Stuff comes out my nose laughing when I see GIGObuster embracing the idea that AGW has caused whatever political/religous strife he just posted above. > > We get stuff wrong. Why thank you for being the perfect example. 🙂 I said that it was a factor, not the cause, only that it is more likely that it was made worse thanks to AGW, **TroutMan** understood that perfectly, but if you want to insist on making caricatures of what others are saying and looking silly as a result, that is not my problem. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/58 "2014-10-15T00:25:27Z")
Look, I know I should had qualified some of those predicted eco-disasters as having some basis in fact. Yes CFCs caused the hole in the ozone layer. But there were doomsayers claiming that because of this almost the whole southern hemisphere of the Earth would be uninhabitable by now. And of course linking that to the fact that all the ‘first world’ govt powers are in the north so they didn’t care. I’m a smart guy. I excelled at math & science in school. As I got older I also (slowly) began to understand politics. Science & politics didn’t used to be nearly as in bed with each other as they are now. So much so that I can spot science based on political views (i.e. junk science) instantly. A scientist gave this good example of the current situation: _Let’s say you’re a graduate student and you want to study the endangerment of, say, the Peruvian Tree Squirrel (not real). If you write a paper for a scientific journal and merely entitle it “The extinction rate of the Peruvian Tree Squirrel” you not likely to get much interest (read- funding!) But, if instead you merely change the title to “Global Warming and its effect on the endangered Peruvian Tree Squirrel” you’re literally 1000 times more likely to get funding_. And I don’t care how many references someone wants to give, the idea that ‘97% of all scientists’ agree that global warming is a fact is ridiculous. Its merely skewed by the fact that the ones that doubt it don’t mention it for fear of ostracization. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/59 "2014-10-15T00:40:33Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Look, I know I should had qualified some of those predicted eco-disasters as having some basis in fact. Yes CFCs caused the hole in the ozone layer. But there were doomsayers claiming that because of this almost the whole southern hemisphere of the Earth would be uninhabitable by now. And of course linking that to the fact that all the ‘first world’ govt powers are in the north so they didn’t care. > > I’m a smart guy. I excelled at math & science in school. As I got older I also (slowly) began to understand politics. Science & politics didn’t used to be nearly as in bed with each other as they are now. So much so that I can spot science based on political views (i.e. junk science) instantly. A scientist gave this good example of the current situation: > > _Let’s say you’re a graduate student and you want to study the endangerment of, say, the Peruvian Tree Squirrel (not real). If you write a paper for a scientific journal and merely entitle it “The extinction rate of the Peruvian Tree Squirrel” you not likely to get much interest (read- funding!) But, if instead you merely change the title to “Global Warming and its effect on the endangered Peruvian Tree Squirrel” you’re literally 1000 times more likely to get funding_. So good that there is no source for it. :rolleyes: > [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > And I don’t care how many references someone wants to give, the idea that ‘97% of all scientists’ agree that global warming is a fact is ridiculous. Its merely skewed by the fact that the ones that doubt it don’t mention it for fear of ostracization. That is just conspiracy talk, in reality the critics are the ones that do not have good evidence for the clam that that 97% is “ridiculous” > **[Debunking 97% Climate Consensus Denial](https://skepticalscience.com/debunking-climate-consensus-denial.html)** > > Communicating the expert consensus is very important in terms of increasing public awareness of human-caused climate change and support for climate solutions.  Thus it's perhaps not surprising that Cook et al. (2013) and its 97% consensus result have... > [@](#): > > Confused Contrarians Think they are Included in the 97% > > There have been a number of contrarians claiming that they are part of the 97% consensus, which they believe is limited to the position that humans are causing some global warming. The first error in this argument is in ignoring the fact that the data collected in Cook et al. (2013) included categories that quantify the human contribution, as Andrew Montford and the GWPF recently did, for example. > > The second error has been made by individuals claiming they’re in the 97%, but failing to actually check the data. For example, Roy Spencer claimed in testimony to US Congress that he is included in the 97% consensus. Since we made all of our data available to the public, you can see our ratings of Spencer’s abstracts here. Five of his papers were captured in our literature search; we categorized four as ‘no opinion’ on the cause of global warming, and one as implicitly minimizing the human influence. Thus Spencer’s research was included in the fewer than 3 percent of papers that either rejected or minimized the human contribution to global warming. Bjorn Lomborg made a similar error, claiming: > > ``` > "Virtually everyone I know in the debate would automatically be included in the 97% (including me, but also many, much more skeptical)." > > ``` > > In reality Lomborg is included neither in the 97+% nor the less than 3% because as far as we can tell, he has not published any peer-reviewed climate research, and thus none of his writings were captured in our literature search. The 97% is a consensus of climate science experts, and that, Lomborg is not. > [@](#): > > Tol’s Rejected Comment > > Richard Tol has also advanced various criticisms of Cook et al. (2013). It’s worth noting that Tol does not dispute the existence of the consensus, writing: > > > [@](#): > > > > ``` > > "There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct." > > > > ``` > > Tol has nevertheless criticized the methods applied during the Cook et al. survey. For example, he has argued that the literature search should have been conducted with Scopus rather than the Web of Science in order to capture more papers, but also that fewer papers should have been included in the survey in order to focus on those specifically researching the causes of global warming. Tol has also applied various statistical tests comparing the abstract ratings to the author self-ratings, but these tests are invalid because the two phases of the survey considered different information (abstracts only vs. full papers) and are thus not comparable. > > In fact, when we released the self-rating data, we explicitly discussed the difference between the two datasets and how the difference was actually instructive. As John Cook wrote, > > > [@](#): > > > > ``` > > "That's not to say our ratings of abstracts exactly matched the self-ratings by the papers' authors. On the contrary, the two sets measure different things and not only are differences expected, they're instructive." > > > > ``` > > Ultimately Tol submitted his criticisms to Environmental Research Letters as a comment, but the submission was summarily rejected by the editor who described it as a speculative opinion piece that does not identify any clear errors that would call the paper’s conclusions into question. > > In short, the 97% consensus has passed peer-review, while Tol’s criticisms have not. Moreover, all of Tol’s criticisms only apply to the abstract ratings, while the self-ratings also found the same 97% consensus result, completely independent from the abstract ratings. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092/60 "2014-10-15T00:55:03Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > . > > And I don’t care how many references someone wants to give, the idea that ‘97% of all scientists’ agree that global warming is a fact is ridiculous. Its merely skewed by the fact that the ones that doubt it don’t mention it for fear of ostracization. As a practicing scientist, this is nonsense. Scientists who go outside of dogma without data get ostracized. Scientists who go outside of dogma with data get Nobel prizes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-global-warming-will-be-as-bad-as-people-say/701092.md?page=4)