11 Oct Nine Minutes of Video Exposes the 97% Lie
For the many Americans who have limited time to really dig in to the facts and data behind the ‘climate change’ debate, it’s worth about nine minutes of your time to watch this exchange between Aaron Mair, President of the Sierra Club, and US Senator Ted Cruz.
Mr. Mair comes across as a nervous and ill-informed man, embarrassingly unprepared to answer basic questions using substantive information and knowledge.
When obviously stumped by core questions relating to the undeniable fact that satellite data have measured no appreciable global warming for over 18 years, Mr. Mair flails and turns to his staff for answers. He then parrots—and we mean ‘parrots’, in the sense of mindless repetition—variations of the mantra that ‘97% of scientists…believe the anthropogenic impact of mankind with regards to global warming are true.’
Mr. Mair is probably a nice man. He probably genuinely cares about the environment, and our guess is that he is honestly scared to death that earth might boil over into massive human catastrophe if something isn’t done! But the inexcusable result of his ignorance and fear is that he trumpets to the US Senate and to the waiting propagandists of the MSM the completely discredited and dishonest “97%” baloney. Innocent, well-meaning people are misled into believing it and surrendering to it—or more accurately, are bullied into surrendering their freedom to an all-knowing government that must have total control over their lives in order to prevent this catastrophe.
Bunk.
We’ll give you the bullet point summary of why the 97% meme is discredited and dishonest baloney, and you can follow the links to get the details yourself.
- A 2013 press release that touted the “97% consensus” concept, and received a lot of attention from the media, stated that research led by John Cook at the University of Queensland was based on a review of 11,944 climate-related research papers published over 20+ years. So…common sense would suggest that 97% of these papers, or 11,586, confirmed the consensus. Right?
- Not even close. The very text of the 2013 press release states that 66.4% of the papers, or 7,931 of the 11,944 papers, stated no position on man-made global warming. Feeling confused and misled yet?
- So where did the 97% number come from? Well, on the surface, it seems to apply to the 32.6% of the papers that ‘endorsed’ man-made global warming theories.
- But even that figure is bogus. Because the trick is: what does it mean to say ‘endorsed’?
- Detailed analysis showed that three different levels of ‘endorsement’ were assigned to the various papers. “Level 1” meant that the paper could reasonably be said to affirm that most of the warming on earth that is said to have occurred since 1950 was caused by man’s activities. Levels 2 and 3 were less than ‘most’; essentially, they were positions indicating man’s activities may have something to do with warming, but without conviction or consensus as to how much of the warming was due to such activities (and, impliedly, without conviction or consensus as to how much difference in the climate would result from changing such activities).
- So…how many of the 11,944 research papers affirmatively concluded that most of the warming on earth that may have occurred since 1950 was attributable to man’s activities? Sixty-four.
- When all 64 of those reports were re-read by an investigator, only 41 actually contained the conclusion that man’s activities caused most of the warming.
- So…the math is: 41 papers out of 11,944 stated their conclusion that man’s activities caused most of the planet’s perceived warming since 1950. For those without a calculator, that is .3% of the research papers. Not 97%, not 70%, not 51%, not 25%, not 5%, not 1%. Zero point three per cent.
Does this sound like the “97% consensus” among scientists that you have been led to believe?
So the next time someone tells you 97% of scientists agree that man’s activities are the primary cause—or ‘most’ of the cause’—of global warming, tell them that 97% number is pure baloney; utter propaganda; false, fraudulent, and totally discredited. And not just the 97% mentioned in the 2013 study by the University of Queensland—because we have yet to find any study that legitimately supports anything close to 97% agreement on the primary cause of global warming. While you’re at it, you can mention that satellite data indicates there has been no measurable warming for over 18 years.
The sad truth all Americans must recognize is that no part of the institutional media in America today can be trusted as a source of unbiased factual information. Google, also, cannot be trusted to deliver search results unbiased by its own leftist filters. But the good news is that the truth is out there to be understood if we have the desire and time to find it.
We wish Mr. Mair had that desire, and would study the results for himself.
Links:
Anthony Watt on John Cook’s 2013 press release
Christopher Monckton on the calculation of the 97% consensus