December 3, 2004-May 2005: Science Historian Finds Little Evidence of Uncertainty over Anthropogenic Global Warming in Science Journals

Science magazine publishes a study by science historian Naomi Oreskes describing how a review of “928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords ‘climate change’” failed to turn up even one study explicitly challenging the consensus opinion that global warming has anthropogenic causes. [Science Magazine, 12/3/2004] Her findings are disputed by Dr. Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who says that his own review of the abstracts from the ISI database found that only one-third implicitly backed the consensus view, and explicitly, only one percent. He tries to get his findings published in Science, but the magazine does not accept it. [Daily Telegraph, 1/5/2005] Peiser later sends 34 abstracts, which he insists challenge the consensus view, to Tim Lambert, a computer scientist who blogs on environmental issues. Lambert and his readers note that only a few of the abstracts actually appear to question anthropogenic global warming. They also note that the authors who do dispute global warming have backgrounds—such as petroleum geology, and energy and power engineering—that are typically sympathetic to the views of industry. [Lambert, 5/6/2005]