Customer Reviews

Chill: A Reassessment of Global Warming Theory

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There are now quite a number of books that challenge accepted global warming theories. This one is unique as it is written by a genuine environmentalist and long-time campaigner. The author is a hard scientist with solid credentials, having advised everyone from the United Nations to Greenpeace. The evidence he presents against the accepted theory is overwhelming, and his analysis of the present situation is profound. This is the book to read if you want to be truly informed on this critical subject. And, unlike the usual naysayers, Peter Taylor gives many ideas for what we should be doing to protect ourselves from the 'chilling' effects of climate change that ARE likely to happen over the coming years...

Taylor's central thesis is that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process stifles informed dissent in favor of a false unanimity on global warming intended to support political and economic action. He supports this view by lucidly outlining the climate science evidence on which there is no consensus.

In his review of Taylor's book, Alister MacIntosh suggests we ignore Taylor's views because they contravene scientific consensus. On the contrary, Taylor chronicles and exemplifies the absence of consensus among climate scientists. This is as it should be in any scientific discipline, particularly one as immature as climate science. A healthy scientific process absolutely thrives on dissenting evidence to arrive at ever-better (i.e. more predictive) hypotheses. That is how a scientific discipline grows and eventually matures.

MacIntosh proposes Taylor is an unquallified messenger we should ignore in favor of an "authority" like the IPCC. Had science followed MacIntosh's advice historically, the earth would still be flat, the center of the universe, and devoid of evolution. Science based on authority, as MacIntosh implicitly advocates, is dogma; science based on evaluation of all relevant evidence, as Taylor urges explicitly and by example, is the essence of the scientific method.

Why are global warming believers like MacIntosh and many "greens" so fearful of dissenting viewpoints? I helped author the Kyoto Protocol yet treasure Taylor's carefully marshaled and reasoned evidence precisely because it provides the opportunity for advancing climate science. If there is an effective rejoinder to Taylor's contrarian climate views, the views of the greens will be correspondingly strengthened; and if not, Taylor gives the opening to modify positions to better reflect the evidence. Isn't that the aim?

If global warming is real and anthropogenic, global action is certainly justified, and that will be supported when genuine consensus emerges. In the meantime, stifling dissent, ignoring contrary evidence, and attacking the messenger, reflect the absence of consensus and cannot lead to effective and enduring change. Scientific dissent is to be treasured precisely because it is the foundation of paradigm shifts essential to effective and lasting political action.

Disclosure: Taylor is an old and dear friend. Precisely for that reason, however, I know him well, respect his astonishing breadth, and honor his eclectic process. Irrespective of your position on climate change, we should all thank Taylor for his courage, time and the intellectual effort he has invested to help us all toward a more informed position. Read this important book and decide for yourself.

Ecologist and scientist Peter Taylor has written an extraordinary book on climate change. It is also full of stimulating thoughts on energy, land use, biodiversity, housing, food production, migration, etc.

The warm years 1980-2005 followed the cool years 1950-80, in a natural cycle. He contends that these unusually warm years gave rise to the theory of unstoppable global warming.

He notes, "Most of the sea-level rise to date (and all other environmental effects laid at the door of `global warming', such as the retreat of glaciers and calving ice shelves), can be accounted for by the rebound from the Little Ice Age. Indeed, the trend in sea-level rise from 1800 has been consistent, and in the last ten years, as the oceans have cooled, that trend has levelled off."

He studies satellite data, cloud cover, and ocean and solar cycles. Satellite data, particularly since 2005, has told us much that is new about the climate. Solar magnetic cycles drive cloud changes, which drive ocean temperatures. More sunlight means less cloud, warming the oceans. Cloud cover decreased 1980-2000. The consequent sunlight rise of 6 watts per square metre lifted temperatures by 0.60C, far more than the 0.8 watt rise due to carbon dioxide.

Cloud cover increased again after 2000, reducing sunlight by 2 watts per square metre. 2007 saw a sharp fall in the global surface temperature. The solar cycles are in decline, so we are more likely to face cooling.

