Posted on 01/28/2005 7:29:42 AM PST by presidio9
WASHINGTON - A provocative new novel that says fears of global warming are unjustified and stoked by an environmentalist-media conspiracy is taking Washington by storm.
“State of Fear,” a novel by Michael Crichton, the best-selling author of “Jurassic Park,” and the creator of the TV show “ER”, compares scientists who warn of global warming to advocates of eugenics who said that the mixing of races would ruin the world’s genetic stock.
In an appendix explaining his position, Crichton writes: “Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend might be a natural phenomenon. Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend might be man-made. Nobody knows how much warming will occur in the next century."
Sixteen of 18 top U.S. climate scientists interviewed by Knight Ridder, however, said the Harvard-trained author is bending scientific data and distorting research.
“Wrong, wrong, wrong," said Martin Hoffert, a professor of physics at New York University. “The best face I can put on this is that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. The worst is that he’s intentionally deceiving people as he accuses environmentalists (of doing) in ‘State of Fear.’ "
The overwhelming majority of climate scientists say the world is warming, mainly because of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The biggest increase in those gases comes from the burning of fossil fuels. U.S. and foreign authorities predict a 5-degree Fahrenheit increase in the world’s average temperature by the end of the century. Ice sheets are melting, and species of birds and animals have moved to new areas because of warming.
Nevertheless, Crichton’s novel has grabbed the fancy of Washington political conservatives. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., in a Senate speech this month, called the book “the real story" of climate change. Conservative think tanks and columnists promote the novel.
On Friday, Crichton hits Washington, speaking to the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute and the National Press Club. His publicist, Jennifer Swihart, says he’s also having a private “high-profile meeting” with someone she isn’t allowed to name.
Jerry Mahlman, a senior climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., attributes Washington’s embrace of Crichton to fear: “The fundamental reality of the elementary physics of global warming is spooking the heck out of people and they’re looking for ways to get out of it.”
Crichton’s supporters credit his research skill, writing ability and celebrity. Crichton’s book is “influential for the simple reason that he did it," said Frank Maisano, an energy lobbyist who fights global warming measures. “He is a rock star in terms of telling stories.”
Two climate scientists said they loved Crichton’s book.
“It was a fun read and the science was handled intelligently and responsibly," said MIT meteorology professor Richard Lindzen. “Crichton has studied the science for the last three years and comes to the issue with intelligence as well as a professional scientific background.”
For his part, Crichton writes, “Everybody has an agenda. Except me."
"State of Fear" follows a mainstream environmental group’s foray into terrorism. The environmentalists try to trigger a tsunami, flash floods and calving icebergs to convince the world of the dangers of climate change and raise more money.
Amid that plot, Crichton drops in graphs and footnotes to buttress his contention that global warming isn’t a real problem.
Three scientists - Hoffert, physicist Ben Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California, and NASA’s James Hansen - told Knight Ridder that Crichton distorted their research in the novel.
Crichton declined to be interviewed or to answer 10 questions that were e-mailed to him through his publicist.
Hansen, the director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences, takes issue with Crichton’s contention that Hansen’s 1988 prediction for warming was off by 300 percent. Hansen said his paper presented three predictions of future warming and said the middle case was the most likely. Crichton took the highest prediction and ignored the middle-case scenario, which was off by 20 percent, according to Hansen.
“How would you describe what Mr. Crichton did? Science fiction? Scientific fraud?” Hansen wrote.
To challenge the warming predictions, Crichton also cites dropping temperatures in places such as Punta Arenas, Chile; Greenville, S.C.; Truman, Mo.; and Ann Arbor, Mich.
While some places have cooled, responded Henry Pollack, a professor of geophysics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, far more places have gotten hotter. That’s especially true, he added, for the 79 percent of the world that's covered by oceans.
The world’s overall temperature is rising, according to the federal government’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Last year was the fourth hottest ever recorded. The five hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998. The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1990. The last month to record below-average temperature was July 1985.
I ordered "State of Fear" from Amazon earlier this week.
I hope this one becomes a best seller and a movie.
