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are “unconvinced by the evidence.” These findings closely match surveys
of expert scientists, 97 percent of whom state that they share the consen-
sus view. Although there are dissidents from that view, they are primarily
scientists in other fields, scholars no longer doing active research, jour-
nalists, or laymen—in short, people who do not have as clear a knowl-
edge of contemporary research as those centrally in the relevant fields.156 156
A series of similar reviews of the literature have taken place over many
years and inevitably point to the same result. 157 Yet a significant portion of
the public continues to think that scientists are still in doubt about global
warming. Researchers on climate change are of course acutely aware of
public atitudes and are highly motivated to correct this false impression.
Accordingly, organizations of scientists in several dozen nations and in
specialties all across climate change science have issued clear, strong dec-
larations on climate change. 158
What's more, given the urgency of this research for public policy anal-
ysis, the international community has organized the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to summarize contemporary science
every few years for public consumption. The scientific portions of each
IPCC report are writen by scientists and the summary portions by oth-
ers for the benefit of government officials around the world. Scientists
of various persuasions complain that the IPCC reports omit impor-
tant aspects of their research, whether by ignoring important questions
about the consensus view or by refusing to endorse the most alarming
recent research. 159 Such complaints are inevitable about any document
that strives to capture the most representative views within a vast field of
knowledge. It's also inevitable that a document this immense and com-
plex will contain at least minor errors. No human enterprise is infallible.
But it does not follow that the entire consensus is therefore incorrect.
“Skeptics” nevertheless insist that the consensus view is unconvincing
or false. Some of those who repudiate this view argue that most research-
ers act from venal motives, from the atempt to comply with the wishes
of power-hungry bureaucrats, well-funded public agencies, and other
parties offering money, power, and fame to scientists who endorse the
mainstream view. Perhaps the most vocal advocate for this argument is
the MIT atmospheric scientist Richard Lindzen, who scorns what he
calls the fraudulence and hysteria of the consensus. 160 But the notion
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