Dr. Richard Lindzen is sick and tired of the media repeating the so-called “97 percent consensus” statistic to show just how strong the global warming agreement is among climate scientists. It’s purely “propaganda,” argues Lindzen.
“It was the narrative from the beginning,” Lindzen, a climatologist at the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told RealClear Radio Hour host Bill Frezza Friday. “In 1998, [NASA’s James] Hansen made some vague remarks. Newsweek ran a cover that says all scientists agree. Now they never really tell you what they agree on.”
“It is propaganda,” Lindzen said. “So all scientists agree it’s probably warmer now than it was at the end of the Little Ice Age. Almost all Scientists agree that if you add CO2, you will have some warming. Maybe very little warming.”
“But it is propaganda to translate that into it is dangerous and we must reduce CO2,” he added.
Lindzen is referring to the often cited statistic among environmentalists and liberal politicians that 97 percent of climate scientists agree human activities are causing the planet to warm. This sort of argument has been around for decades, but recent use of the statistic can be traced to a 2013 report by Australian researcher John Cook.
Cook’s paper found of the scientific study “abstracts expressing a position 
on [manmade global warming], 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.” But Cook’s assertion has been heavily criticized by researchers carefully examining his methodology.
A paper by five leading climatologists published in the journal Science and Education found only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate studies examined in Cook’s study explicitly stated mankind has caused most of the warming since 1950 — meaning the actual consensus is 0.3 percent.
“It is astonishing that any journal could have published a paper claiming a 97% climate consensus when on the authors’ own analysis the true consensus was well below 1%,” said Dr. David Legates, a geology professor at the University of Delaware and the study’s lead author.
A 2013 study by Andrew Montford of the Global Warming Policy Foundation found that Cook had to cast a wide net to cram scientists into his so-called consensus. To be part of Cook’s consensus, a scientific study only needed to agree carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that human activities have warmed the planet “to some unspecified extent” — both of which are uncontroversial points.
“Almost everybody involved in the climate debate, including the majority of sceptics, accepts these propositions, so little can be learned from the Cook et al. paper,” wrote Montford. “The extent to which the warming in the last two decades of the twentieth century was man-made and the likely extent of any future warming remain highly contentious scientific issues.”
Despite the dubious nature of the consensus, liberal politicians used the figure to bolster their calls for policies to fight global warming. President Barack Obama even cited the Cook paper while announcing sweeping climate regulations.
“Ninety-seven percent of scientists, including, by the way, some who originally disputed the data, have now put that to rest,” Obama said in 2013, announcing his new global warming plan. “They’ve acknowledged the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it.”
Lindzen disagreed with politicians who cite Cook’s paper to call for stricter energy regulations. He said it’s part of a political machine that’s used by scientists and politicians to direct more taxpayer dollars to pet projects.
“If you can make an ambiguous remark and you have people who will amplify it ‘they said it not me’ and he response of the political system is to increase your funding, what’s not to like?” Lindzen said.
“If I look through my department, at least half of them keep mum. Just keep on doing your work, trying to figure out how it works,” he said.
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This article originally appeared in The Daily Caller
Thank you Dr. Lindzen. AGW is nothing more than a junk science scam by liberals to increase taxes and energy costs to support “green energy” projects that lose money.
You are grossly misinformed. Please educate yourself: http://climate.nasa.gov/
Stop repeating propaganda and explain how the mechanism of CO2 can have such a gigantic effect. So far neither you nor Dano have done this.
Educate yourself is a just crude leftie insult better confined to your playground. Gravity also has a small effect on heat retention, would you like this taxed to aid your cause?
Still haven’t done your homework have you. It’s indeed been explained to you many times. I can’t help you.
you’re the idiot beyond help… here’s a tip.
the Earth has been going from ICE AGES to TROPICAL climates and back again for BILLIONS of years. to assume that humans can now have an impact where they will alter or be able to CONTROL this natural, billions of year old cycle.. is beyond insanity…and you are beyond indoctrinated. as this top MIT CLIMATE SCIENTIST has pointed out ;)
“The Earth has been going from ICE AGES to TROPICAL climates and back again for BILLIONS of years”.
This statement is misleading because you are completely ignoring the rate of change. The current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is now 400ppm – that’s more than a 25% increase since 1960. Its a level that hasn’t been experienced on the planet for half a million years or more. Even Lindzen (one scientist with controversial views) can’t argue that.
The mechanism and science behind human-induced climate change is well understood and accepted by virtually every major American and international scientific academy. It’s just not plausible that they are all insane and indoctrinated. More likely, it is you who has been indoctrinated with misinformation and pseudo science.
It’s increased by more than 25% since 1960 but, 96% of that is from natural sources and only 4% by burning fossil fuels. Explain why man’s 4% is causing this so called global warming? Now if we stopped burning all fossil fuels and we prevent 4% of CO2 from entering the atmosphere what would the world look like a year from now? Better or worse? How will you heat your home? How will you prepare your food? On the off chance you have family more then a 100 miles from where you live how will you travel to see them? How will you communicate with them? If not burning fossil fuels I would have to believe you would resort to other carbon emitting fuels such as wood or whale oil. Maybe you think windmills are the answer or unicorn farts what ever your supposed solution is it won’t amount to any change in the current rate of CO2 rise or alter the course of the temperature of the planet. I don’t know what your crusade is, to stop CO2 rise, which is impossible, to stop climate change, which is impossible, to change the temperature of the planet which is impossible, or to change minds of people who devote their time educating themselves on the subject of global warming again impossible. The mechanism and science behind human-induced climate change is not well understood nor accepted. Many scientist will admit that we are still in the very early stages of the science and still would take many decades of analysis before we can even think about reaching a conclusion on whether or not this climate change is human induced. Every bit of science behind the belief that this is man-made are models, models that so far have been significantly off from reality. Tell me how can you make such a conclusion that current weather patterns are in fact even partially to blame on man? What climate change are you witnessing at such astonishing rates that conclude to you that man is the primary contributor to it’s change?