Just check out the following link, the consensus is clear enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

Here is another interesting link.

Texas and most of the Eastern US were cooler than average in July.

Could this indicate the beginning of a change in the global warming scientific consensus?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2007&month_last=07&sat=4&sst=0&type=anoms&mean_gen=07&year1=2007&year2=2007&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg

I'd like to share some links that I found while Googling Schulte's piece. I'll reserve my own opinion for another comment.

One interesting approach, somewhat like Brett's, is initiated at Tim Lambert's blog: Classifying abstracts on global climate change.

Lambert writes:
Searching for "global climate change" in the Web of Science and restricting the search to "Papers" and "since 2004" gave me 576 results. A bit more than Schultz, but some were published after Feb 2007. I've put all the results on the web here. Christopher Monckton has posted seven of the papers that Schultz reckons explicitly reject the consensus. You'd think that those would the best seven, so I looked at them. He does better than Pieser, because three of them really so reject the consensus.

Let me just highlight the link embedded in the above -- we can each do our own checking, no pencils required. The abstracts in question are at: Abstracts on Global Climate Change

Lambert offers an analysis of the seven quoted by Schulte. Let's just say that Lambert comes to a different conclusion that Schulte about those seven.

Meanwhile, on the comments of Lambert's blog, is a link to Naomi Oreske responds to Schulte.

With Brett's permission, I quote Oreske's response in full:
Reply to EPW Blog: New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears:

Naomi Oreskes, University of California, San Diego

1) The Schulte piece is being published in Energy and Environment, a known contrarian journal. It was posted on the minority blog of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, whose leader thinks that global warming is a "hoax." It was circulated on the internet by Marc Morano, a long-standing contrarian and former reporter and producer for the Rush Limbaugh Show, and who was involved in the "swift boat" campaign against John Kerry.

2) The Schulte piece misrepresents the research question we posed. It was, "How many papers published in referred journals disagree with the statement, "...most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations"? This statement came from the IPCC (2001) and was reiterated explicitly by the 2001 NAS report, so we wanted to know how many papers diverged from that consensus position. The answer was none. The Schulte claim does not refutes that.

3) The piece misrepresents the results we obtained. In the original AAAS talk on which the paper was based, and in various interviews and conversations after, I repeated pointed out that very few papers analyzed said anything explicit at all about the consensus position.This was actually a very important result, for the following reason. Biologists today never write papers in which they explicitly say "we endorse evolution". Earth scientists never say "we explicitly endorse plate tectonics." This is because these things are now taken for granted. So when we read these papers and observed this pattern, we took this to be very significant.We realized that the basic issue was settled, and we observed that scientists had moved on to discussing details of the problem, mostly tempo and mode issues: how fast, how soon, in what manner, with what impacts, etc. (See Oreskes, 2007 for further discussion).

4) The Schulte piece misrepresents my own interpretation of the severity climate question, as well as that of the scientific societies whose positions we compiled. This is a typical contrarian tactic - to exaggerate or misrepresent the scientific claim and then "refute" it. My analysis was a summary of the position of scientific experts. I never said, nor have any of the major scientific societies said, that the scientific literature warns of an imminent "catastrophe." An analysis of how severe scientists think warming is or will be would have been a different paper. So you cannot "refute" my analysis by pointing out that the word "catastrophe" doesn't appear. I never said that it did. Nor would I expect it to. Scientists don't generally use that kind of language, although contrarians do.

5) The EPW press release accuses my paper of being "outdated." It is in fact a crucial element of the paper that the study that it goes back to 1993. We wanted to see how the arguments had developed over time, and to test, if we could, when the consensus position emerged. A crucial result for me was the realization that the basic consensus had already been established in the early 1990s. However, in hindsight this should actually have been obvious: it's why President George H.W. Bush signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The basic scientific insight was already in place.

6) The author is a medical researcher. As a historian of science I am trained to analyze and understand scientific arguments, their development, their progress, etc., and my specific expertise is in the history of earth science. This past summer I was invited to teach a graduate intensive course at Vienna International Summer University, Vienna Circle Institute, on Consensus in Science. I do not know why a medical researcher would feel qualified to undertake an analysis of consensus in the earth scientific literature.

7) Contrarians have been trying to refute my work for three years. A previous claim, also circulated and cited by Marc Morano, was subsequently retracted by its author. Evidently it has taken them three years to find some one foolish enough to try again.

I refer interested individuals back to the original paper (Oreskes, 2004) and to a more extended version of the argument (Oreskes, 2007).

