Why Climate Skeptics Are Wrong

Climate Change, Anthropocene, & Associated Issues

Date posted: 12/02/15

Michael Shermer opines that consensus science is a phrase often heard today in conjunction with anthropogenic global warming (AGW), and that it is not because of the sheer number of scientists. After all, science is not conducted by poll. As Albert Einstein said in response to a 1931 book skeptical of relativity theory entitled 100 Authors against Einstein ...but why 100? If he were wrong, one would have been enough. The answer is that there is a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry .... pollen, tree rings, ice cores, corals, glacial and polar ice-cap melt, sea-level rise, ecological shifts, carbon dioxide increases, the unprecedented rate of temperature increase .... that all converge to support a singular conclusion. AGW doubters point to the occasional anomaly in a particular data set, as if one incongruity gainsays all the other lines of evidence. But that is not how consilience science works. For AGW skeptics to overturn the consensus, they would need to find flaws with all the lines of supportive evidence and show a consistent convergence of evidence toward a different theory that explains the data. (Creationists have the same problem overturning evolutionary theory.) This they have not done. So, is there a consensus on AGW? There is.