Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), famous for calling global warming "the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state," and saying that the United States Environmental Protection Agency is a "Gestapo bureaucracy," recently appeared on G. Gordon Liddy's talk-radio program. This is the same Liddy who went to prison for masterminding Richard Nixon's Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
Near the end of the interview, Inhofe finally brought out his usual global warming crazy-talk. It was basically the same exact speech he gave Michelle Malkin a few weeks back, complete with the same narrative and the same examples. He talked about his dislike of taxes and Al Gore. He said that "Everything that's bad that happens in this country comes from the United Nations" (slightly more extreme than what he told Malkin: "like most bad things that come to America, it all came from the United Nations"). It was exactly what you'd expect.
Then Inhofe started to resurrect some of his favorite memes:
"The IPCC. They came out and they only had one scientist who's - uh - who had this hockey stick theory that's been completely debunked"I guess that nobody told Inhofe that the National Academy of Sciences affirmed the hockey stick graph (see Nature, Academy Affirms Hockey Stick Graph), and that its results have been replicated by several independent sources and methodologies.
Moving on, Inhofe tried to portray the scientific tide as turning more and more towards his horribly misinformed views. In the process, Inhofe trotted out a "study" that couldn't even get published in a global warming contrarian magazine.
"The most recent thing that happened... is that peer-reviewed scientists are - 538 of them - that have reviewed all the peer stuff since '04, have now said only 7% of those say that man is making up a real, uh, uh, uh, dramatic change through, uh, CO2 and methane and anthropogenic gases. But, now, that's a huge change."Inhofe is pushing this meme pretty hard. In reality, the vast, overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed publications say the exact opposite. It's really not even funny. In 2004, Naomi Oreskes surveyed the peer-reviewed literature on climate change and found that 0% took Inhofe's position. She updated this study in 2007 and found more of the same.
Nonetheless, some guy thought that he could update the study himself. Before his findings were even published, the contrarian-friendly DailyTech reported on its alleged findings:
Of 528 total papers on climate change [since 2003], only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."The study was immediately picked up by James Inhofe, DaveScot, Brent Bozell, Matt Drudge, FOX News, Free Republic, Michael Savage, and Rush Limbaugh as a sign that there was no scientific agreement on the issue of global warming. All of the careless hacks who can't bother themselves with fact-checking a story. Not only did they report on the supposed findings of this not-yet-published "study," they even misrepresented what it purported to show. One retard wrote that "A recent survey of climate change articles in science journals finds fewer than half of the authors endorse anthropogenic global warming theories. The so-called consensus has now collapsed to a minority position." Never mind the fact that this "study" showed nothing of the sort.
Anyway, Tim Lambert (who shot down Benny Peiser when he tried to do the same thing) looked into the "study's" claims regarding peer-reviewed articles that "reject the consensus outright." It turns out, these much touted articles did nothing of the sort. Energy & Environment eventually decided that not even they would publish the "study."
By the way, Energy & Environment is a poorly regarded social science journal. It is not carried in the ISI listing of peer-reviewed journals, and it has been roundly criticized for publishing substandard papers in the past. Additionally, it's run by global warming contrarians for the sole purpose of giving other contrarians something resembling a scientific platform. Basically, it's the equivalent to an unaccredited or online college.
Not to be deterred, Inhofe still references this "study" and claims that there is some sort of "huge change." Nice try, guy.
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