The Anthropogenic Global Warming Global Climate Change Global Climate Disruption debate has been raging for years. And of course those who are trying to tell us "we are all going to die" have had the advantage of money ($1.2 trillion in government funding through 2009), press (Organizations asking questions are branded as deniers) and according to many the sheer number of scientists that back the claim. We have been told that "2500 Climate scientists" support the premise - but that claim was withdrawn. Where did the 2500 come from? it is the number of PEOPLE that worked on the IPCC AR4 report, not all agreeing with it, and certainly not all who are scientists.
So the high priests of the religion of AGW GCC GCD glommed onto a survey done by 2 researchers at the University of Illinois (one just a graduate student) who proclaimed that 97% of Climate Scientists agreed with the preposition.
Now comes news of a study done on the survey. It appears that while over 10,000 scientists were asked to complete the survey (only 2 questions) only about 30% did. Still not a bad number, 3000, right? Wrong. The "researchers" then started whittling the number down since the results were not to their liking. So after removing every group imaginable they managed to find a group that consisted of 97% that agreed that man had "some" impact on the climate (note not even a major part of it).
And that final group's numbers? 77. Yep! 75 out of 77 of the final group agreed with the 2 statements:
1 When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2 Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
Note that the wonder is that not 100% of the scientists agreed with statement #1 (since the world was coming out of the LIA at the time). And #2? Significant? never defined. So while significant may be 10% to some, to others it may be 50%.
Only 75 scientists could be found to agree with both statements in a way to jimmy the numbers up to 97%. So there you have it.
75 scientists are responsible for not only the waste of trillions of dollars in YOUR money, they are also responsible for the onerous taxes and burdens placed on society by religious zealots that know nothing of science. The EPA is now trying to classify one of the 2 life giving gases on earth as a toxic pollutant. Without which life could not exist (CO2 for you non-science types). In addition, democrats and Obama are trying to pass the largest confiscation of private resources in history with a tax on breathing.
All because of 75 scientists. WOW! What a Consensus! For their next trick, they will designate a consensus of 1 - Obama of course.