The pushback has been political rather than scientific. In the US, the rightwing thinktank the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CPI) is reportedly putting pressure on Nasa to remove a reference to the 97% study from its webpage. The CPI has received event funding from the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and Charles Koch Institute, which have much to lose from a transition to a low-carbon economy.
But among academics who study the climate, the convergence of opinion is probably strengthening, according to John Cook, the lead author of the original consensus paper and a follow-up study on the “consensus about consensus” that looked at a range of similar estimates by other academics.
He said that at the end of his 20-year study period there was more agreement than at the beginning: “There was 99% scientific consensus in 2011 that humans are causing global warming.” With ever stronger research since then and increasing heatwaves and extreme weather, Cook believes this is likely to have risen further and is now working on an update.
“As expertise in climate science increases, so too does agreement with human-caused global warming,” Cook wrote on the Skeptical Science blog. “The good news is public understanding of the scientific consensus is increasing. The bad news is there is still a lot of work to do yet as climate deniers continue to persistently attack the scientific consensus.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/24/scientific-consensus-on-humans-causing-global-warming-passes-99?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet
