Customer Reviews

Heated Debate: Greenhouse Predictions Versus Climate Reality

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Balling captures the essence of the global warming debate. Facts, not hype, are presented in a scientific way. Worth the read for those interested in all sides of the global warming debate.

What is the latest global religion? Environmentalism. Finally a book that sheds the light of skepticism and science on the environmental hype and scaremongering.

"The Heated Debate," is a very balanced discussion of theory and data related to the greenhouse effect. The author, Dr. Robert Balling, Jr., is Director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University. He's published some seventy technical articles.

Dr. Balling is a climate consultant to the United Nations, the World Meteorological Organization, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe he is a pure researcher, "untainted" by connections to any political agenda. His writing is scholarly, well foot-noted and documented, and he offers a history and critique of greenhouse theory and empirical data.

His general conclusion is that more than a little skepticism is warranted, and that we should wait ten years or so before investing TRILLIONS of $ on carbon withdrawal, and DRASTICALLY changing all of our lives, until a MUCH better understanding is established. The theory, measurements, and understanding of the greenhouse effect are advancing rapidly, and drastically changing the original predictions from only a few decades ago. Measured warming has been nowhere near the earlier predictions, and the mathematical models are being constantly revised.

For anyone interested in global warming this book is a very interesting and different perspective than that propounded by politicians and the media!!

This book did an excellent job of illustrating the difference between the science of climate change (which is still a very new field), and the politics of climate change.

A lot of the misinformation on global warming has involved the use of three or four greenhouse skeptics like Dr. Balling. These are people who take a different position from the more than two-thousand scientists reporting to the United Nations, and they have been given access to the media by money being spent by the petroleum industry. This book is no more than a paid advertisement by big oil.

Which ultamitely works no doubt very profitably for the author. One can only hope he's used his money to buy land on high ground.