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Greenhouse Gas [Crichton is deceiving you! You're all doooooooomed for not believing. Oh, BARF!]
Technology Review ^ | May 2005 | Joseph Romm

Posted on 04/06/2005 11:05:38 PM PDT by Brian328i

Michael Crichton has written that rarest of books, an ­intellectually dishonest novel. Crichton has made a fortune exploiting the public’s fears: Prey (fear of nanotechnology), Rising Sun (fear of Japanese technological supremacy), and Jurassic Park (fear of biotechnology). These books attack the hubris of those who use technology without wisdom. In Prey, he warns, “The total system we call the biosphere is so complicated that we cannot know in advance the consequences of anything that we do.” Given the author’s past, one might expect that a Crichton book on global warming would warn about the risk of catastrophic climate change—the unintended consequences of ­humanity’s reckless, irreversible experiment on the biosphere.

But State of Fear takes the reverse view. Crichton argues that the environmental and scientific communities have fabricated the threat. He wants readers to fear those who argue that climate change is real, caused by human technologies, and dangerous. In the novel, a mainstream environmental group plots to create extreme weather events that will cause the deaths of thousands of people in order to trick the public into accepting global warming as truth. They try to create a killer seismic tsunami timed to coincide with a conference on abrupt climate change. That’s a major mistake by Crichton: seismic tsunamis aren’t caused by global warming, as any climate scientist, even an evil one, knows.

Because the evidence for–and scientific consensus on–the human causes of climate change is now so strong, Crichton cannot make his case simply on the evidence. Instead, he must distort the facts and accuse the scientific community of bad faith in order to make his case. And he does so, repeatedly.

Crichton portrays environmentalists as uninformed, hypocritical, or simply evil. He creates a scientist-hero, John Kenner, to save the day. (For added credibility, Kenner is an MIT professor—though he sounds more like Rush Limbaugh than any MIT faculty member I’ve met.) Speaking through Kenner, Crichton makes a faulty case against the environmentalists. Kenner says, for instance, that a real NASA climatologist, James Hansen, has been discredited for overestimating the impact of global warming “by three hundred percent” during 1988 testimony in Congress. In fact, Hansen’s prediction was very close to accurate. The smear Crichton cites was created 10 years later, when global-warming skeptic Patrick Michaels misrepresented the testimony.

Crichton also strains to discredit global-warming fears by presenting them as faddish. He has one environmentalist say (incorrectly), “in the 1970s, all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming.” Global warming did level off between 1940 and 1975. We now know that this was largely a result of dust and aerosols sent by humans into the atmosphere that temporarily overwhelmed the warming effect from greenhouse gases. In the 1970s, it was not yet clear whether the cooling effect from aerosols would be greater than the heating produced from greenhouse gases. Now we know: the heating wins. This episode, fairly explained, would give readers greater confidence in our understanding of climate science, not less.

The dissembling even leaks into the book’s bibliography, where Crichton mischaracterizes the landmark 2002 National Research Council report Abrupt Climate Change: “The text concludes that abrupt climate change might occur sometime in the future, triggered by mechanisms not yet understood.” The report actually concludes, “Abrupt climate changes were especially common when the climate system was being forced to change most rapidly. Thus, greenhouse warming...may increase the possibility of large, abrupt, and unwelcome ­regional or global climatic events.” State of Fear is riddled with such misinformation. For a thorough debunking, go to www.realclimate.org, a site that gives the lie to Crichton’s scurrilous claim that in climate science “open and frank discussion of the data, and of the issues, is being suppressed.” Sadly, Crichton smears the work of countless scientists who are trying to predict and prevent the unintended consequences of technological hubris.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: barfalert; climate; climatechange; crichton; environment; envirowacko; globalwarming; lysenkoism; michaelcrichton
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Did some searches and found nothing on this, just popped up on news.ask.com tonight so thought you'd all like to laugh.
1 posted on 04/06/2005 11:05:39 PM PDT by Brian328i
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To: Brian328i


We're doomed. Doomed! DOOMED!!!

2 posted on 04/06/2005 11:08:28 PM PDT by Petronski (I thank God Almighty for a most remarkable blessing: John Paul the Great.)
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To: Brian328i

Good point. Crichton wrote 'Eaters of the Dead,' which was an attractive paperback because of the line art. The story itself, about what Vikings found frightening, was a little simplistic, but not bad for an early novel.


3 posted on 04/06/2005 11:09:28 PM PDT by RightWhale (50 trillion sovereign cells working together in relative harmony)
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To: Brian328i
Yup, he wrote a FICTION book, and he is under attack for misrepresentation of facts. I'm sorry, but anybody who trusts a fiction book to make decision is stupid. They are meant to be enjoyed, and I, personally, rather enjoy reading Crichton's work.
4 posted on 04/06/2005 11:12:42 PM PDT by Celtic Rose (It may be prudent in me to act sometimes by other men's reason, but I can think only by my own)
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To: Brian328i

I'll bet that Crichton can prove the points he made in the book.

The premise of the book is "follow the Money".


5 posted on 04/06/2005 11:20:16 PM PDT by Mike Darancette (MESOCONS FOR RICE '08)
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To: Celtic Rose

Yes, except MC did a rather cute trick, he included charts, graphs and footnotes in a work of fiction.


