“And that people keep referring to the magic 97 per cent figure, as though it means something, is to me a sign of a closed mind and a quasi-religious belief in the scare. Such people seem to me intellectually lost souls.”

It is indeed difficult to fathom why so many believe that man-made greenhouse gas emissions cause dangerous global warming, as there is no empirical scientific evidence to substantiate that assertion that could be regarded pseudo-science at best.

The 97% consensus of climate scientists is a lie. It is a disgraceful case of intellectual dishonesty. The study that gained attention was done by John Cook, owner of Skeptical Science and originator of the online course on "climate science denial" available through edX. The 'research' for the 97% consensus was done by Cook's 12 apostles - friends and colleagues who write for and comment on Skeptical Science. They ''reviewed" 12,000 abstracts. One researcher reviewed about 1 per minute. 'Tick and flick' would be a better description.

Cook and the University of Queensland tried to prevent the data being released. However, someone managed to get it and it is now publicly available. It shows that Cook and his mates grossly distorted and lied about the results. They claimed 97% consensus. However, the truth is that only 0.5% of the 12,000 abstracts "explicitly state that humans are the primary cause of the recent global warming". Theat is 0.5% consensus, not 97% consensus. You can see the table of the results here:
https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/slide12.png
You can read about it here: https://judithcurry.com/2015/12/20/what-is-there-a-97-consensus-about/

This is as dishonest as the ClimateGate revealed is common practice among many of the climate scientists, IPCC Coordinating Authors and Lead Authors and Editors of the science journals.

Just like the dishonest scientist who know the evolution fantasy is just that, the warmest know that funding and promotion is tied to nodding your head to such nonsense. Rudd, Gillard and Turnbull will only ever act as to where they sniff a pat on the back from the corrupt UN or populist opinion. What ever happened to the biggest moral dilemma of the century. Anyone interested in the integrity of true science must cringe when they hear the rot the warmest carry on with. Abbots crass assessment of gw being cr_p is probably the most accurate and scientific. There is still no real evidence to the contrary. oh that's right the heat is now hiding in the ocean. give is a break.

The argument about whether 97% of climate scientists believe the consensus view is rather academic. It is fair to say that the vast majority do. There are very few papers published by skeptical scientists in peer reviewed journals.

Nature takes no notice of the consensus view; whether its 90%, 95%, 97% or 99%.

On the news at present is that 90+% of the Great Barrier Reef has been hit by coral bleaching.
No scientist has stated that the bleaching has not happened.
Sampling of coral from the GBR shows that there have been no such bleaching events over hundreds of years previously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJVh4bpj3dE&ebc=ANyPxKp9wPAvuyazummStZtOeJKTnT-r7qyJv-g0Y9Bd7EZNLUPMgj8Q_LK4je37NCnCuftiRF6gj9nYceRYeFIjD8-0jOqaTw

Rain bombs have just recently gone off in Huston; even the models used by Meteorologists were not able to forecast the actual amount of rain that fell, modelling under predicted the amount of rainfall.
Warming waters have impacted on fish farming off the Tasmanian East Coast, the warming has been noticed for some years. Tassal has reduced production. The amount of rainfall received by Tasmania is still a worry. Along with drought and bushfires, Tasmania was rain bombed in January.

The tilt of the Earth's axis has just changed a little, the reason given being the loss of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. The melt season for ice melting from Greenland has begun weeks earlier than normal.
There had been huge flooding of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers out of season; North and South Carolina had huge floods all within the last year.
A major report has recently been published about the problems faced by the West Coast of the USA through warming waters over the last few years.

The list goes on and on over the last years.

We need to do something about climate change, especially in low lying areas prone to flooding or storm surges. Whether man created or otherwise, it is happening.

Ant, your observations of climate change effects are noted.

However, conspicuous by its absence, is the empirical scientific evidence necessary to justify your assertion that the climate change was man-caused.

Unless you can come up with that evidence, you are not adding to the discussion.

ant
Quote "It is fair to say that the vast majority do." is that a verifiable fact or you opinion?

coral bleaching. What is your point, if you are saying it is caused by people where is your evidence?

Quote "The list goes on and on over the last years." The list may go on in your opinion but where is the categorical proof of the cause?

Obviously it would not occur to you that someone may lie to be the beneficiary of hundreds of billions of dollars. For example the scientists in grants, Al Gore and his cronies selling carbon credits etc.

Wasn't it Al Gore years ago who said in parts of America you will not see any snow in the future, Yes it was but recently they are having record amounts of snow.

Lastly when a Government has to legislate penalties against people who are climate deniers that says it is BS.