Sorry I jumped down your throat but you managed to push a large number
of my hot buttons in a few sentences.
Since you managed to dredge up the 99% myth ("The community is
divided... like about 99:1") I thought you might like to know where this
number originated. The actual number that's quoted in the popular press
is (to be precise) 97% of (usually, climate scientists) agree with
(whatever point argued from authority the writer wants to make). There
have been several studies that have surveyed the public and scientists
over their beliefs about climate change. They've all been roundly
criticized as to survey methodology and questions asked. This particular
and most recent one is called the "Doran Survey". It was a survey
conducted by Margaret Zimmerman (for her MSc thesis at U of Illinois,
Chicago) and was based on a questionnaire originally created by Dr.
Peter Doran for his introductory geology class. This survey's results
also make mention of prior studies and some of the problems and
controversy surrounding them. If you'd like to read the actual survey
results yourself you can find it here as a 141 page PDF file. $2 to
download from:
<http://www.lulu.com/shop/m-r-k-zimmerman/the-consensus-on-the-consensus/ebook/product-17391505.html>
141 pages might sound a bit daunting but it's all double spaced, the
survey is only 9 questions (of which only the first 2 plus demographic
data are critically important to the 97% quote) and much of the paper is
composed of references and appendices. The appendices are write-in
comments related to questions 3a and 4. So it's not unreasonable to
download and read it yourself.
The survey design was to query "academics, or those associated with
college and university programs in the geoscience field in 2007." with a
reduced and improved question set that would learn from the mistakes of
earlier such surveys. The plan was to send approx. 10,000 surveys with
the hopes of getting 1,000 returns. Actual returns were 3,146 with
about 90% of those from the US, 6% from Canada and 4% from the rest of
the world. Clearly short of the world-wide distribution of scientists.
From a skeptic's perspective the first 2 questions seem a bit odd.
Q1: “When compared with pre-1800’s levels, do you think that mean global
temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?”
Q2: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in
changing mean global temperatures?”
The first question is a bit odd since I don't personally know of any
skeptic who would have answered other than "generally risen". Yet only
92% of the full surveyed population of geoscientists even agreed that
the temperature has "generally risen". (bar chart, page 25) Only 82%
said they thought human activity was a significant factor in raising
global temperatures. The skeptics I know would all agree that human
activity has raised global temperature but would quibble (as did many of
the survey participants in the comments) over the question of the
meaning of "significant". (bar chart, page 26)
So, where does the 97% figure come from. Apparently Zimmerman wasn't
happy enough with 92% and 82% answers so she continues on to subdivide
the population of geoscientists into smaller and smaller groups based on
their answers to demographic questions. On page 45 she asks those who
are meterologists if they believe humans are making a significant
contribution to warming. Whoops! Only 64% of meterologists believe
that. The numbers are going the wrong way. So, on page 47 we get to the
144 of 3,146 respondents who self-identify as climate scientists. Ah,
the numbers are better. 87% of the climate scientists agree that man is
having a significant effect. But then she cuts it further by selecting
only those self-identified climate scientists whom she considers "active
researchers"... those who have more than 50% of their peer-reviewed
papers of the past 5 years dealing with climate science. Now it's down
to 79 out of 3,146 geoscience practitioners but now we have the right
number. On page 48 we discover that 97% of them agree that humans are
having a significant effect on global temperature.
So there you have it. Now you know why "The community is divided...
like about 99:1" Now you know who the "community" is and that it's
really 97:3.
BTW, here's a list of over 1100 *peer reviewed* articles in the
scientific literature that do *not support* the consensus science
position on climate change.
<http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html>
I just now picked one at random. Try this one on for size: In Nature:
"Absence of evidence for greenhouse warming over the Arctic Ocean in the
past 40 years"
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v361/n6410/abs/361335a0.html>
Chuck Norcutt
On 12/6/2012 2:31 PM, Mike Lazzari wrote:
>> I think that there is confusion in the general population...
> Chuck, I referring to the "general population" Sorry if you took it
> personally.
>
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