We have consensus...most scientists think AGW is not true.

[westwall]

In the peer reviewed study it seems that the majority of scientists DON'T agree with the climatologists....go figure.

This paper examines the framings and identity work associated with professionals’ discursive construction of climate change science, their legitimation of themselves as experts on ‘the truth’, and their attitudes towards regulatory measures. Drawing from survey responses of 1077 professional engineers and geoscientists, we reconstruct their framings of the issue and knowledge claims to position themselves within their organizational and their professional institutions. In understanding the struggle over what constitutes and legitimizes expertise, we make apparent the heterogeneity of claims, legitimation strategies, and use of emotionality and metaphor. By linking notions of the science or science fiction of climate change to the assessment of the adequacy of global and local policies and of potential organizational responses, we contribute to the understanding of ‘defensive institutional work’ by professionals within petroleum companies, related industries, government regulators, and their professional association.




Science or Science Fiction? Professionals? Discursive Construction of Climate Change

 

[S.J.]

Next to our current president, Global Warming is indeed the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.

 

[Old Rocks]

In the peer reviewed study it seems that the majority of scientists DON'T agree with the climatologists....go figure.

This paper examines the framings and identity work associated with professionals’ discursive construction of climate change science, their legitimation of themselves as experts on ‘the truth’, and their attitudes towards regulatory measures. Drawing from survey responses of 1077 professional engineers and geoscientists, we reconstruct their framings of the issue and knowledge claims to position themselves within their organizational and their professional institutions. In understanding the struggle over what constitutes and legitimizes expertise, we make apparent the heterogeneity of claims, legitimation strategies, and use of emotionality and metaphor. By linking notions of the science or science fiction of climate change to the assessment of the adequacy of global and local policies and of potential organizational responses, we contribute to the understanding of ‘defensive institutional work’ by professionals within petroleum companies, related industries, government regulators, and their professional association.




Science or Science Fiction? Professionals? Discursive Construction of Climate Change

Interesting, in that is not what was stated at all. Here is a paragraph from the conclusion of that paper. Ever learn anything about reading scientific paper, Walleyes?

Science or Science Fiction? Professionals? Discursive Construction of Climate Change

Yet this dissension, declining public interest, and political intransigence may be immaterial. A potential, yet so far unused discursive opportunity to ‘broker’ between pro-regulation frames and ‘economic responsibility’ may lie in a more comprehensive (i.e., including financial) understanding of risk (Hoffman, 2011b). Nagel (2011) discusses how the insurance and reinsurance industry is supremely concerned about exposure to financial risks associated with extreme weather events. The US military is concerned about security risks associated with ‘population displacements, increased potential for failed states and terrorism, potential escalation of conflicts over resources’ (Nagel, 2011, p. 206). Risk management is of fundamental concern to all – including energy – companies, insurance and finance industries, military and other government agencies. Professional engineers and geoscientists (and lawyers, accountants, corporate officers, etc.) are in the business of managing risk. Indeed, engineers have recognized these risks, been working behind the scenes, and revised the Canadian Building Codes to adapt to the changing climate. As our analysis of the different storylines shows, reframing climate change as a risk to be managed – as has been promoted by the IPCC in their recent report (IPCC, 2011) – has the discursive potential to provide a bridge (Snow et al., 1986) to integrate various frames (except ‘fatalists’ who seem generally apathetic) and inject a legitimate diagnosis, established prognoses, identity scripts, and motivational consensus. Financial risks would resonate with ‘economic responsibility’ adherents, environmental risks with ‘comply with Kyoto’ and ‘regulation activists’, regulatory risks with all anti-regulationists, and risks of contamination could resonate with ‘nature is overwhelming’. By using a common enemy – risk – an interest-based discourse coalition (Gray & Stites, 2011; Hoffman, 2011b; Nagel, 2011) may be formed that has the potential to overcome the defensiveness. It would seem that ‘regulation activists’ (they have the highest action mobilization, recommending more actions than any other frame) could forward this. However, as Knox-Hayes and Levy (2011) point out for carbon disclosure, it remains open whether such a ‘win-win’ framing would also provide a viable business model to gain stabilization and, more fundamentally, what effect such a privileging of an economic rationality would have on the overall debate and the power positions of the various types of experts involved.

