Isn’t there disagreement among scientists about the causes of global warming?

Show me something in which there’s no disagreement. There’s disagreement that men actually landed on the moon. There’s still some disagreement that the earth is round!

So yes, there’s disagreement among scientists about climate change and global warming too.

But let’s look at this a bit more closely.

• Around 97% of experts agree that humans are responsible for climate change – this % is based on publications by climate scientists.
• Interestingly, the greater the climate expertise among those surveyed, the higher the consensus on human-caused global warming.
• Essentially, almost every expert agrees that climate change and global warming are facts.

Expert consensus is a powerful thing. Ordinary folks don’t have the time or capacity to learn about everything, and this is why we frequently defer to the conclusions of experts. It’s why we visit doctors when we’re ill. The same is true of climate change: most people defer to the expert consensus of climate scientists.

(Have a look at the curve in this page: https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm )

To gain an understanding of the level of scientific consensus on climate change, one study examined every article on climate change published in peer-reviewed scientific journals over a 10-year period. Of the 928 articles on climate change the authors found, not one of them disagreed with the consensus position that climate change is happening and is human-induced.

So, while there indeed is a small percentage of people who deny the existence of climate change, the expertise levels of this group is suspect compared to the expertise of many others who agree that climate change is a reality.

But who indeed are the Climate Change deniers and why aren’t they convinced about climate change and global warming?

Despite the international scientific community’s consensus on climate change, a small number of critics continue to deny that climate change exists or that humans are causing it. Widely known as climate change “skeptics” or “deniers”, these individuals are generally not climate scientists and do not debate the science with the climate scientists directly—for example, by publishing in peer-reviewed scientific journals, or participating in international conferences on climate science. Instead, they focus their attention on the media, the general public and policy-makers with the goal of delaying action on climate change.

Reportedly, the deniers have received significant funding from coal and oil companies. They also have well-documented connections with public relations firms that have set up industry-funded lobby groups to project global warming more as a theory than fact.

Over the years, the deniers have employed a wide range of arguments against taking action on climate change, some of which contradict each other. For example, they have claimed that:

• Climate change is not occurring
• The global climate is actually getting colder
• The global climate is getting warmer, but not because of human activities
• The global climate is getting warmer, in part because of human activities, but this will create greater benefits than costs
• The global climate is getting warmer, in part because of human activities, but the impacts are not sufficient to require any policy response

If I were you, I would rather believe in the 97%.

Here’s a nice video on Why Some People Don’t Believe in Climate Change?