Here’s a statistic for you. Out of 10,855 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals last year that dealt with some aspect of global warming, all but two accepted human behavior as the primary cause.
Wow. Over 10,000 articles, all of which “accept” human behavior as the “primary cause” of global warming. Pretty impressive, huh?
Except . . .
Except that Martelle has written a check that his links can’t cash. The links offered by Martelle all relate to some dubious research by a fellow named James Powell, which does not even purport to establish what Martelle claims it does. Powell does not claim that over 10,000 articles “accept” human behavior as the “primary cause” of global warming. Rather, Powell claims — based on a rather odd (as we will see) analysis of 10,000+ articles — that the articles “do not reject” human behavior as the “primary cause” of global warming.
But what if the articles don’t even address the issue? In fact, as we will see, many (perhaps most) of these articles don’t analyze — or even address — whether humans are primarily responsible for global warming. So, although they may not “reject” this premise, they don’t necessarily “accept” it either. They just don’t say a thing about it, one way or the other.
Now, it could be that some of these papers “accept” that global warming exists. It could even be the case that some of them “accept” that humans contribute to it. Powell does not claim this, but it could be the case. Even then, that would not mean they “accept” that humans are a primary cause of global warming. And, again, Powell doesn’t claim they do — merely that they don’t “reject” that claim.
Indeed, this is my own personal position. I do not “accept” the thesis human behavior is the primary cause of global warming. But at the same time, I do not feel qualified to “reject” that thesis either. Like many, a) I accept that global warming exists, b) I accept that humans probably contribute to it, but (and this is important) c) I do not profess to opine as to what is the “primary cause” of global warming.
So the difference between “fail to reject” and “accept” is quite significant indeed. Just because I do not necessarily “reject” your questionable hypothesis does not mean I “accept” it. And if that is true for me, it may be true for thousands of authors of scientific studies.
This becomes painfully evident when you look at Powell’s list of studies, because it quickly becomes clear that many of them have nothing to do with analyzing the “primary cause” of global warming.
Let’s examine Martelle’s proof in more detail.
Martelle links an annual roundup by Powell and an article in Salon summarizing Powell’s findings. Neither link makes any claim that the articles reviewed by Powell “accept” that humans are the primary cause of global warming.
Powell states his methodology here. Basically, he searched a database of peer-reviewed scientific articles for terms like “global warming” or “global climate change.” As you would expect, while this process produces a list of articles that mention global warming, it certainly does not provide a list of articles that analyze whether humans are the “primary cause” of global warming, as opposed to examining other topics. Also, Powell admits that it “does not capture every article on global warming, nor every article that rejects AGW.”
Nevertheless, once he had his group of articles, Powell then performed the following step:
Read some combination of titles, abstracts, and entire papers as necessary to judge whether a paper rejects human-caused global warming or professes to have a better explanation of observations.
He’s not looking to see whether the articles “accept” that proposition. He’s only looking to see if they “reject” it. If they don’t say anything about it, but instead mention global warming only in passing, Powell counts them as another article that does not “reject” the “humans are the primary cause of global warming” thesis.
It’s an important distinction because many of the articles have nothing to do with that issue. Powell’s roundup of articles is here (Excel file). It consists of articles such as “Life Cycle Assessment in Switchgears for Primary Electrical Distribution” (#1234) or “Larval development of the feline lungworm Aelurostrongylus abstrusus in Helix aspersa” (#1217) or “Life cycle assessment of a waste lubricant oil management system,” (#1239) or “An investigation into the usability of straight light-pipes in Istanbul” (#142) or “Assessment of weed establishment risk in a changing European climate” (#212).
I have not read all these articles — nor has Powell, as you can see from his methodology above. But based on their titles, they certainly don’t seem to be concerned with whether humans are the primary cause of global warming.
But what if you looked at the articles themselves? Maybe you would find that the author, in the middle of expounding on the larval development of the feline lungworm Aelurostrongylus abstrusus in Helix aspersa, included an aside to the effect: “By the way, as we all know, humans are the primary cause of global warming. Now, what was I saying about that larval development again?”
Gaining access to the articles themselves is tough. Most of them are stored on academic databases that charge silly amounts of money to access one article. But my tipster gave me the entire text of one of the articles, so we can look at that one article as an example. It is titled LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF LEAD ACID BATTERY. CASE STUDY FOR THAILAND. How does global warming come up in this article? Well, here is the abstract:
Over the past ten years, the automobile manufacturing basis has shifted to Thailand, thus transforming the country into an automobile industrial hub in Asia. An integral part of this industry, lead acid battery manufacturing has exhibited tremendous growth with increasing trends toward new manufacturing technology. This research aimed to study life cycle assessments of lead-acid automobile battery manufactured in Thailand by comparing conventional batteries with calcium-maintenance free batteries. Global warming and acidification are the largest environmental impacts associated with both battery types. Changing from conventional batteries to calcium-maintenance free batteries is able to reduce environmental impact by approximately 28% due to longer usage life and reduced utilization of manufacturing resources and energy. The greenhouse gases and acidification caused by one conventional battery amounted to 102 kg CO2 and 0.94 kg SO2, respectively. These amounts decrease to 72 kg CO2 and 0.56 kg SO2, respectively, when calcium-maintenance free technology is used. Raw material procurement is found to have the greatest environmental impact, followed by product usage. In this study, the information on environmental impact is incorporated with MET matrix principles to propose guidelines for environmental improvement throughout the battery life cycle.
As you might suspect from this abstract, this paper says nothing about whether humans are the “primary cause” of global warming. (If you doubt this, click on the link above and read it for yourself.) As the abstract suggests, the closest the article comes to discussing global warming is when it examines possible environmental impacts of two different types of car batteries. The article does not pretend to assess whether humans are the primary cause of global warming.
Yet the article figures into Powell’s group of articles that “don’t reject” the thesis that man causes global warming.
Well, sure. The Internet is full of blog posts, news articles, and other media that fail to reject that thesis. Or even address it all. That doesn’t mean that they “accept” it.
It is utterly bogus to assert that the study about life cycle assessments of lead-acid automobile battery manufactured in Thailand “accepts” the unproven theory that man is the primary cause of global warming. Thus, we have already proven Martelle incorrect when he says “all but two” studies “accept” that thesis. At a minimum, there are the two identified by Powell which actively reject that thesis, and the car battery study (and likely thousands of others) which don’t indicate acceptance or rejection of the thesis.
Which means Martelle owes readers a correction.
My tipster G.H. (who has tipped me in the past on global warming issues) has already written Martelle demanding a correction. With the publication of this post, I plan to write Martelle and the Readers’ Representative to add my voice to the chorus.