The Arctic has heatwaves every 70 years; the previous one was in 1920-40. Another, in 2000-07, caused rapid ice loss there. But the record 2007 summer ice-melt was not repeated in 2008 (ice cover rose 30 per cent in October 2008, compared to 2007). 2007 saw record ice extent in Antarctica, in the poles' usual see-saw.

Taylor opposes our present market-driven energy policy. He proposes, "I make the startling conclusion that now is not the time to expand renewable energy supplies. A precautionary, no-regrets strategy would put all available funding into reducing consumer demand, better housing regulations and design, urban and industrial planning, heat distribution, small-scale CHP [Combined Heat and Power], micro-CHP in homes, and PV [photovoltaic] roofing."

He notes, "If all new housing were built to Scandinavian standards of energy efficiency, making use of passive solar technology, heat pumps, micro-CHP and PV roofs - there could be a net supply rather than demand from the growth in that sector."

He writes, "cities need to study the Cuban example of an economy that had to manage without cheap fossil fuel and fertilizer and yet developed effective educational and health programmes and an efficient organic agriculture." He urges us to promote cooperation and community, not competition.

Having read many of the Documents for "Policy Makers" from the IPCC it is refreshing to get an insight into the "Working Papers", which present a much more scientific view of the climate situation - that there are those who disagree with it just being CO2 that is causing warming and cooling. That is: the "concesus" talked about in the press is not what it is in the IPCC Working Groups.

Peter Taylor has good qualifications for his work; this is not an "easy read" but an depth probe into the latest research.

It should be read by all Policy Makers - and especially those directly involved with making decisions about the future.

Rob Pattison
MA Oxon, PGCE Cantab.

Peter Taylor has written two books in one - the first on the science and the second on the politics of changing Global Climate. I found his coverage of the science, the first 'Book', to be definitive - comprehensive, well considered, well written, readable and well supported by references to published papers. He leaves little ground for confidence in the IPCC's conclusions.

In the second 'Book' on the political activities of the various protagonists - the scientific establishment, governments both national and regional, NGO's and the media his background in the environmental movement rather dominates and is given a freer rein. He castigates the lot of them. It is a very interesting read, saved from a rant by his putting forward a suggested and considered way through the chaos.

Altogether a book I certainly recommend to anyone wanting to know more about the science behind climate change and/or concerned about the current path AGW proponents are taking.

Glorious, thrilling, and utterly compelling. At last someone who points out that the Emperor is entirely devoid of clothes. This book is so exciting that I find I cannot read more than a chapter per day or I would be taken away by the men in white coats, but hopefully not to their holiday home at the Hadley Climate Research Centre, where an attempt would be made to reprogramme me to believe in the fraudulent lunacies they have been promulgating these last years.
This book is truly a revelation. I insist that everyone buys a copy. Peter Taylor has spent the last three years writing this wonderful work, entirely without financial support; he is a hero unparallelled in the modern age.

The title also serves as a reprimand to the "sky is warming" crowd. A thorough (to the point of being a bit repetitive) review of the science and politics of global climate change. A very detailed summary of the science (it's bad), and insightful analysis of the Greens (how they've been snookered by big business and politicians). Not the most interesting prose, and a bit awkward in a few spots (especially where some religious, political and even gender bigotry is displayed), but well worth reading if you want to really understand the corrupt nature of this societal problem.

This book is well written, it raises important questions about climate science, and I very much agree with most of the author's conclusions about the need to focus primarily on building human resilience to face the future. As such it would be churlish, just because I am going to question his standpoint, not to give it 4 stars. Let me also say that I do have a lot of respect for this writer's writing on wild land and wildlife - for example, his book Beyond Conservation: A Wildland Strategy.

My problem is with how Taylor arrives at his thesis. It is the same problem that I have with climate change contrarians in general - the question of epistemology - namely, what we think it is that we know, and how we think we know it. Much of what Taylor says in this book is an attack on mainstream scientific epistemology. But what of his epistemology?

Taylor's bottom line is that "Man-made global warming is exactly what it says on the label - a fabrication! It is an illusion borne of a particular way of looking at the world" (p. 360). His Amazon product description surmises that "investigations indicate that the current threat facing humanity is a period of cooling, as the cycle turns, comparable in severity to the Little Ice Age of 1400-1700 AD." On this basis, confusing weather with climate, he told the Daily Express (6 Jan 2010), to which he is a "climate scientist" or "analyst", that the current hard winter in the UK is a harbinger of things to come.

