Not quite true. The original "huge consensus" rumor was started by an article (NOT a peer-reviewed paper) that appeared in Nature by one Naomi Oreskes, years ago. Oreskes claimed to have surveyed a database of science papers and concluded that none of them (not one) disagreed with the greenhouse gas global warming idea.
Ahh, yes, the old Oreskes essay "scandal". It was not published in Nature, but in Science. Small quibble, but if you're going to be critical of something, at least get your facts correct.
It was soon shown that Oreskes' "study" was in fact a textbook example of cherry-picking. She had searched the database for papers that included the phrase "global climate change". Only those were included in her analysis. The problem with that being that at the time, only papers that were ABOUT the effects of greenhouse gas warming mentioned the phrase "global climate change" at all. So, in effect, she selected out of the scientific literate just the papers about greenhouse global warming, and then conclude that they all agreed about greenhouse global warming! How surprising!
No, it wasn't. It was exactly what it claimed to be. The phrase used did not include the word "global"; it was just "climate change" (which could go either way -- remember all those supposed "global cooling" papers from the 70s? They would still qualify as they referred to "climate change").
Yes, she chose "climate change" because, you know, all those papers on the reproduction cycles of ring-tailed lemurs are not so relevant to the subject.
She did not select papers about greenhouse global warming, as those were not her search terms. The fact that most of the papers that mentioned "climate change" endorsed anthropogenic causes to some degree or another, rather than saying it was something else when they most certainly could, is significant and not a simple result of cherry-picking.
The fact was, of course, that the majority of climate papers were not about greenhouse warming and never mentioned the subject at all. But those weren't counted
Incorrect. 25% of the papers she counted did not endorse or were neutral on the subject of anthropogenic causes. NONE of them rejected it.
Further, her essay was formally challenged by Dr. Benny Peiser, who ended up later retracting his challenge, concluding:
"Only [a] few abstracts explicitly reject or doubt the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) consensus which is why I have publicly withdrawn this point of my critique. [snip] I do not think anyone is questioning that we are in a period of global warming. Neither do I doubt that the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact."
This "consensus" idea was bolstered by people claiming that almost all of the "thousands" of scientists behind the latest IPCC report had agreed about it. This, too, was a distortion of the truth. The scientists involved in the AR report at the time numbered in the hundreds. There were about 2,500 or so reviewers, and not all of those were scientists. Further, not all of them actually agreed.
"bolstered by people" By whom? The 97% figures come from several independent studies, most of them dealing with longer periods and an order of magnitude larger sample size than the one Oreskes used. None of them refer to the "thousands of scientists behind the latest IPCC report". I question where you're getting your information, because it isn't from the people performing the actual research.
Shortly after that, the Petition Project was undertaken to show that scientists in fact did not agree. Some 30,000 people with actual science or engineering credentials signed the petition DISagreeing with greenhouse global warming, and their names and professions are still publicly available at petitionproject.org. More than 9,000 of those were PhDs... far more than the 2500 who supposedly agreed, again many of whom had no advanced degrees.
The Petition Project was done by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, which is a known house of whackjobs, including Arthur B. Robinson, of hormesis "let's sprinkle a little radiation over the country" fame. It was largely an informal, unverified petition which was more or less a public "opinion poll". It was not anywhere near as well researched as Oreskes' or the other studies which are relevant to the subject.
As for people with PhDs having an opinion on AGW, I think Peter Hadfield summed it up well:
"In between Aaagard and Zylkowski, the first and last names on the petition, are an assortment of metallurgists, botanists, agronomists, organic chemists and so on. ... The vast majority of scientists who signed the petition have never studied climatology and don't do any research into it. It doesn't matter if you're a Ph.D. A Ph.D in metallurgy just makes you better at metallurgy. It does not transform you into some kind of expert in paleoclimatology. ... So the petition's suggestion that everyone with a degree in metallurgy or geophysics knows a lot about climate change, or is familiar with all the research that's been done, is patent crap."
Further, the petition, and the associated manifesto that was attached to it were fraudulently presented to those polled as if it were a peer-reviewed science paper in PNAS. Robinson responded, of course, "I used the Proceedings as a model, but only to put the information in a format that scientists like to read, not to fool people into thinking it is from a journal". Sure you did, Art; sure you did.
Another "study" was done in this last year, which came up with that "97%" figure. Unfortunately, THAT "study" suffered from exactly the same flaw as the discredited Oreskes study: it searched the literature for papers that contained the phrase "global climate change". Self-selection at its finest.
Oreskes' study is not discredited, at least by anyone with any qualifications worth taking seriously. I mean, Monckton discredits it, but he's about as qualified to speak on the subject as BP is on the health benefits of oil spills.
There are two recent independent studies which come to the same conclusions. Cook's and Powell's research looked at 12,000 and 14,000 papers, respectively for the period 1991-2012. Further, they polled the actual authors of the papers in question directly, so it is more than just a simple analysis of the papers.
You seem to take issue with the search term "climate change". What search term do you think would give better results and find those "missing" papers contrary to the consensus view?
And of course then there's the real kicker here: even if these "studies" had not been statistical nonsense, the fact remains that "consensus" is not science. If consensus were a scientifically valid measure of anything, we'd still be in the stone ages.
Science is BUILT on consensus. Do you even know what consensus means? It is the point where scientists stop arguing, and accept a particular understanding as a practical view of reality. Further, they start building on each others' work, which leads to some truly amazing things, like the Internet, the transistor, vaccines, etc. That a tiny percentage of scientists in any particular discipline disagree doesn't change anything -- in fact, it is important for scientists, and the health of science in general, to be skeptical, even of the consensus. It sometimes can help refine/correct the consensus, but it rarely changes the consensus view wholesale. That said, the consensus view allows us to make important decisions, because it is very likely the most correct representation of reality.
Further, our LIVES are built around a consensus understanding of reality. Lay consensus isn't always correct, but the vast majority of the time, it is. For example, the consensus view is that if you put your hand in a flame for long enough, it will get burned and hurt. You don't need to experiment for yourself; you can accept the consensus view and choose not to stick your hand in a fire.
We're never ever going to have unanimity in agreement for everything in science, thus we should never wait for it before we choose to act, especially when time is a factor, like it is with climate change. You can poo-poo about the consensus view all you want, but until someone actually provides an alternative with more support, I think I will take the consensus view as practically correct, and act accordingly. I am still going to be open-minded about challenges and alternatives to it, but I am not waiting around for them.