Global warming is a political agenda, not a scientific problem

Global warming is a political agenda, not a scientific problem

We continue to hear that 97 percent of scientists believe global warming is a crisis and is being caused by man. That’s simply not true.

The 97 percent value came from a 2009 online survey conducted by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman from the University of Illinois. The survey was sent to 10,257 scientists – 3,146 scientists responded to the survey. There were nine questions in all but the two primary questions in the survey were:

1) When compared to pre-1800 levels, do you think mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?

2) Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

The results of the survey were, as is typical, all over the place, but the surveyors apparently wanted higher numbers so they broke the responses into groups based on the background of the responder.

The 97 percent number came from whittling down the number of responses from 3,146 to 79 who indicated they had recently published 50 percent of their papers in the area of climate change. Of these, 76 of the 79 answered “risen” to question 1 (96.2 percent) and 75 of 77 answered “yes” (97.4 percent) to question 2. The rest of the 3,146 responses were discarded and the survey reported that 97 percent of scientists are convinced that global temperatures have risen and that man is a significant contributing factor. This is not just bad science; it’s dishonest science and lazy/dishonest reporting.

In reality, most scientists believe AGW is not a problem. 31,487 scientists (including 9,029 with PhDs) have signed The Global Warming Petition Project, which states: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that the human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”

A survey in peer-reviewed Organization Studies indicated only 36 percent of 1,077 geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis. A strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

Results of a Scientific American survey indicated more than three-fourths (77.7 percent) of the approximately 7,000 responders said natural processes are causing climate change and almost a third (31.9 percent) blame solar variation. Only 26.6 percent believe man is the cause.

Yet another survey published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society reports that only one in four American Meteorological Society broadcast meteorologists agrees with United Nations’ claims that humans are primarily responsible for recent global warming.

Lastly, results from a recent Harvard Public Opinion Project indicate that 55 percent of survey participants agreed with the statement, “Global warming is a proven fact and is mostly caused by emissions from cars and industrial facilities such as power plants.” 20 percent held the belief that “Global warming is a proven fact, and is mostly caused by natural changes that have nothing to do with emissions from cars,” and the remaining 23 percent who answered the question believe that “Global warming is a theory that has not been proven yet.”

Whatever the exact numbers, they are not even close to 97 percent. The 97 percent number is a purposely-fabricated lie. The sky is not falling. AGW is a political agenda, not a scientific problem.