6 posted on 04/06/2005 11:22:13 PM PDT by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: durasell

all part of the story probably. Tolkein did similar things with LOtR


7 posted on 04/06/2005 11:27:55 PM PDT by JennMack
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To: JennMack

Lord of the Rings wasn't about "science."


8 posted on 04/06/2005 11:29:09 PM PDT by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: Brian328i
Meh. Uninformed liberals like to shout "Global Warming" and then call anyone who laughs at them "ignorant of scientific facts."
Well, I've got your facts right here. The Earth's climate is actually colder than it has been through most of the planet's history. Also, we have evidence in the geologic record of very rapid climate changes in the Tertiary Period. Many of these changes included temperature increases much more drastic than what we're undergoing today, and these increases happened on a timescale of decades without human help. Right now, there's not really any scientific evidence at all to show that what we're doing is having much effect at all.
So why is this such a big issue, why do "scientists" keep talking about it? Simple. There's money to be made. Now that the sickeningly-uninformed public has largely bought into it, many scientists have made their careers out of fear-mongering. If the public were to all of a sudden realize that the evidence doesn't exist, a lot of people would have to study an actual problem for a lot less money.
9 posted on 04/07/2005 12:40:55 AM PDT by Ain Soph Aur
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To: durasell

Michael Crichton apparently took 3 years to write the book, and even though it is set in a fictional novel, reflects his personal conclusions. At least this is what I read from an interview transcript.

I would say he argues his points persuasively in the context of a fictional novel. While he is no environmental "expert", he is an intelligent, well educated person who knows how to reach logical conclusions.

This is more than can be said for many of the rabid "real" environmental "experts".


10 posted on 04/07/2005 2:56:07 AM PDT by rlmorel (Teresa Heinz-Kerry, better known as Kerry's "Noisy Two Legged ATM")
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To: Brian328i

Who would you believe, Michael Crichton or Ted Danson?


11 posted on 04/07/2005 2:59:48 AM PDT by Pete'sWife (Dirt is for racing... asphalt is for getting there.)
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To: Brian328i

Crichton portrays environmentalists as uninformed, hypocritical, or simply evil.

That's pretty much how I see it.


12 posted on 04/07/2005 4:06:50 AM PDT by freedomfiter2
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To: sauropod

read later


13 posted on 04/07/2005 4:08:58 AM PDT by sauropod (Life under Dictatorship is far more safer, than behind the bars of your democracy. - Iraq Mujahadeen)
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To: durasell
Yes, except MC did a rather cute trick, he included charts, graphs and footnotes in a work of fiction.

MC researched the facts in preparation for this book without automatically buying into the religion of man-made global warming. He sought the facts, not the catachism - that upsets some folks.

14 posted on 04/07/2005 4:10:26 AM PDT by jimfree (Freep and ye shall find.)
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To: Mike Darancette

Crichton included sources and footnotes to actual scientific studies, and one of the most amazing things is that the studies often contradict the ABSTRACTS. This is rather key, since many idiots never actually look at the studies, especially the environ-weenies.


15 posted on 04/07/2005 4:24:03 AM PDT by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news)
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To: Brian328i
Crichton's Cal Tech lecture.

Highly recommended.

16 posted on 04/07/2005 8:50:59 AM PDT by robomurph
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To: Brian328i
Liberals are hysterical when their dogma is questioned. "The sky is falling, the sky is falling"! (laughing)

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
17 posted on 04/07/2005 8:56:31 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: Brian328i
Global warming is real. Stars the size of our sun, expand in size as they age, so our sun is getting larger every year. I don't think the expansion is linear, but the Sun is getting bigger, and as it does the Earth will get warmer and there ain't nothing to be done about it with our current or near future technology. In fact in the future the earth will become so hot that the entire planet will melt, just before the expanding Sun comsumes the entire inner sloar system. So yea, global warming is real.

A billion years ago the Earth was a ball of ice, today it's a ball of water and billion years from now the earth will be a ball of steam.

18 posted on 04/07/2005 9:09:10 AM PDT by jpsb (I already know I am a terrible speller)
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To: Brian328i

Just got the book from the library and am now about halfway through it. It's very well written and despite the "individual reviews" on Amazon i don't find it at all "preachy." I guess one only finds something "preachy" if they disagree with it.

Crichton states at the front of the book that all of his footnotes are real. I found a lot of the factual information in the book fascinating - and so different in toto than the quotes chosen by the envirowhackos.

The storyline itself is great, too. Very engrossing and typical Crichton readability.


19 posted on 04/10/2005 10:06:57 AM PDT by Spyder (I'm in the WPPFF)
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To: RightWhale
Good point. Crichton wrote 'Eaters of the Dead,' which was an attractive paperback because of the line art. The story itself, about what Vikings found frightening, was a little simplistic, but not bad for an early novel.

And it was made into a movie (they took a lot of liberties) that's actually pretty good, "The 13th Warrior," although casting Antonio Banderas as an arab didn't work all that well, IMHO, although he was good in it.

Mark

20 posted on 04/10/2005 10:16:28 AM PDT by MarkL (I've got a fever, and the only prescription is MORE COWBELL!!!)
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