SOHO.net has provided a link to an opinion piece by James Taylor that appeared in Forbes magazine (2013) that misrepresents the work of Lefsrud and Meyer “Science or Science Fiction? Professionals Discursive Construction of Climate Change” published in Organization Studies, (2012) in an attempt to show that climate change is a minority option among scientists. The thesis stated in the original Forbes article:
“It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.”
“Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.”
The 36% quoted above is from the article by Lefsrud and Meyer but is highly misleading. The intent of the original article was to understand the framing of climate change to understand ‘defensive institutional work’.
“By linking notions of the science or science fiction of climate change to the assessment of the adequacy of global and local policies and of potential organizational responses, we contribute to the understanding of ‘defensive institutional work’ by professionals within petroleum companies, related industries, government regulators, and their professional association.”
The survey was of members of APEGA (Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta), heavily weighted by people in the petroleum industry. This is acknowleged in the article by Lefsrud and Meyer.
“The petroleum industry in Alberta is an instrumental case (Stake, 1995; per Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006) to examine the debate of climate change expertise given the economic centrality of the oil industry, the oil sands as a controversial energy source, and the dominance of professionals that gives them a privileged position as influencers of government and industry policy. “
“There are 540 multinational integrated, midsized, and junior oil and gas companies in Canada (nearly all headquartered in Calgary, Alberta) with operations worldwide. ”
If you want to understand nuances of climate change interpretation, what better place to look than inside the petroleum industry! This survey is more a survey of scientists and engineers in the petroleum industry (in Alberta) than any representation of scientists as whole, or climate change scientists in particular. In addition the survey was not designed to get a yes/no response on climate change but to understand more nuanced positions, and not a binary result (does or does not believe in climate change caused by humans). Consequently the responses to the survey were assigned to one of 5 categories. (See table 4 in the report) Using this report to represent the whole scientific community is at best misleading.
The category with the largest response was “agree with Kyoto” (36.3%). The Kyoto protocols were meant to help us combat climate change. This is the figure used for the binary distinction in the Forbes article “Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, “ as we look at the other categories we see that this is factually untrue. What is not stated in the Forbes article was that this is the category with the largest response!
The category with the next largest response was “Nature is overwhelming” (24%). According to Lefsrud and Meyer this category believed that global warming was occurring naturally (24%). This is the “Nature only group.”
The Fatalists has the next largest response (17.4%). “‘Fatalists’, a surprisingly large group (17%), diagnose climate change as both human- and naturally caused.” And “Fatalists are not convinced that involvement will make a difference and, thus, following Gamson (1992), they do not develop the sense of agency.” Notice that this group saw climate change as both human and naturally caused. Since they believe it is both human and nature caused, placing them into the category of nature only is at best misleading. They are a skeptical group, and see little impact on their personal life, etc.. (see the paper for more details). This position is between the binary divisions that the Forbes article would like to impose on the survey.
9.7% of the responses fall into the economic responsibility group who “… diagnose climate change as being natural or human caused. More than any other group, they underscore that the ‘real’ cause of climate change is unknown as nature is forever changing and uncontrollable. ” This another group that has a skeptical position (“real cause of climate change is unknown”) They do not see a personal impact and focus on economic impacts.
4.7% of the responses regulation activists, “Advocates of this frame diagnose climate change as being both human- and naturally caused, posing a moderate public risk, with only slight impact on their personal life. ” again, skeptics not deniers.
7.9% of the responses were disguised responses (this was an internet poll) … assigning them to the binary category “that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem,” is at best misleading.
Notice that not personally seeing an effect (in Alberta Canada) has been translated to “future global warming will not be a very serious problem.” These are not the same statements! The climate change research has focused primarily on long term effects, of which we are just now starting to witness. The effects are most pronounced near the shorelines and in areas that will be most affected by global warming. The scientists in Alberta Canada may not be as affected during their lifetimes as people elsewhere on the Globe!
Table 4 is also breaks down the responses by additional categories of respondents. Of those employed in the oil and gas industry 29.8% of the responses were in the “nature is overwhelming” category , 27.6% were in the “Comply with Kyoto”, and the rest being in the other categories. So even within the oil and gas industry in Alberta these two categories are about equal! The geoscientists were the most split with 40% in the “nature is overwhelming category” and 24.1% in the “Comply with Kyoto” category. The definition of Geoscientists given by the APEGA is
“(i) reporting, advising, evaluating, interpreting, processing, geoscientific surveying, exploring, classifying reserves or examining related to any activity
(A) that relates to the earth sciences or the environment,
(B) that is aimed at the discovery or development of oil, natural gas, coal, metallic or non-metallic minerals, precious stones, other natural resources or water or that is aimed at the investigation of surface or subsurface conditions of the earth, and
(C) that requires, in that reporting, advising, evaluating, interpreting, processing, geoscientific surveying, exploring, classifying reserves or examining, the professional application of the principles of mathematics, chemistry, physics or biology through the application of the principles of geoscience, or
(ii) teaching geoscience at a university”
The definition above, and the large presence of the Petroleum industry in Alberta, perhaps makes this group this group professionally dependent on the petroleum Industry. It seems as least possible that scientists with a strong conviction that we need to limit our use of petroleum products would try to avoid a career in the petroleum industry, which has strong roots in Alberta. From this perspective it might be surprising that almost 1 out of 4 geoscientists in APEGA responded in the “Comply with Kyoto category.”
To summarize: if you poll a group of people, heavily weighted by people working in the petroleum industry you find that you still have a minority in the “nature is overwhelming” category, at least in Alberta Canada. Apparently Climate change is making its imprint on those scientists working directly in the petroleum industry. This poll was not intended as a poll of the broader category of scientists (and the authors make no such claim). It was a poll attempting to understand the more nuanced positions about climate change. To use this poll as a way of trying to prove that the majority of scientists disagreed with climate change is a gross misrepresentation of the article.
The article itself is worth reading, especially if you are interested in exploring a more nuanced view of how people grapple with the issues presented by climate change.
Forbes, and by extension Soho.net, either did not understand the article, or seem to have misrepresented the article for their own purposes.
For some other takes on this study see:
Think Progress (especially the end where the authors of the study comment)