daveman
Diamond Member
From last year:
Global Warming: A 98% Consensus Of Nothing
Global Warming: A 98% Consensus Of Nothing
During last nights Republican presidential debate, Jon Huntsman doubled down on Al Gorism, claiming skeptics of global climate disruption (thats the White Houses term) are making comments that fly in the face of what 98 out of 100 climate scientists have said. Just as moderator John Harris of Politico asked Rick Perry to name some of the scientists he agrees with, Harris should have asked Huntsman just what the 98 out of 100 climate scientists believe.
In the survey to which Huntsman alluded, scientists were invited to participate in a two-question online survey. Despite what Huntsman said, not even 100 climate scientists chose to participate. The two questions were simple: 1. Have global temperatures risen during the past 200 years? and 2. Are humans a significant contributing factor to this?
Forgetting for the moment that only shameless activists or the most statistically and scientifically ignorant of persons would claim that a survey sample of only 77 scientists volunteering to participate in a survey is indicative of what the entire climate science community believes, the questions and answers themselves tell us nothing.
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Regarding the second question, is human activity a significant contributing factor? Notice how the question did not say sole factor, majority factor, or even primary contributing factor. Rather, the term is merely significant contributing factor. More precisely, if human activity is not a significant contributing factor then it must be an insignificant contributing factor. What is the threshold between significant and insignificant? Five percent? Ten Percent? The threshold of insignificance is certainly no higher than that.
So, are humans responsible for at least 10 percent or so of recent global warming? In other words, are humans responsible for roughly and merely 0.06 degrees Celsius of warming during the past century? Most global warming skeptics certainly believe that!
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From the assertion that humans may have caused roughly 0.06 degrees of warming during the past century, it does not necessarily follow, as Huntsman and his fellow alarmists would have us believe, that humans are creating a global warming crisis. Nor does it necessarily follow that we must wreck our economy to fight it. I suspect that even the most sensitive of plant and animal species will not notice a 0.06 degree increase in temperature, especially when such a miniscule temperature increase is spread out over the course of a century.
So then, just what do 98 out of 100 climate scientists believe? Nothing of significance, unless you like to misrepresent meaningless surveys to score cheap political points.
In the survey to which Huntsman alluded, scientists were invited to participate in a two-question online survey. Despite what Huntsman said, not even 100 climate scientists chose to participate. The two questions were simple: 1. Have global temperatures risen during the past 200 years? and 2. Are humans a significant contributing factor to this?
Forgetting for the moment that only shameless activists or the most statistically and scientifically ignorant of persons would claim that a survey sample of only 77 scientists volunteering to participate in a survey is indicative of what the entire climate science community believes, the questions and answers themselves tell us nothing.
--
Regarding the second question, is human activity a significant contributing factor? Notice how the question did not say sole factor, majority factor, or even primary contributing factor. Rather, the term is merely significant contributing factor. More precisely, if human activity is not a significant contributing factor then it must be an insignificant contributing factor. What is the threshold between significant and insignificant? Five percent? Ten Percent? The threshold of insignificance is certainly no higher than that.
So, are humans responsible for at least 10 percent or so of recent global warming? In other words, are humans responsible for roughly and merely 0.06 degrees Celsius of warming during the past century? Most global warming skeptics certainly believe that!
--
From the assertion that humans may have caused roughly 0.06 degrees of warming during the past century, it does not necessarily follow, as Huntsman and his fellow alarmists would have us believe, that humans are creating a global warming crisis. Nor does it necessarily follow that we must wreck our economy to fight it. I suspect that even the most sensitive of plant and animal species will not notice a 0.06 degree increase in temperature, especially when such a miniscule temperature increase is spread out over the course of a century.
So then, just what do 98 out of 100 climate scientists believe? Nothing of significance, unless you like to misrepresent meaningless surveys to score cheap political points.
