Published date: Tuesday, November 06, 2012
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In 2004, science historian Naomi Oreskes published a seminal essay in the journal Science entitled ‘The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change’. In it, Oreskes reported the results of a survey of 928 abstracts published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003. Of those abstracts, 75% supported the prevailing view among the scientific community that most of the observed warming of the earth’s atmosphere was due to an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations arising from human activities. Importantly, the remaining 25% of the abstracts did not disagree with that consensus position, but rather put no position at all. Stunningly, none of the abstracts disagreed with the consensus position.