My question is, "Who is Peter Taylor to tell us such things?" Climate science is of a complexity that demands an interdisciplinary team approach of experts who have proven themselves through rigorous peer review. Peer review means that your stuff can stand up to scrutiny with the best corresponding minds around. That is what good science does and what science culminates in the consensus of expert panels such as those behind reports of the IPCC, the Royal Society, the Hadley Centre and the UK Met Office.

I have noticed with all climate change contrarians that their arguments seem superficially persuasive ... but usually only until matched to the other side of the story. For example, Taylor's view on the role that he thinks is played by solar cycles is ostensibly persuasive. But enquire what the UK Met Office thinks of this theory, and its web site last year dismissed it as "Myth No. 1". So, if we are non-climate-change scientists, to whom do we listen? To such likes as Taylor, or to experts with an acclaimed and current credibly published track record in the field?

It would be different if Taylor was drawing most of his material from panels that represent scientific consensus. But most climate change contrarians are not so doing. There are, of course, some contrarian panels, but so far not with anything like the same credibility as mainstream scientific institutions.

Taylor reveals where he is coming from in his approach to science in an autobiographical self-published book, Shiva's Rainbow (2006) (also reviewed by this reviewer). Much of it concerns his belief that he could augment his campaigning work by occult means. He concludes that plutonium might change the world positively because of the homeopathic effects of its astrological properties. I have also reviewed it on this site giving chapter and verse. A key passage is where he says of his time with Greenpeace:

"In truth, in the scientific realms in which I worked, and gained by now, some standing, I was an imposter. I am not a scientist. Apart from my brief survey of tree-hole communities when I successfully correlated insect larvae diversity with circumference and aspect of the hole to the sun, which, in any case, had been done many times before, I have never `done' science. In my work I have relied certainly upon an understanding of scientific theory and a memory for facts and relationships, and upon an instinct for the hidden and not yet known, but fundamentally I have been a linguist and an actor. My scientific degrees were linguistic exercises in critical review. My performances on television, in public inquiries, on tribunals and commissions, those of an extremely well-briefed lawyer, the ultimate actor. Which is not to say there is no dedication to truth" (pp. 146-7).

One example from Chill that shows how easy it can be to fall into pseudoscience is his approach to what he sees as global cooling. There is nothing surprising in the theory that the Earth is slowly heading towards another "little ice age". What is surprising is that Taylor advances his version of the thesis without making reference to the peer-reviewed work by William F. Ruddiman, for example, in his book, Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate (Princeton University Press, 2005, and I see he has another one out this month).

Ruddiman is a distinguished palaeoclimatologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia. He writes: "As I see it, nature would have cooled the Earth's climate, but our ancestors kept it warm by discovering agriculture..." This is because agriculture, and now industrialization, raise the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. He goes on to say that some people might see this as grounds for complacency about present-day climate change, but "others might counter that if so few humans with relatively primitive technologies were able to alter the course of climate so significantly, then we have reason to be concerned about the current rise of greenhouse gases to unparalleled concentrations at unprecedented rates ("How did Humans first alter Global Climate", Scientific American, 292:3, March 2005, 46-53).

Taylor published "Chill" not from a publishing house with a relevant scientific reputation but from, Clairview. This grew out of the Rudolph Steiner movement and its backlist includes books cognate with Taylor's concern with such notions as "psychic espionage". A recent article, presenting the appearance of being a scientific paper, was published by him in the New Age journal, Caduceus, alongside material on 2012 Hopi prophesies. Is that a problem? Not if there's also the peer-reviewed publishing to back it up, but where is it in Taylor's case in the highly scientific field of climate change?

Post Copenhagen a lot of people have decided to cancel climate change. It is an inconvenient truth, better relegated to the dustbin of untruths. Taylor cut his teeth on toxic dumping issues. "Chill", read in the context of "Shiva's Rainbow", arguably serves to keep open the dumpsite of denial.