Climate Change Is Real - Stolen Future, Broken Present: The Human Significance of Climate Change - page 188

and flaws, the more accurate and persuasive their findings become and
the firmer the basis for the overall consensus. The drift in climate sci-
ence over time has been toward greater , not lesser, conviction. Each suc-
ceeding IPCC report indicates as much, for the statements on the like-
lihood that climate change is caused by human activity have become
increasingly confident. The Third Assessment (2001) was still somewhat
hesitant: “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming
observed over the last 50 years is atributable to human activities.” he
Fourth Assessment (2007), however, was much stronger, stating, “Most
of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-
20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic
greenhouse gas concentrations,” with “very likely” elsewhere defined as a
likelihood of 90 through 99 percent. 161
Nevertheless, some “skeptical” observers are unimpressed—or have
evolved new ways to contest the consensus. Recently, contrarians have
begun to concede that climate change is real and is caused by human
beings, but insist that it will do far less damage than is claimed—and
that with our current technology we can't address the problem to any
serious extent anyway. In effect, they have changed their tactics, pretend-
ing to accept the basic science but finding yet another way to dispute its
significance. This new style of resistance may be found in a wide range
of “skeptical” writings, the best example of which—and one that I will
discuss here—may well be a topic by Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C.
Balling, Jr.
Michaels and Balling hold that the virtual unanimity of the consensus
results from the institutional structure of science. The nature of publica-
tion in the sciences, they argue, tends to exclude negative findings (those
that find no correlation between variables or no statistically significant
results), creating an intrinsic bias in favor of any prevalent theory, includ-
ing the consensus view. Moreover, in their interpretation of the opera-
tions of normal scientific research, scientists who adhere to a reigning
paradigm tend to exclude alternative views. Finally, following the tenets
of “public choice theory,” which holds that people tend to choose politi-
cal and economic options that promise “more” rather than “less,” prefer-
ring big claims over small ones, they argue that a systematic bias pervades