No, again, their conclusion is that 97% who state an opinion on anthropogenic climate change agree with the notion that anthropogenic (literally, “caused by hum

No, again, their conclusion is that 97% who state an opinion on anthropogenic climate change agree with the notion that anthropogenic (literally, “caused by humans”) means, not to put to fine a point on it, “anthropogenic”. You’re trying to infer that the choir doesn’t believe strongly in what that the preacher is preaching… THAT is the non sequitur. Your dispute isn’t with the consensus of orthodox experts, which this paper does successfully establish, your dispute is with how the media portrays that orthodoxy as being 97% of climate scientists (rather than 97% of climate scientists who stated an opinion). Regardless, you’re unlikely to get to a rational conclusion on any of this, as you’re nitpicking about the direction the wind is blowing in a hurricane. Greenhouse gasses affect the environment, this is an indisputable fact of chemistry and physics. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, equally established. Human beings release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere today at a vastly higher scale than has ever been released by any known terrestrial biological source — also indisputable, unless you wish to dispute the Industrial Revolution. If you’re willing to accept that 97% of experts with an opinion believe humans are responsible for a non-zero impact on the client then you’ve already given up all moral impetus for disputing the point… ANY human contribution to climate change is something we must, necessarily, mitigate, eliminate, and reverse… if ANY percentage of climate change is anthropogenic, we’re responsible for it. Moreover, if we’re not responsible for it — a philosophical stance that beggars belief — the point is moot, because we must work to mitigate, eliminate, and reverse non-anthropogenic greenhouse emissions as well, anyway. Why? Venus… lots of atmospheric carbon dioxide there, not a single human (or, as far as we can tell, living thing). Approximately 100% of climate scientists agree that we cannot survive the climate on Venus, and that allowing our atmosphere to tilt in that direction == bad… any heterodoxy on that point is NOT trustworthy. Disputing the degree to which humans are causing the problem is INANE, once you’ve accepted the problem exists at all, unless you’re one of those people who believes Jesus will come back and snap His fingers and put all the oil back. Now, if you are one of those people — IIRC one of Little Bush’s energy appointees was big on that theory — then there’s likely little I can do to help, except gently prompt that maybe, maybe, just maybe, assuming that’s Plan A, perhaps — just perhaps — we should put a wee little thought into having a Plan B, just in case.