Here you go pal[0]

[0]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11191-013-9647-9

edit: added missing word.

Here's the passage from that paper that explains the 0.3% figure from the abstract:

From publication and citation data, Anderegg et al. (2010) selected 908 of 1,372 climate researchers, defined as scientists who had published at least twenty climate papers and had either signed petitions opposing or supporting the IPCC’s positions or had co-authored IPCC reports. Of these, 97–98 % endorsed the standard definition that ‘‘anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for ‘most’ of the ‘unequivocal’ warming of the Earth’s average global temperature over the second half of the twentieth century’’(p. 12107). The standard definition of the consensus in Anderegg et al. (2010) is less imprecise than that of Cook et al. (2013). Yet, like Cook et al. (2013), Anderegg et al.(2010) did not seek to determine how many researchers considered this global warming to be actually or potentially damaging enough to require a climate policy.

Such surveys are often cited as demonstrating a near-unanimous scientific consensus infavor of a climate policy, when they never ask any question about whether and to what extent the anthropogenic component in recent warming might be dangerous or about whether a ‘‘climate policy’’ should be adopted in attempted mitigation of future warming. Nevertheless, Cook et al. (2013), after a subjective review of only the abstracts of 11,944 papers on climate change which ‘‘matched the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’’’ (p. 1), conclude that 97.1 % of those that expressed an opinion endorsed the hypothesis as defined in their introduction (i.e.,the standard definition). However, 66.4 % percent of the abstracts had expressed no position. Thus, 32.6 % of the entire sample, or 97.1 % of the 33.6 % who had expressed an opinion, were said to be in agreement with the standard definition. However, inspection of the authors’ own data file showed that they had themselves categorized only 64 abstracts, just 0.5 % of the sample, as endorsing the standard definition. Inspection shows only 41 of the 64 papers, or 0.3 % of the sample of 11,944 papers, actually endorsed that definition.

I had a little bit of trouble parsing that text alone, but the underlying data was easier to digest - here's the breakdown of analyzed papers by "level of endorsement of the climate consensus", from Table 1 of that same paper:

    Endorsement level                                                   Abstracts % of All Abstracts
    ------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- ------------------
    Explicit, quantified endorsement (standard definition of consensus)        64              0.54%
        Actually endorsing the standard definition upon inspection             41              0.34%
    Explicit, unquantified endorsement                                        922              7.72%
    Implicit endorsement                                                     2910             24.36%
    No Position                                                              7930             66.39%
    Expression of uncertainty                                                  40              0.33%
    Implicit rejection                                                         54              0.45%
    Explicit, unquantified rejection                                           15              0.13%
    Explicit, quantified rejection                                              9              0.08%
    Total                                                                   11944            100.00%

The 0.3% from the abstract refers to the 0.34% of papers that provide "explicit, quantified" endorsement of the consensus that "anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for ‘most’ of the ‘unequivocal’ warming of the Earth’s average global temperature over the second half of the twentieth century". But the majority of abstracts neither endorsed nor rejected that consensus, while the vast majority (97.1%) of those expressing an opinion either explicitly or implicitly endorsed the consensus view.

This doesn't strike me as a particularly strong refutation to throwaway5752's claim.

Thank you for the well-written reply & inclusion of the table. I think my question from here would be, what does a paper taking 'no position' really mean? I perceive there to be a significant difference between, we have considered both sides but at this time will not endorse nor reject vs. we didn't even consider taking a position because it was irrelevant to what we are studying.

I think the implication in your reply is that it's more of the latter, but if it turns out to be more of the former, I think there needs to be a huge asterisk attached to the 97% number.

The question here is whether that 97% accept that humans are the main cause of global warming, which is arguably not supported by the evidence presented in the Cook paper.

To quote Friedman in a follow-up post:

> My objection was that the 97% figure lumped together categories 1-3, when only category 1 fitted Cook's "main cause." Categories 2 and 3 were papers saying or implying that human action was a cause—"contributed to" in the language of the example. Category 1 contained 64 papers, or 1.6%, not 97%.[0]

Which does not mean that there isn't a large consensus that humans are the primary cause of global warming. What we can infer is:

1. The Cook paper is not evidence of that consensus

2. That Cook himself is perhaps not a reliable source.

[0]https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2014/03/john-cooks-respo...

Well don't hold back now. If you read the article, I can't because it's paywalled, then present the evidence here, in this forum.

Searching for the title will usually find a free copy.

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/myownPapers-d/LegatesSoon...

I got this instead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists%27_views...

Which points to a 2016 study [0] refuting Tol's claim that the majority of climate scientists have not reached a consensus.

[0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/04...

That's exactly what the Friedman blog post was for. If you weren't willing to read it there I see no reason to think you would read it here.