 

[TheOldSchool]

Ever learn anything about reading scientific paper, Walleyes?[/B]

Asking someone on the right questions about scientific papers is like asking Marco Rubio about speech etiquette.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

In the peer reviewed study it seems that the majority...

con·sen·sus
/kənˈsensəs/
Noun
General agreement.
Synonyms
accord - agreement - unanimity

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I heard that idiot, the Lily White Queen of the Carolinas, Lindsey Graham attempt use of the term consensus too, when he obviously was speaking of a majority opinion that fell short of a consensus.

 

[SSDD]

Interesting, in that is not what was stated at all. Here is a paragraph from the conclusion of that paper. Ever learn anything about reading scientific paper, Walleyes?

The issue is AGW rocks, not global warming, and not climate change. The issue never has been about whether or not the climate is changing at any given point in time as it is, has always, and will always be changing...and certainly not whether insurance companies who stand to make a mint via increased rates believe or not...the issue is whether man is causing the change and the paper shows very convincingly that most scientists don't think that we are the cause....further it shows that the number of peer reviewed papers stating that man is the cause has dropped sharply as is evidenced by the number of peer reviewed papers being published that don't agree with the mythical consensus view.

The proportion of papers found in the ISI Web of Science database that explicitly endorsed anthropogenic climate change has fallen from 75% (for the period between 1993 and 2003) as of 2004 to 45% from 2004 to 2008, while outright disagreement has risen from 0% to 6% (Oreskes, 2004; Schulte, 2008).

And that was as of 2008. The number of papers explicitly endorsing ACC is even less today and outright disagreement is through the roof.

 

[Old Rocks]

Home Page

As discussed in detail here, I searched the Web of Science for peer-reviewed scientific articles published between 1 January 1991 and 9 November 2012 that had the keyword phrases "global warming" or "global climate change." The search produced 13,950 articles. See methodology.

By my definition 24 of the 13,950 articles, 0.17% or 1 in 581, clearly reject global warming or endorse a cause other than CO2 emissions for observed warming. The articles have a total of 33,690 individual authors (rounded to 33,700 in the figure). The 24 rejecting papers have a total of 34 authors, about 1 in 1,000.

What can we conclude from this study?
1. In the scientific literature, global warming denial is missing in action.
2. The authors of the rejecting papers tend not to agree with, or even to cite, each other's work.
3. Other than the authors themselves, only a handful of other scientists cite the few rejecting articles. Those who do cite the rejecting articles do not themselves reject human-caused global warming.
4. Thus the rejecting authors have no alternative theory to explain the observed warming. They do not even agree among themselves. A bandwagon this is not.
5. The vast majority of climate scientists accept the theory that human emissions of greenhouse gases are causing the observed global warming. Here is how I arrive at this deduction.


When a scientific theory is first proposed, scientists often go out of their way to state explicitly that they reject it, or that they accept it. This was the case with continental drift in the 1920s, with plate tectonics in the 1960s, and with the Alvarez theory of dinosaur extinction in the 1980s. One reading the literature in these fields can usually tell from the title of an article alone whether an author rejects the new theory. But after a theory achieves maturity and becomes the ruling paradigm, scientists no longer see any point in stating explicitly that they accept the now-no-longer-new theory. They take it as a given, often as an observational fact—like the measured movement of tectonic plates and the measured global temperature rise. To go to the trouble of an explicit endorsement of the ruling theory would have the counter-effect of suggesting that the theory needs reinforcement. My literature survey shows that global warming has achieved the status of the ruling paradigm of climate science. Thus it is reasonable to assume that those who today reject human-caused global warming would make it clear that they do so, while those who accept it would not feel the need to say so explicitly. As a practical matter, virtually all of the global warming papers that Oreskes and I separately reviewed can be classified as about effects, mitigation, adaptation, methods of detecting, climate modeling, and paleoclimatology. Authors of these papers would hardly be likely to deny the existence of the very thing they are writing about. It is theoretically possible that a paper on paleoclimatology could be the exception, dealing with the lack of evidence for CO2-driven global warming in the geologic past, say, leading the author to question the seriousness of modern, human-caused global warming, but I did not find such papers. What we know for a fact is that among the authors of peer-reviewed articles, only a tiny fraction, which I estimate as about 1 author in 1,000, rejects human-caused global warming. In my opinion, based on my understanding of the history of science, it is reasonable to conclude that the vast majority of publishing climate scientists accept that human activities are causing the Earth to warm. Polls of scientists reinforce this conclusion, but polls are no substitute for the primary, peer-reviewed literature, the ground truth of science.

1 in 1000. About right.