Just for new folks and those who haven't read this:
http://www.oism.org/pproject/
This site is operated by Dr. Fredick Seitz, former head of the National Academy of Sciences. Seems that he, and over 19,000 (no, that's not a typo - thousand) scientists disagree with the usual doggerel about SUV's and evil America and thoughtless humanity farting up the earth's atomosphere. Note, too, that virtually all of the signatories have degrees in the earth sciences and most of whom hold advanced degrees and doctorates.
In short, one hell of a lot of informed people that disagree with the deeply 'scientific' Knight-Ridder selection of 18 whoevers.
Articles like this never seem to mention that even the scientific board convened by the UN on climate change did NOT endorse human-causality theory in climate change. Of course, the UN leadership sought to spin things this way and in their last report, the media was even bold enough to ignore what the report actually said and a press conference was convened to repudiate the mass media distortions - to no avail and conveniently ignored.
Dr. Patrick Moore, one of the seven founders of Greenpeace, has also seen the light and is now working for sane policies based on sound conservation and resource use. He has said that today's environmentalists are the equivalent of scientifically ignorant Nazis. Of course, he is routinely sent death threats and stalked by the enlightened Left.
Well, given the increasingly sensible climate induced by leadership that isn't pandering to global reallignment of national resources and sovereignty, I think we can look forward to increasing information flows and sane policy that will effectively put the dampers on the hysterical environmentalist propaganda.
That's all for now. I gotta go gas up my Stihl chainsaw and cut some wood to burn.
If only he had remembered to include well-developed characters and plausible situations. I think the overall badness of the novel will obscure the important point he was trying to make.
I had to force myself through this book (because people were talking about it) but I agree that the scene where Martin Scheen gets eaten was a beautiful moment. I also enjoyed when he got his ass kicked by a girl.
LOL, I love it when the lying fearmonger environuts are accused of lying and fear mongering......they really hate it when the truth is told.
They forgot to mention 2002 was the coldest winter in US history.
I'd guess that volcanoes, both above ground and in the ocean contribute to NATURAL global warming more than a few billion people with technology.
It's a man against creation mentality...that we can fix what's "WE THINK" is wrong with the workings of "Universe".
But we still have hurricanes, we still have volcanic eruptions, we still have the release of huge amounts of methane from the seas.
Man can only be a compensator whose job is to help the unfortunates who were in the path of mother nature.
I think perhaps that a good way of looking at this is taking the entire population AND it's improvements and reducing them perspectively to size of the universe. It would be a dot!!
As for the 5 degree increase in temperature, let those people at the end of the century worry about it. I'm sure they'll still be collecting social security from that "no problems here - lock box". Bwahahaha
I'll take Harvard over NYU any day.
And accurate global records have been kept for what, fifty years?
And the so-called records are not being fudged by those with an agenda?
Knight Ridder engaged in another factually-incorrect, logically-suspect "appeal to authority" in the absence of facts.
What are the chances that, if a refutation to the naysayers of global warming existed, it wouldn't be trumpeted from every rooftop at top volume?
There is at least one extemely well known scientist that agrees with Crichton. Dr. Kary Mullis, winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, has placed "State of Fear" on his recommended reading list.
My impression is that articles such as this, which always claim a consensus, are misleading, I don't at all think there is a consensus in favor of global warming theories.
Further, I think there is no distortion of scientists' work in the book, it merely shows the work from another point of view. For instance, Chrichton makes sure to point out that Hansen believes in global warming.
Have you noticed a change in international climat description?
It used to be: prevent Global warming. It has changed to prevent Climate change.
It seems that they want to be able to hedge their bets, since it is more likely that we may be moving toward a mini Ice-age era.
That's because everyone and his brother scoffs at the words "global warming" as it has been discredited and laughed at.
Wow, this is just like the reaction the press had to "The Day After Tomorrow", the sci-fi disaster flick released last summer. NOT
In the film global warming caused NYC to flood then freeze solid in a few short hours.
THe Lefties embraced the film, the media gave it a wink and a nod and Algore and the MoveOnMorons all showed up at the premiere.
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