Science News article: ‘Case closed’: 99.9% of scientists agree climate emergency caused by humans

by Disillusioned JW 146 Replies latest social current

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  Disillusioned JW

  A news article has the headline of " ‘Case closed’: 99.9% of scientists agree climate emergency caused by humans"; see https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/19/case-closed-999-of-scientists-agree-climate-emergency-caused-by-humans . The article says in part the following.

  'The scientific consensus that humans are altering the climate has passed 99.9%, according to research that strengthens the case for global action at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.

  The degree of scientific certainty about the impact of greenhouse gases is now similar to the level of agreement on evolution and plate tectonics, the authors say, based on a survey of nearly 90,000 climate-related studies. This means there is practically no doubt among experts that burning fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, coal, peat and trees, is heating the planet and causing more extreme weather.

  A previous survey in 2013 showed 97% of studies published between 1991 and 2012 supported the idea that human activities are altering Earth’s climate.

  This has been updated and expanded by the study by Cornell University that shows the tiny minority of sceptical voices has diminished to almost nothing as evidence mounts of the link between fossil-fuel burning and climate disruption.

  The latest survey of peer-reviewed literature published from 2012 to November 2020 was conducted in two stages. First, the researchers examined a random sample of 3,000 studies, in which they found only found four papers that were sceptical that the climate crisis was caused by humans. Second, they searched the full database of 88,125 studies for keywords linked to climate scepticism such as “natural cycles” and “cosmic rays”, which yielded 28 papers, all published in minor journals.

  The authors said their study, published on Tuesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, showed scepticism among experts is now vanishingly small.

  “It is really case closed. There is nobody of significance in the scientific community who doubts human-caused climate change,” said the lead author, Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at Cornell University.

  This echoed the view expressed in August by the world’s leading scientific body, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”

  The general public does not yet understand how certain experts are, nor is it reflected in political debate. This is especially true in the US, where fossil fuel companies have funded a disinformation campaign that falsely suggests the science is not yet settled, similar to the campaign by tobacco industries to cast doubt on the link between smoking and cancer. '
  
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  Anony Mous

  The article is misleading, 99.9% of scientists agree that climate change is a thing. Not nearly all of them agree humans are causing it and most of them don’t agree that this is a huge ends-of-the-world thing.

  Given that modern computers can search through the entire compendium of research papers, just selecting 3000 of them seems a bit of a sampling bias and it is likely they came to their results through P-hacking.
  

  The IPCC is a body that (actually) reads 14,000 papers annually to come to their conclusions (this study only picks some keywords to do their “analysis”).

  If you read the full IPCC report (and not just the media interpretation) they conclude that global warming can be stabilized, they peg it at ~2C over pre-industrial levels with moderate interventions and they also conclude the current 1C can not be reduced and only be stopped if we stopped emitting completely today, if we took severe action, we’re still looking at 1.5C. If we continued growing in emitting at current rates (which is unlikely) then the worst case scenario is 4C. They also have some comments on the socio-economic impacts of each of the solutions and basically we will have to learn to live with 2C if we want to be realistic.
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  joey jojo

  Charts that track CO2 show clearly a rise in levels since the 1950's. This corresponds to post war development, commercial airlines etc. CO2 levels are the highest they have been in 3 million years according ti a cnn report today.

  This rapid change is not normal, or natural. The only question is how bad the effects will be to the planet and life.

  If it does drive extreme weather events, it could become a sovereign risk to some countries before long due to the high costs of management.
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  Doctor Who

  And for 99.99999 % of the Earth's history, climate change had nothing to do with humans.
  All the millions of climates shifts the earth has had were caused by natural events and natural variation.
  Except for the current one.

  Humans seemed to have assumed divine providence over the last 100 years.
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  Simon

  Charts that track CO2 show clearly a rise in levels since the 1950's

  If you measure temperature starting in Spring, it tells you that you are going to burn up. It matters how long you measure over, the trouble is we think "since the 1950's is a long time", which it is, to an individual. But it's not long in geological time.

  https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2013.0096

  The real question is how much of the CO2 rise is man made (seriously, read up on how much a volcano can put out). And is the bit we contribute going to be catastrophic, or just result in increased vegetation.
  
  
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  Simon

  If it does drive extreme weather events, it could become a sovereign risk to some countries before long due to the high costs of management.

  Q: Weren't the Maldives supposed to be underwater by now? How do the models explain that they have a larger surface area than ever before?
  
  
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  joey jojo

  The hard part is knowing exactly what will occur because climate is a chaotic system. If a volcano spews co2, this will add a blip to the chart for sure, but it wouldnt equate to a steady rise in co2 over decades, which is what has happened.

  50 years is nothing in geological time, which, to me makes it all the more alarming if it is indeed human activity that has driven the increase. Even if humans are 50% to blame, thats still way out of the ordinary and something that should concern us.
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  Chezdale

  There are many, many volcanoes spewing tons of CO2 and some for a while...

  just saying!

  https://watchers.news/category/volcanoes/
  
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  Anony Mous

  @joey: The question is not whether it happened, the question is what to do about it.

  The other question is whether it matters all that much, weather is not getting more extreme, it’s getting better. A lot less people are dying from extreme weather events, we can survive heat waves much better than we can cold waves.

  But as a result of the improving climate more people are building in tornado alleys and flood plains more often. California wildfires have been preventable for hundreds of years by native Americans, only in the last few decades do we see an uptick, after their electorate decided it wasn’t environmentally friendly to cut trees around power poles and do controlled burns.

  We will eventually run out of oil, but we will run out of rare earth minerals used in solar panels and wind turbines and electric motors first.
  

  There is a solution: deregulate nuclear energy, the entire energy sector and deregulate the shipping/transportation industry. You will instantly create opportunity for the market to find a better solution.
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  joey jojo

  I have come to expect thumbs down on whatever topic it is I post on these days on this forum. Im pretty sure I know who never agrees with me but they will remain 'anonymous' .

  I dont think I deserved 2 thumbs down for simply commenting about a co2 chart, and then trying to comment in a respectful, non-alarmist way about climate change. But some people have their mind made up I guess.

  Just to raise a point you made Anonymous, heat waves have killed more Australians since 1890 than almost any other natural disaster, so , no, life isnt necessarily better because the world is getting hotter.

  Because covid took over the news, maybe some people have forgotten about our 2019- 20 bushfires, which was our worst bushfire year on record. It only cost the lives of 500 million animals- Im sure they'll bounce right back and enjoy life in a progressively hotter world.