Anthropogenic. That’s a big word. According to the Mirriam-Webster dictionary, it is an adjective meaning: of, relating to, or resulting from the influence of human beings on nature.
Climate alarmists constantly tout that 97 percent of scientists believe in anthropogenic global warming.
It’s important to know where this figure originates. It’s from a report published in 2013 by John Cook. To create this report Cook and a team of 12 volunteers — climate activists, many with no training in science — reviewed 11,944 peer-reviewed papers related to climate change or global warming published between 1991 and 2011.
Cook’s paper said: “We analyzed a large sample of the scientific literature on global CC (climate change), published over a 21-year period, in order to determine the level of scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW).”
The paper concluded, “Among abstracts that expressed a position on AGW [anthropogenic global warming], 97.1 percent endorsed the scientific consensus. … Among papers expressing a position on AGW, an overwhelming percentage (97.2 percent based on self-ratings, 97.1 percent based on abstract ratings) endorses the scientific consensus on AGW.”
Cook and his volunteers may have been stretching the truth a little.
An article published on Oct. 28, 2021, by Gregory Wrightstone, Executive Director CO2 Coalition, took another look at the 11,944 papers and concluded that Cook’s report was false.
Wrightstone reported that 7,920, or 66.4 percent of the papers Cook’s volunteers reviewed had no opinion on AGW; 3,896 — 32.6 percent —were marked as agreeing we cause “some” warming; 64 — 0.5 percent — were marked as stating we caused “most” of the warming.
Further analysis shows only 41 — or 0.3 percent of the peer-reviewed papers Cook’s volunteers examined stated man caused most of the warming since 1950; zero, nada, zip, zilch, none of the articles talked about a catastrophe change— read the end of the world unless we stop using fossil fuels.
Another big word is agnotology. It’s a noun: the study of how ignorance arises via the circulation of misinformation calculated to mislead. This precisely describes Cook’s report.
Wrightstone’s report is not the only attempt to set the record straight.
More than 31,000 American scientists, including 9,029 holding PhDs, have signed the Oregon Petition, which disputes the notion of anthropogenic climate alarmism. The petition states, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that 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. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
Here is a quote from Wrightstone, “What is impossible to quantify is the actual percentage of warming that is attributable to increased anthropogenic (human-caused) CO2. There is no scientific evidence or method that can determine how much of the warming we’ve had since 1900 that was directly caused by us.
We know that temperature has varied greatly over the millennia. We also know that for virtually all of that time, global warming and cooling were driven entirely by natural forces, which did not cease to operate at the beginning of the 20th century.
The claim that most modern warming is attributable to human activities is scientifically insupportable. The truth is that we do not know. We need to be able to separate what we do know from that which is only conjecture.”
Promoters of man-man climate catastrophe tell us that our current temperature is “unusual and unprecedented.” That is also wrong.
You may be surprised to learn that scientists know that over the last 10,000 years, the Earth has had nine other warming periods, warmer than today. Three of these warming trends were two degrees Celsius warmer than today. In addition, more than 6,100 of the last 10,000 years, the temperature was warmer than today.
Guess what? The Earth survived the previous warming trends.
If you want to find out more or confirm this information, go to https://co2coalition.org/media/97-consensus-what-consensus-2/ to read Wrightstone’s full report and check his references.
