The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding Read Free Book Online Page B

“consensus positions.” Scientific bodies, either within a discipline or across a number of disciplines as appropriate to the task, analyze an area of debate, rigorously peer-review the data, argue out the uncertainties, and come to a considered, collective view based on the balance of evidence. The process also plays itself out in the peer-reviewed journals, conferences, and other academic discussions, allowing a common view to emerge over time. This is what is meant by the term consensus . It is inappropriately named because it implies 100 percent agreement, which it isn’t, but it does represent the considered integrated view of qualified scientific experts.
    It is a good example of where the collective mind is greater than the individual one. What these “consensus” positions effectively say is: “We have considered all the debate and the uncertainties, and we acknowledge them. We know what we know, but we also know where the uncertainties lie. Therefore the considered view of the top experts in the world on this topic is XYZ, and we have an ABC percent level of certainty in that view. So if you want to make a decision, this is the best advice on balance that can be provided by the science.”
    Because so much of the process is internal, those inside the scientific community may recognize a consensus more easily than those outside it. That is why the important scientific organizations, which work internally but also communicate externally, can be particularly useful.
    When this approach is applied to climate change, it is interesting to note that every major grouping of qualified scientists that has analyzed the issue comes to the same conclusion and has done so consistently over time and around the world. Examples include national science academies, which are the peak science bodies across all disciplines in a given country, or major international subsets of the scientific community, such as atmospheric scientists or, at the highest and most comprehensive level globally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The broad conclusion they all come to is that we face a significant risk of major change that undermines society’s prosperity and stability, we are a substantial contributor to the risk, and to reduce the level of risk we should dramatically reduce emissions of the pollution that causes the problem. As with most issues in sustainability, defining the problem and the solutions is really very simple.
    This “consensus position” on climate change is also reflected in the rigorously peer-reviewed journals in which research is presented and issues are debated. One study by Naomi Oreskes published in the journal Science demonstrated that of the papers whose abstract contained the keywords global climate change between 1993 and 2003, none questioned the consensus position—not one. 5 Oreskes’s subsequent book Merchants of Doubt interestingly reveals how many of the figures who fronted the tobacco industry’s antiscience campaign to deny the link between smoking and lung cancer are also now prominent and vocal climate skeptics.
    A more recent study in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used a data set of 1,372 published climate researchers and their publication and citation history, finding that 97 to 98 percent of those climate researchers publishing most actively on the topic agreed with the tenets of climate change as identified by the IPCC. They also found the expertise and prominence of the scientists who agreed with the IPCC findings to be substantially higher than that of the scientists who did not. 6
    Of course, there are always outliers who hold a different view regarding the level of consensus on an issue, and that is good. In the case of climate change, though, this uncertainty, where it is genuine, applies to detailed subissues such as regional variations or speed of change, not to the basic conclusion. There is organized