 

[Old Rocks]

The Pie-Chart

 

[Isotope]

In addition to what Old Rocks said, I'd like to emphasize something from the paragraph he selected.

"Nagel (2011) discusses how the insurance and reinsurance industry is supremely concerned about exposure to financial risks associated with extreme weather events. The US military is concerned about security risks associated with ‘population displacements, increased potential for failed states and terrorism, potential escalation of conflicts over resources’ (Nagel, 2011, p. 206)."

It even continues on to say that Canada has revised its building codes in light of climate change. Regardless, I find it supremely interesting that the insurance industry is refraining from covering weather events due to their severity and frequency. Losing billions of dollars annually is no way to run a business, and super storm Sandy has made that apparent.

It seems as if even the conservatives' ideal free market has decided that climate change is happening because now they're losing money. In my mind, that is enough to put this facile argument to rest. One or two bought off scientists will not stop the rest from coming to a conclusion; one or two bought off politicians though . . .

Just Google "climate change affects insurance industry" if you want some good reading.

 

[Saigon]

The Wailing Wall has gone very, very silent.

And yet he'll be back next week to repeat the same myths all over again.

 

[rdean]

6% of scientists are Republican. Most of them don't believe in either climate change or evolution. It's partly the reason they have no "discoveries".

 

[Saigon]

6% of scientists are Republican. Most of them don't believe in either climate change or evolution. It's partly the reason they have no "discoveries".

I don't see what difference that makes.

I dare say 95% of scientists are more interested in science than politics, and there will only be a free small percentage of scientists who would be willing to falsify or twist research to find a particular pre-established result.

It seems very popular for right-wing posters here to pretend research findings are linked to funding, but it's a theory that makes very little sense. In Europe it's also largely impossible.

 

[S.J.]

6% of scientists are Republican. Most of them don't believe in either climate change or evolution. It's partly the reason they have no "discoveries".

I don't see what difference that makes.

I dare say 95% of scientists are more interested in science than politics, and there will only be a free small percentage of scientists who would be willing to falsify or twist research to find a particular pre-established result.

It seems very popular for right-wing posters here to pretend research findings are linked to funding, but it's a theory that makes very little sense. In Europe it's also largely impossible.

The ones who are pushing the global warming agenda are the ones who were caught falsifying evidence to the contrary.

 

[Saigon]

S.J -

Again, that simply makes no sense at all. I don't think you need me to tell you that there is absolutely no basis to that claim whatsoever - which is why you don't make any attempt to present it as a theory in any detail.

Every major scientific organisation backs climate change science, as do oil companies and conservative politicians around the world - none of who have ever "falsified" anything.

 

[S.J.]

S.J -

Again, that simply makes no sense at all. I don't think you need me to tell you that there is absolutely no basis to that claim whatsoever - which is why you don't make any attempt to present it as a theory in any detail.

Every major scientific organisation backs climate change science, as do oil companies and conservative politicians around the world - none of who have ever "falsified" anything.

No sense? I'll have to disagree.
Warming Advocate Lied To Get Documents From Think Tank, But Did He Falsify Them To Bolster Alarmists' Claims? - Investors.com

 

[Saigon]

S.J -

Then present a case, by all means.

It's a nonsense with absolutely no basis in reality, and I am sure you realise that yourself.

Don't forget to explain WHY conservative parties, oil companies and automotive manfacturers have backed this agenda, and where they falsified science.


investors.com?!

 

[S.J.]

S.J -

Then present a case, by all means.

It's a nonsense with absolutely no basis in reality, and I am sure you realise that yourself.

Don't forget to explain WHY conservative parties, oil companies and automotive manfacturers have backed this agenda, and where they falsified science.


investors.com?!

I'm not gonna spend a lot of time and energy to "present a case" to you. I just pointed out that the so-called scientific community you praise have been caught hiding evidence that debunks the global warming claim. Accept it or deny it, I don't care if you wanna keep your head buried in the sand (or somewhere else).

 

[Saigon]

I'm not gonna spend a lot of time and energy to "present a case" to you.

Of course you aren't - your claim is nonsense and you know that it's nonsense.

In an age where every major scientific organisation, virtually every major conservative party, and even the likes of automotive and oil companies accept climate change science, the only people left denying it are ill-informed nutcases for whom politics is far more important that science.

 

[S.J.]

virtually every major conservative party, and even the likes of automotive and oil companies accept climate change science

That's bullshit and you know it.