'bout that consensus

A good friend of this blog sends a link to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. Specifically, Senator Inhofe’s EPW Press Blog. Looking at recent peer-reviewed research, Senator Inhofe’s staff doesn't quite see the consensus that a certain former Vice President claims.

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."

The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming. In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

Deleterious Anthropogenic Warming of the Globe Posted by jk at August 31, 2007 10:44 AM