Oreskes, Naomi, 2004."The scientific consensus on climate change," Science 306: 1686. [link]

Oreskes, Naomi, 2007, "The scientific consensus on climate change: How do we know we’re not wrong?" Climate Change: What It Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren, edited by Joseph F. C. DiMento and Pamela Doughman, MIT Press, pp. 65-99. [Download file]

More damning evidence this is nothing but a hoax:
http://newsbyus.com/more.php?id=9489_0_1_0_M

Senator Inhofe also publicized a study this past week that claimed less than half of climate scientists endorse the global warming theory. Reply: yes, this is the same story. Brett. A lot of these "studies" have methods that are completely biased. One such bias is sample selection, usually by picking a set of studies or scientists with known opinions rather than a statistically accurate subset of opinions. In the Inhofe case, only 6% of studies actually had an opinion- most were silent on the issue and they counted this as being against consensus. There is also the Bray and von Storch study from 2003 which showed about 60% of climate scientists in support of the theory- this was back in 2003 when we had a lot less hard evidence about things like ice cap melt. I blogged about these studies here: http://local-warming.blogspot.com/2007/08/do-12-scientists-endorse-global-warming.html

Brett,

I don't see anything in this data even remotely indicating an "overwhelming consensus" - a term we often hear used as a reason to move forward with aggressive policy. Reply: yes Patrick, the last two studies support that. Brett. Looking around just on the NASA web sites I can find dozens of different papers with various theories about warming or cooling due to CO2, solar radiation, atmospheric thinning, etc.

By all indications the science of climate change is in it's infancy. Even the science of recording and analyzing temperatures appears to be very poorly understood. The politics is miles ahead of the science.

This may just indicate that tipping effects have already confused the consensus. Human activity will cause global warming only to an extent and thereafter natural processes will take over.
All the scientists agree that GW is occurring but some dispute it is all caused by human activity.
I agree,
Look at forests in heatwaves releasing CO2, drying out and burning, releasing far more co2 than from nature than the usual human source. This knock on effect is initially caused by AGW but the additional source of co2 is the natural response to climate change.
Look at acidic oceans now dissolving coral reefs and limestone and releasing stored co2 or the warming permafrost releasing tonnes of co2 and methane in arctic regions.
These vaults of co2 are natural and cannot be controlled Therefore warming in the future will occur as a direct result of an accelerated natural release of CO2 and methane hydrates rather than being caused solely by human activity.

Andrew, Do you really believe info on Wikipedia?
Info without responsibility......

Brett,

This isn't politics - it is science. If 25% of the people in my office are not willing to sign off that the product is ready, it wouldn't stand a chance of going out the door. A 25% chance of product failure is completely unacceptable and would destroy the company.

The reason being that everyone is looking at the problem from a different angle. The most recent study shows less than 50% ready to sign off. There is no consensus.

from http://local-warming.blogspot.com/2007/08/do-12-scientists-endorse-global-warming.html

'If a paper is silent on the issue of whether global warming is real or not, does this indicate "a refusal to accept or reject a hypothesis"?
No. Does it indicated lack of consensus in the scientists? No.
If only 6% of papers reviewed (and who knows what methods were used to select the papers) outright rejected the consensus (in a non-representative sample narrowly defined by a partisan study) then how can you say that over half of scientists refuse consensus? You can't. With the same data, you could say that scientists are in consensus because only 6% of all studies sampled outright deny global warming in their papers. The truth is that in order to find out if scientists endorse the theory of global warming you have to ask them.

I lived in Alaska for a long time watching glaciers melt, shorelines disappear, villages disappear into the sea, etc, etc. I traveled across Canada and around the US last year. Everywhere people are seeing the climate change, new animals in their area, spring coming three weeks early, growing seasons extending. It appears we're in a burning building. We're debating whether the most heat is coming from man made or naturally made materials. Not only that but whether it's 8% or 20%. Who did what to who, how much, who's at fault, did the fire start with a spark or a match, lets find some bit of trivial evidence or misinterpreted information, it was cooler the 4th of July in my hometown, on and on with the debates. And you can find somebody, somewhere who will disagree with anything.
eantime the building is burning. So argue on, doesn't change a damn thing.

Lubos Motl shredded Naomi's article two years ago..
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/05/oreskes-study-errata.html

I did my own surveys to debunk other scientific myths:

95% of epidemiologists don't believe alcohol rub dispensors or soap and water, kill germs.

90% of doctors believe AIDS can be cured by faith healers (sadly, some politicians in the USA have much in common with some politicians in Africa regarding the scientific knowledge bases of Global Warming and AIDS, respectively).

75% of astronomers think NASA didn't go to the Moon, and the reflector mirrors lasers rebound off of when shone at the Moon, are really hitting the invisible roof over Earth.

AGW is a sound and mature science. Big Foot claims and claims UFOs aren't weather balloons, atmospheric phenomena or military prototypes, should be given the same credulence as AGW deniers. The same marketing forces were at play in claiming cigarettes didn't cause lung cancer and asbestos didn't cause cancer (thx to Stern for that last example).

