An MIT scientist disputes Al Gore's claim that there is no debate over global warming in the scientific community. More interesting than the science offered, which can be headspinning, is Richard Lindzen's attempt at answering why Gore, and other environmentalists, make such a point of declaring scientific unanimity when difference of opinion clearly exists on the issue. Lindzen offers three reasons: "First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists--especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a 'moral' crusade." And finally, "there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition." This final method, more Goebbels than Gore, is ill-suited to debate in a healthy democracy. But not everyone seeks debate.

Al Gore was referencing this study with his claim of consensus: Beyond the ivory tower: The scientific consensus on climate change." Science 306, 3 December, 2004

It seems a bit disengenous to me that Prof. Lindzen ignores that.

Obi:

Prof. Lindzen doesn't ignore Oreskes' study. He responds to it using a study of her study. I find it disingenuous that Gore didn't mention _that_ study!

"More recently, a study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words "global climate change" produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it."

That's a prety funny use of the word only when describing how many had abstracts. 913 out of 928 is 98%. To say that only 13 of the 913 endorse the consensus view requires a very fanciful interpretation of what counts as skeptical. His study is worthless:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/26/wsj-gore/

Obi: Well, I'm not prone to give too much wieght either to the original social science study, or the study of the study. But it is significant that she (the original study) claims to look at the abstract of 928, and 13 of those don't have abstracts at all. It shows sloppiness. Also, why is she looking at the abstracts instead of the articles? Laziness. She claims that none of the articles oppose the Gore view, while the study of her study says that several do. Someone's cheating. Also, I don't get why you think it is fanciful and unskeptical to note that only 13 of the 913 explicitly endorse the Gore view. Conclusion: the study that Gore relies upon to show concensus seems to be rather shoddy _social_ science, even if the opposite view hasn't been established.

I guess my sense is that the procedures of neither study seem to be good ways to figure out how solid the Gore view is among the climatologists.

Here are the 34 abstracts that Peiser claims reject the consensus view. As you can see, he is being fanciful.
http://timlambert.org/2005/05/peiser/#more

In order for a scientific hypothesis to be provable, it must be testable and reproducible. Global warming itself (merely an observation) has barely graduated past the margin of error test.

The "man as cause" hypothesis cannot be proved because it is untestable and not reproducible (unless you happen to have an identical spare planet handy). So the global warming discussion will never advance beyond being a matter of faith (i.e., a religion). There will never be consensus.