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The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong?

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Climate Modelling

Abstract

In 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced that anthropogenic climate change had become discernible. Since then, numerous independent studies have affirmed that anthropogenic climate change is underway, and the meta-conclusion that there is a broad expert consensus on this point. It has also been demonstrated that most of the challenges to this claim come from interested parties outside the scientific community. But even if we allow that the challenges to climate science are politically or economically motivated, it does not prove that the scientific consensus is correct. In other words, even if we accept the fact of scientific consensus, how do we know that this consensus is not wrong? This chapter addresses this question by examining a set of criteria that philosophers have traditionally or recently identified as possible bases for trust in scientific conclusions, and shows that climate science meets all of these criteria. Thus, while there is no way to know for sure that scientists are correct in their conclusions, the various means we have to test and evaluate scientific claims lead to the conclusion that, so far as we are able to tell, it is most likely that scientists are not wrong about the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Contrast this with the results of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Third and Fourth Assessment Reports, which state unequivocally that average global temperatures have risen (Houghton et al. 2001; Alley et al. 2007).

  2. 2.

    http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/News_and_Issues/Science_Issues/Climate_change/climate_facts_and_fictions.pdf

  3. 3.

    http://www.science.org.au/policy/climatechange-g8+5.pdf

  4. 4.

    In recent years, climate-change deniers have increasingly turned to nonscientific literature as a way to promulgate views that are rejected by most scientists (see, for example, Deming 2005). http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm

  5. 5.

    An e-mail inquiry to the Thomson Scientific Customer Technical Help Desk produced this reply: “We index the following number of papers in Science Citation Index—2004, 1,057,061 papers; 2003, 1,111,398 papers.”

  6. 6.

    The analysis begins in 1993 because that is the first year for which the database consistently published abstracts. Some abstracts initially compiled were deleted from our analysis because the authors of those papers had put “global climate change” in their key words, but their papers were not actually on the subject.

  7. 7.

    This is consistent with the analysis of historian Spencer Weart, who concluded that scientists achieved consensus in 1995 (see Weart 2008).

  8. 8.

    In e-mails that I received after publishing my essay in Science (Oreskes 2004), this paper was frequently invoked. It did appear in the sample.

  9. 9.

    According to Time magazine, in 2006 a Gallup poll reported that “64 percent of Americans think scientists disagree with one another about global warming” (Americans see a climate problem 2006).

  10. 10.

    Objectivity certainly can be compromised when scientists address charged issues. This is not an abstract concern. It has been demonstrated that scientists who accept research funds from the tobacco industry are much more likely to publish research results that deny or downplay the hazards of smoking than those who get their funds from the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, or other nonprofit agencies (Bero 2003). On the other hand, there is a large difference between accepting funds from a patron with a clearly vested interest in a particular epistemic outcome and simply trying one’s best to communicate the results of one’s research clearly and in plain English.

  11. 11.

    Some petroleum companies, such as BP and Shell, have largely refrained from participating in misinformation campaigns (see Browne 1997). Browne began his 1997 lecture by focusing on what he accepted as “two stark facts. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising, and the temperature of the Earth’s surface is increasing.” On the other hand, after an initial flurry of attention caused by Lord Browne’s public statements, BP continued to develop its petroleum resources and only to put modest efforts into developing renewables and carbon sequestration technologies. For an analysis of diverse corporate responses, see Van den Hove et al. (2002).

  12. 12.

    For an analysis of one ad, “Weather and Climate,” see Environmental Defense (2005). An interesting development in 2003 was that Institutional Shareholders Services advised ExxonMobil shareholders to ask the company to explain its stance on climate-change issues and to divulge financial risks that could be associated with it. For further information, see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/business/energy-environment/exxon-shareholders-climate-change.html?mcubz=1.

  13. 13.

    These efforts to generate an aura of uncertainty and disagreement have had an effect. This issue has been studied in detail by academic researchers (see, for example, Boykoff and Boykoff 2004).

  14. 14.

    Reliable is a term of judgment. By reliable basis for action, I mean that it will not lead us far astray in pursuing our goals, or if it does lead us astray, at least we will be able to look back and say honestly that we did the best we could given what we knew at the time.

  15. 15.

    This is evident when the three IPCC assessments—1990, 1995, 2001—are compared (Houghton et al. 1990, 2001; Bruce et al. 1996; Watson et al. 1996; Metz et al. 2001; Watson 2001; see also Weart 2008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Naomi Oreskes

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  1. Naomi Oreskes
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  1. Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Elisabeth A. Lloyd

  2. Department of Philosophy, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Eric Winsberg

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Oreskes, N. (2018). The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong?. In: A. Lloyd, E., Winsberg, E. (eds) Climate Modelling. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65058-6_2

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