Ever notice that climate change denialists never publish scientific papers?

To me, one of the most fascinating aspects of climate change denial is how deniers essentially never publish in legitimate journals, but instead rely on talk shows, grossly error-laden op-eds, and hugely out-of-date claims (that were never right to start with).

In 2012, National Science Board member James Lawrence Powell investigated peer-reviewed literature published about climate change and found that out of 13,950 articles, 13,926 supported the reality of global warming. Despite a lot of sound and fury from the denial machine, deniers have not really been able to come up with a coherent argument against a consensus. The same is true for a somewhat different study that showed a 97 percent consensus among climate scientists supporting both the reality of global warming and the fact that human emissions are behind it.

Powell recently finished another such investigation, this time looking at peer-reviewed articles published between November 2012 and December 2013. Out of 2,258 articles (with 9,136 authors), how many do you think explicitly rejected human-driven global warming? Go on, guess!

One.

Warren Moon wrote:
Both sides have no firm evidence to backup their claims although I wonder how many people would switch sides if money/taxes/levies were taken out of the picture.

Warren Moon wrote:Both sides have no firm evidence to backup their claims although I wonder how many people would switch sides if money/taxes/levies were taken out of the picture.

Warren Moon wrote:
They are two different things but it is amazing how quickly governments want peoples' money after the first thing is mentioned.

Warren Moon wrote:They are two different things but it is amazing how quickly governments want peoples' money after the first thing is mentioned.

Warren Moon wrote:Are they facts though?  I doubt it.

Warren Moon wrote:Human beings have being conning, tricking, deceiving since the dawn of existence and throughout history.  Never underestimate the power of the lowest of the low.  Money is at stake here, money, control and power.  Many men desire these.

Despite searching just over a year's worth of the scientific literature on global warming and climate change, one man's exhaustive search could turn up only a single paper that dissented from the consensus view on the human causes of global warming.

That search was made by James Powell, a retired geology professor and former college president turned science historian who also served for 12 years on the National Science Board, to which he was appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Powell conducted the search using the Web of Science, an online database of the peer-reviewed scientific literature on virtually any topic. Plugging in terms like "global warming" and "global climate change," he first searched all the way back to 1991.

"If scientists allegedly disagree about it ... then we should find the evidence for it in the peer-reviewed literature," he explained. “It’s a little bit like what people say in a courtroom: You can say anything that you can get away with, but when it comes right down to it what really counts is the evidence."

The tally for that search: Nearly 14,000 papers that supported human causes behind global warming (chiefly from burning fossil fuels over the past century), and just 24 that rejected human causes.

"And by reject, I mean they either flatly said global warming was wrong – which people say all the time in the press and in front of Congress – or they said there’s some other process that better explains the information," Powell said in an interview with weather.com.

Warren Moon wrote:We are on a lump of minerals spinning around a blob of ignited gas, no living things gets out alive and we should just enjoy ourselves - here and now.

Warren Moon wrote:The world is overpopulated, nature has her quirky ways to deal with this.

Warren Moon wrote:

I disagree with what you have written.