For some reason the permalink was busted for this post, which means comments wouldn’t work, so I’m reposting it.

Have you ever wondered about the argument that the AGW crowd uses when they say that 97% of scientists believe that AGW is real? Yeah, me too. This site’s pet liberal, Robin Palm, who, by the way, has a Masters Degree used it in comments on one of my AGW posts. Also noted scientist, Al Tawana Brawley Crown Heights Riots Freddie’s Fashion Mart Arson, put on a white lab coat one night on his MSDNC show and made fun of us AGW deniers and spouted the 97% statistic.

So where did this statistic come from? Don Surber, who is a real journalist, has the answer.

Adding insult to injury is global warming may be one of those cargo cult sciences that is not based on the scientific method, which physicist Richard Feynman warned us about in 1974.

Harold Lewis, the late professor emeritus of physics at Princeton, said in 2009, “Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life.”

“The science is settled.” – Pope Albert I of the Church of AGW

But activists say 97 percent of scientists believe global warming is a threat, as if science were based on a show of hands.

“84% of statistics are made up on the spot.” – Larry the Cable Guy

The number comes from a study of 11,944 peer-reviewed articles from 1991 to 2011 by a team led by Professor John Cook of the University of Queensland.

Cook and company found 7,930 (or 66 percent) of the papers had no conclusion one way or another about man-made global warming.

However, Cook reported it as 97 percent because of the papers that had an opinion, 97 percent agreed with him.

Thus 32 percent became 97 percent.

“There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” – Mark Twain

Shady math hovers over global warming. When a treasure trove of private emails among climate researchers became public, the world learned that they fudge their data.

“Hide the decline,” one researcher advised another.

Robin had an answer to that one. Unfortunately, it was bullshit as well, just like saying that the record cold weather we have been experiencing is the result of global warming over the North Pole. Remember, to the true believers, global warming causes everything and man is responsible for global warming.

Two Junes ago, Garth Paltridge explained why they do this. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Tasmania after years of leading the Australian government’s atmospheric research.

“We have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem,” Paltridge wrote.

Ya think? Pope Albert declared that the North Pole would be free of sea ice by now. Hasn’t happened. Fifteen years ago he said we would be past the point of no return in ten years. Every year he would say we had ten years. He kept moving the goal posts. He’s made a lot of money out of junk science.

“The trap was set in the late 1970s or thereabouts when the environmental movement first realized that doing something about global warming would play to quite a number of its social agendas. At much the same time, it became accepted wisdom around the corridors of power that government-funded scientists (that is, most scientists) should be required to obtain a goodly fraction of their funds and salaries from external sources – external anyway to their own particular organization,” Paltridge wrote.

“The scientists in environmental research laboratories, since they are not normally linked to any particular private industry, were forced to seek funds from other government departments. In turn this forced them to accept the need for advocacy and for the manipulation of public opinion.”

Try to explain this to the true believers. AGW is a religion. It has its leader in Pope Albert I of the Church of AGW. It has indulgences in the form of carbon credits. It has missionaries in liberals who have drunk the Kool-Ade. You have to take a lot on faith and the clergy must fudge the numbers (97%) and “hide the decline” in global temperatures when they contradict the Bible of AGW.

Which explains why the American Physical Society — a group of physicists — no longer tolerates any debate on the subject.

The science is never “settled”. When the facts contradict your theory it must be altered. Remember, at one time it was settled that the earth was the center of the universe and the sun, stars, and planets all revolved around the earth. Think of how ridiculous that sounds today.

Sir James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming science, has finally admitted his predictions were wrong.

“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.

Heresy! Excommunicate the infidel!

Left out of the discussion is what is the proper temperature for the Earth. Some scientists believe the world was warmer in 1300 and warmer than that in 1100 B.C.

Greenland used to be green, which is where it got its name, but the Little Ice Age hit and the settlement there could no longer sustain itself and had to have food imported to survive. Remember Vineland? When the Vikings arrived in what is now Nova Scotia, the temperature was much warmer than it is now.

Back in 1970’s the fear was global cooling. Now it’s global warming. Both were wrong. Thanks Don, for setting us straight on the bogus 97% statistic. Too bad the true believers, like Robin, will still keep their faith in the Church of AGW.

AGW is a religion and liberalism is a mental disease.