Those who propagate the theory that mankind is responsible for a dangerously warming planet are fond of the quote  “97% of scientists agree on climate change”.

This ridiculous assertion is really very easy to rebut. The statement is essentially meaningless given the precise issue is “are significant and dangerous fluctuations in global temperatures a result of man’s activities?”

There is no scientific census on this more accurate question.

The 97% figure comes from a study done by Australian researcher John Cook who studied 11944 scientific abstracts in 2013. However, here’s the rub-

to be part of Cook’s consensus, a scientific study only needed to agree carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that human activities have warmed the planet “to some unspecified extent”

This is a far cry from stating that “man’s activities are causing significant dangerous fluctuations”. In fact a paper by five leading climatologists published in the journal Science and Education found only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate studies examined in Cook’s study explicitly stated mankind has caused most of the warming since 1950. This is in actuality a consensus of less than 0.5%.

A study by the Global Warming Policy Foundation in 2015 concluded that

“The consensus as described by Cook et al. is virtually meaningless and tells us nothing about the current state of scientific opinion beyond the trivial observation that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that human activities have warmed the planet to some unspecified extent,”

So the next time you hear some brainwashed commie spouting the 97% figure challenge them on it, because its utter bullshit and they should not be allowed to get away with their lies. The real figure for the abstracts that Cook studied, those who support the claim that man is causing global temperatures to rise significantly and harmfully, is less than 0.5%.