A comprehensive survey of climate-change research reveals a lack of consensus in the scientific community on whether global warming is caused by human activity or will have any significant impact. Less than half of the recent papers in a major scientific journal agree even “implicitly” with those notions.
Researchers examined published between 2004 and 2007. They found that only 38 percent of scientists accepted claims about global warming without question. Forty-eight percent were neutral.
Ken Green, a climate change expert at the American Enterprise Institute, called it as a rebuttal to claims of "consensus" on the issue.
"The climate is warming," he said. "We’re unclear on what the major causes are.”
Notably, just one of the 528 papers examined makes any reference to global warming producing catastrophic results.
Robert Giegengack, a professor in the earth and environmental science department at the University of Pennsylvania, said it's important to consider the big picture.
“Less than 10 percent of the Earth’s history has been characterized by ice sheets at the poles," he explained. "We’re in the middle of a global ice age right now, when the earth is much, much colder than it has been during much of its history.”
According to Jeff Kueter with the George C. Marshall Institute, the results also raise questions as to how much scientists may have bowed to political pressure.
“Unfortunately the stakes are so high with this issue, that politicians and policymakers — well intentioned or otherwise — have a keen interest in how this debate turns out,” he told Family News in Focus. “Some scientists, unfortunately, stretch the facts a bit too far to try to provide the answers that they’re being asked to give.”