It would be fine if deniers were choosing to stay off in their own little delusional sanctuary, but they are taking all of us back to the stone ages. Do the Stonecutters really think they can maintain control over a world regressed to a Middle Ages standard of living?! Time to give back a little bit. For those of you that aren't Stonecutters, what gives? You need at least a six figure net-worth to live off of compounding interest, they won't let you in their club just because you shine their shoes.

Zeke,

A few things to think about with respect to glacial retreat in Alaska. Most of the recorded glacial retreat in Glacier Bay was prior to 1880.

when European explorers first sailed along the Alaska coastline in the 1790s, they noted only a small embayment along the coastline. By the 1880s the glacier that filled what became known as Glacier Bay had retreated, leaving a bay that extended nearly 40 miles (64 kilometers). The glacier has continued to retreat and today Glacier Bay extends more than 60 miles (96 kilometers) into the Alaskan coastline.

What complicates the human-induced global warming question is the fact that some of the glaciers in Alaska began their retreat more than 250 years ago, before the human population expanded and the industrial revolution.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/12/1217_alaskaglaciers.html

20,000 years ago glaciers covered most of North America to a depth of several thousand feet. We are now in an interglacial period, and yes glaciers are retreating.

Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt." .... "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070814/NATION02/108140063

Shannon,

Having read through the site you referenced and understanding that you want to do what you can, to help avert this AGW phenomenon, I will throw these questions out to the forum and see how many "realists" there are in the crowd of believers:

1) What would you have done to stop or slow the natural warming cycle, if you lived sometime between the years 800 and 1400 AD, when Greenland glaciers were melting, the Arctic ice was receeding and Icelanders were farming the newly exposed lands?

2) Do you think you would have tried to stop the natural cooling cycle if you had lived in the transition period, say 1360 to 1440 AD, so you would not have to relocate, when the ice came back and closed the ports to shipping?

3) Do you think anything could reverse the development of one mile thick of ice on more than half of North America and Russia, that dessimated everything in it's path 15,000 years ago, if the same ice age were to begin today?

Everything that you see around you today (if you live north of California) such as trees, lakes, rivers, grass covered prairies, towns, and all wildlife, did not exist until the ice sheet receeded. We are all living pretty well due to that warming.

Enjoy and find some good in the weather, find something to do that will actually make a difference for the less fortunate, relocate if you must, adapt and carry on. That's how we all ended up here in the first place. It's called natural progression and evolution and we're living it.

Two thousand years from now, they won't care what kind of lightbulbs you used or what type of car you drove. Everything you do today will be mostly irrelavent by then. That's the reality of climate and history repeating itself.

Texas and most of the Eastern US were cooler than average in July.

REPLY: Really???? Gee, and I thought this summer was supposed to be the B--- Buster of them all, with the Air Conditoners in the Northeast getting a workout. I am still waiting for it to start! When is it going to start???? Can someone tell me when this hotter than average summer for the Northeast is going to start??? But that's OK, Pittsburgh is hot and getting hotter! Didn't you hear??? Why, here's proof:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07205/803994-100.stm

Just so everyone knows, (especially the political leftys and Al Gore supporters) this story broke on a day in Pittsburgh in July that did not exceed 68 degrees F for a daytime high, and the head of "Penn Envrionmemnt" was at one point in history, a congressional lobbiest for "social change" while working for a similar organization in Connecticut. Does this tell you anything???

DENY DENY DENY THE GLOBAL WARMING LIE!!!!!!

"growing seasons extending."

Heavens, no! This is a catastrophe. But the crop grown during this increased growing season will only be sand from what I understand.

Andrew,

More evidence from NASA of an impending ice age ;^)

For several decades, measurements of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet showed it to be retreating rapidly. But new data derived from satellite-borne radar sensors show the ice sheet to be growing. .... Do these new measurements signal the end of the ice sheet's 10,000-year retreat?
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=7268

BTW - we are on track to set the all-time record for maximum southern hemisphere ice this week or next. Using the clever linear thinking of the AGW community, this extrapolates to Antarctic ice eventually covering the planet.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpg

-113F in Antarctica right now, as spring rapidly approaches. Hope the penguins are holding on tightly to their eggs. Nothing more annoying than a dancing baby penguin.
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=-78.44999695,106.87000275

The American Meteorological Societys position on climate change.

Humans have significantly contributed to this change, and further climate
change will continue to have important impacts on human societies,
on economies, on ecosystems, and on wildlife through the 21 st century and beyond.

Prudence dictates extreme care in managing our relationship with the only planet known
to be capable of sustaining human life.

http://www.ametsoc.org/POLICY/2007climatechange.pdf