I honestly do not know or do not care what the actual statistic is, but even by those numbers it is still a majority. Science needs skeptics on both sides, but this debate has become so divisive that it can skew everyone’s objectivity. My point I was trying to make again is that science is never going to be “definite” regarding our climate. I do not understand why everyone feels a need to pick sides as this is a totally black and white problem. I certainly agree that there are many factors that affect our climate other than AGW. My point is that we can only do something about the factors humans can control. Interpreting and then acting upon science is the hard part, and on that we obviously disagree. I just personally believe that based on the current evidence the risk/benefit ratio of doing nothing/doing something is skewed towards doing more than we are currently committing to. MichaelJ brought up the asteroid hitting earth for example. We do not know either our exact risk of asteroid strikes, but surely the risk/benefit ratio of doing something about an asteroid should be quite low, plus again most scientists agree there is probably not much we could do at this time to stop an asteroid. Now, surely if we found a large asteroid that looked as if there was good evidence it would strike earth within three years, then I bet most of us would agree we would do something about it, that risk:benefit ratio would go up tremendously. The odds of catastrophic affects from AGW are obviously somewhere between 0 to 100%, and I believe the current data we have more supports taking action versus inaction
By what numbers is it a majority? The whole point of the article I shared was that the 97% statistic is incorrect and misleading so we have no true idea what percentage of scientists believe AGW is the primary cause for it. Arguing a majority without any credible statistics is not the way to prove a point... not to mention the "majority consensus" argument does not actually prove it to be true either.
If you read my previous comments you will see I have no problem with things being done in a sustainable way to improve how our resources our used. At the same time MichaelJ has brought up some great points about the issues with switching to various alternative energy sources that are effective, efficient and cost effective for the average consumer.
Here's one possible alternative that explains the warming we've seen as an entirely natural process. It doesn't make it right as there are numerous views out there from skeptics but it shows that there is much we have to learn on this subject.
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Holmes, 2018 In short, there is unlikely to be any significant net warming from the greenhouse effect on any planetary body in the parts of atmospheres which are >10kPa. Instead, it is proposed that the residual temperature difference between the effective temperature and the measured near-surface temperature, is a thermal enhancement caused by gravitationally-induced adiabatic auto compression, powered by convection.
A new null hypothesis of global warming or climate change is therefore proposed and argued for; one which does not include any anomalous or net warming from greenhouse gases in the tropospheric atmospheres of any planetary body. … A decline of 6% in lower tropospheric tropical cloud cover (15°N–15°S) occurred 1984 – 2000 according to the international satellite cloud climatology project’s data [29]. These years are contained well with the 1975-2000 period of warming, and an observed 0.4°C rise in global temperatures occurred over the same period. Scatter diagrams [55] of low cloud cover vs global surface air temperatures indicate that a 1% fall in low clouds equates to a 0.07°C rise in surface air temperatures – hence this change in cloudiness accounts for the entire observed rise in global temperatures during the 1975-2000 period, leaving no room for any effect from growing greenhouse gases."
The effects of changes in the climate are poorly understood and not modeled well at all. Here's one example.
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Luo et al., 2018 Over the recent three decades sea surface temperate (SST) in the eastern equatorial Pacific has decreased, which helps reduce the rate of global warming. However, most CMIP5 model simulations with historical radiative forcing do not reproduce this Pacific La Niña-like cooling. Based on the assumption of “perfect” models, previous studies have suggested that errors in simulated internal climate variations and/or external radiative forcing may cause the discrepancy between the multi-model simulations and the observation….
Based on the total 126 realizations of the 38 CMIP5 model Historical simulations, the results show that none of the 126 model historical realizations reproduce the intensity of the observed eastern Pacific cooling (Fig. 1d) and only one simulation produces a weak cooling (−0.007 °C per decade)."
Another example citing the Greenland blocking that wasn't captured.
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Hanna et al., 2018 Recent changes in summer Greenland blocking captured by none of the CMIP5 models … Recent studies note a significant increase in high-pressure blocking over the Greenland region (Greenland Blocking Index, GBI) in summer since the 1990s. … We find that the recent summer GBI increase lies well outside the range of modeled past reconstructions (Historical scenario) and future GBI projections (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). The models consistently project a future decrease in GBI (linked to an increase in NAO), which highlights a likely key deficiency of current climate models if the recently-observed circulation changes continue to persist. Given well-established connections between atmospheric pressure over the Greenland region and air temperature and precipitation extremes downstream, e.g. over Northwest Europe,
this brings into question the accuracy of simulated North Atlantic jet stream changes and resulting climatological anomalies […] as well as of future projections of GrIS mass balance produced using global and regional climate models."
Computer models do not accurate capture what we are observing in real time in the Antarctic region.
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Roach et al., 2018 Consistent biases in Antarctic sea ice concentration simulated by climate models … The simulation of Antarctic sea ice in global climate models often does not agree with observations. [M]odels simulate too much loose, low-concentration sea ice cover throughout the year, and too little compact, high-concentration cover in the summer. [C]urrent sea ice thermodynamics contribute to the inadequate simulation of the low-concentration regime in many models."
These are just a few examples worth evaluation and consideration in the AGW debate/discussion. It's amazing to me how many people trust the predictions of these climate models yet computer models can't even accurately predict a SE snowstorm, hurricane intensity, El Nino/La Nina cycles years in advance or the evolution of the summer Greenland blocking observed in recent years.
