The 97 Percent ‘Consensus’ & the rejection of the National Climate Assessment

Two weeks ago, when President Obama and his administration unveiled the third U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA), White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reminded Americans about the 97 percent of scientists who have purportedly formed a consensus on man-made climate change.

John Cook, a global warming alarmist, last year published a paper with other global warming alarmists “claiming to have reviewed nearly 12,000 abstracts of studies published in the peer-reviewed climate literature. Cook reported that he and his colleagues found that 97 percent of the papers that expressed a position on human-caused global warming ‘endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.’”

Yet, according to Forbes contributor James Taylor, the question being surveyed in this review was nothing more than whether humans played any role in global warming. Cook’s review was neither a survey on the severity of human-caused global warming, nor a study of policy prescriptions.

Cook’s scientific consensus study has been widely misrepresented and heavily guarded.

Most skeptics and alarmists agree that humans play some role in climate change. But, many of the alarmists, including President Obama and his Democratic colleagues in Congress, have shamed skeptics for questioning the severity of human-caused climate change, and have pushed for public policy prescriptions that would harm the economy without significantly altering climate model forecasts.

Fortunately, for those who value intellectual debate on complex topics, a group of independent scientists has singled out and rejected five major claims, or Lines of Evidence (LoE), used in the National Climate Assessment.

Here are those five claims:

1) Human influences (carbon emissions) are the primary driver of recent climate change.

2) Global surface temperatures over the last few decades are unusual. The last decade (2000-2009) was warmer than any time in the last 1,300 years.

3) Climate models forecast rising temperatures.

4) Global temperatures are on the rise and are expected to rise further.

5) Hurricanes have increased in strength, duration, and intensity since the early 1980s. Extreme wetness and extreme dryness are likely to increase.

Each of these claims is debunked in this report.

The debate over anthropogenic climate change has not been settled, as President Obama has claimed on countless occasions. In fact, there are over 31,000 U.S. scientists who have signed a petition stating that climate change science is not settled.

Left-wing policy makers and activists are urging immediate action on climate change. That group of over 31,000 U.S. scientists likely thinks that’s very unwise.