No, Climate Change Is Not a Hoax — 97–99.97% of Climate Scientists Agree Humans Are Causing It

The claim that human-caused climate change is a hoax, or that scientists are deeply divided on it, is one of the most thoroughly debunked ideas in modern science. The evidence is not close. It is overwhelming, consistent, and comes from independent researchers working in different countries using different methods.

Cook et al. (2013), published in Environmental Research Letters, examined nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed abstracts and found that 97% of those taking a position endorsed the conclusion that humans are causing warming. A later study by Powell (2019) in the Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society went even further — reviewing 11,602 articles published in a single year and finding just 4 that rejected the human-caused warming consensus. That is a 99.97% agreement rate.

This is not just one study or one organization. NASA, NOAA, the American Meteorological Society, and every major national science academy worldwide have formally stated that current warming is primarily driven by human activity, especially burning fossil fuels. The IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report (2021) used the word 'unequivocal' — the strongest language it has ever used — to describe human influence on the climate. Meanwhile, NOAA temperature records show that all 10 of the warmest years ever recorded have occurred since 2010, exactly in line with what climate models predicted.

The strongest version of the skeptical argument points to a handful of dissenting scientists. Those voices exist, and honest science acknowledges them. But a handful of outliers does not constitute a debate. In every field, a 97–99.97% agreement among active researchers is as close to settled as science gets.

This misinformation persists partly because well-funded campaigns — some with direct ties to the fossil fuel industry — have deliberately worked to manufacture the appearance of scientific doubt. Skeptical Science documents how multiple independent consensus studies, using entirely different approaches, all land in the same place. When you see phrases like 'scientists disagree' or 'the science is uncertain,' ask who is funding that message and what evidence they are actually citing.