Climate Change

A scientific consensus is defined, thus...

Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the scientific method. Nevertheless, consensus may be based on both scientific arguments and the scientific method.

*Aside* And seriously...you aren't really trying to cite an internet petition as a credible rebuttal to the idea of a scientific consensus regarding anthropomorphic climate change, are you? LOL.

Your letter really doesn't mean much, anyway, since (as usual) it doesn't come from anyone working in the field of climatology. Frederick Seitz was a physicist, not a climatologist, and he really should have known better (he's dead, now) than to comment too stidently about subjects in which he was not an expert.

Let's try a source that is actually current and properly peer reviewed.

Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions...Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature. In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise."

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling.

That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change".

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect. (LINK)

You might also want to go here, to see the overwhelming support of the consensus which you contend does not exist by virtually every major association of professional scientists working in the relevant fields of study. This list includes the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the InterAcademy Council, the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences, the Network of African Science Academies, the Royal Society of New Zealand, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the European Science Foundation, the National Research Council (US), the American Geophysical Union, the European Federation of Geologists, the European Geosciences Union, the Geological Society of America, the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London, the American Meteorological Society, the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, the Royal Meteorological Society (UK), the World Meteorological Organization, the American Quaternary Association, the International Union for Quaternary Research, the American Astronomical Society, the American Institute of Physics, as well as the National Science Acadamies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, the Caribbean, China, France, Ghana, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, India, Japan, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, New Zealand, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Sweden, Tanzania, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe (pluse a dozen or so other respected scientific organizations that are not directly related to the field, but whose specialities are close enough to warrant consideration).

No consensus? Please...

So, unless you have a source with at least some equivalence in credibility, please spare us your conspiracy theory laden misrepresentation of the facts that are clearly laid out in the scientific literature. Don't go looking for petitions, books and websites that aggree with you. If you want to be taken seriously, then you need to address the actual contents of the peer reviewed literature. Unfortunately, for you, that body of information does not reflect the politically-motivated position that you espouse.

TTFN,
Blackout
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A question of love.
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Check out Progressive PRIDE, a Gay-Straight Alliance for the Progressive U community.

I also invite you to check out some of Darwins Beagle's blog entries on the topic. He did quite a bit of research and went into quite a bit of detail about AGW.