This latest installment in the P.I.G. series provides a provocative, entertaining, and well-documented expose of some of the most shamelessly politicized pseudo-science we are likely to see in our relatively cool lifetimes.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming
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"Global warming":
the Left's last best chance to gain a stranglehold on our political system and economy
For decades, environmentalism has been the Left's best excuse for increasing government control over our actions in ways both large and small. It's for Mother Earth! It's for the children! It's for the whales! But until now, the doomsday-scenario environmental scares they've trumped up haven't been large enough to justify the lifestyle restrictions they want to impose. With global warming, however, greenhouse gasbags can argue that auto emissions in Ohio threaten people in Paris, and that only "global governance" (Jacques Chirac's words) can tackle such problems.
Now, in The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to Global Warming and Environmentalism, Christopher C. Horner tears the cover off the Left's manipulation of environmental issues for political purposes--and lays out incontrovertible evidence for the fact that catastrophic man-made global warming is just more Chicken-Little hysteria, not actual science. He explains why, although Al Gore and his cronies among the media elites and UN globalists endlessly bleat that "global warming" is an unprecedented global crisis, they really think of it as a dream come true. It's the ideal scare campaign for those who hate capitalism and love big government. For, as Horner explains, if global warming really were as bad as the Leftist doomsayers insist it is, then no policy imaginable could "solve" it. According to the logic of the greens' own numbers, no matter how much we sacrifice there would still be more to do. That makes global warming the bottomless well of excuses for the relentless growth of big government.
Horner (an attorney and senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute) reveals the full anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-human agenda of today's environmentalists, dubbing them "green on the outside, red to the core." He details how they use strong-arm legal tactics--and worse--against those who dare to point out the weakness of their arguments for global warming. Along the way, he explodes ten top global warming myths, carefully examining the evidence to determine how much warming there really is and what is actually causing it. He exposes the lies that the environmental lobby routinely tells to make its case; the ways in which it is trying to impose initiatives such as the Kyoto Protocol on an unwilling American public; and much more--including the green lobby's favorite politicians (John Kerry, John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and others).
It's time to stand up to the environmentalist industry and insist: human beings are not the enemy. In breezy, light-hearted, and always entertaining fashion, The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to Global Warming and Environmentalism gives you the facts you need to do so.
About the Author
Christopher C. Horner is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an acknowledged expert on global warming legislation and regulation, and has spoken before Senate committees and the European Parliament.
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646 of 780 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Social (but not necessarily scientific) Commentary Upon Those Who Promote Environmental Alarmism.
February 7, 2007
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Christopher Horner's book is one of the best commentaries on the politicized nature of science to come out this decade. The book tackles the so called scientific "consensus" on global warming from just about every conceivable angle. He brings up a variety of little known (or at least rarely reported) facts that should give anyone pause before swallowing the all the claims routinely offered as evidence of manmade global warming. Readers will learn, for example, that concurrent with the rise in global mean surface temperature during the 1990s (the "hottest decade on record") there was a dramatic drop in the number of surface reporting stations, especially in Arctic regions of the former Soviet Union. Not surprisingly, when you eliminate a significant number of lower temperatures from the set of global reported temperatures, you obtain a higher mean. Readers will also learn about the fraudulent nature of the now infamous "hockey stick," a graph created by Michael Mann, which purported to show that after 900 years of steady temperatures, the last 100 years have witnessed a dramatic rise in temperature resulting in a graph shaped like a hockey stick. This graph, first published in the journal Nature, and then republished in numerous UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) press releases, was one of the most popular and convincing pieces of evidence ever marshalled in favor of global warming. Of course, in producing a graph showing no climate change for 900 years, Mann had to completely ignore the well established medieval warm period from 1000 to 1300AD and the subsequent "Little Ice Age" which lasted into the mid 1800s and from which we have just recently emerged. But Horner presents some little known and truly damning evidence when he notes that Mann's methodology was designed to produce such a graph regardless of the evidence. Indeed, even when fed random numbers, Mann's algorithms produce hockey sticks.
Despite these stunning indictments of some of the more popular claims for global warming, this book is not primarily a review of the scientific evidence. Horner is far more concerned with motives and the psychology of those who embrace global warming than he is with the arguments used to advance it. In some cases, these motives are fairly obvious. Despite the mantra that "Big Energy" opposes the "scientific consensus" about global warming, the fact is that some companies, like Enron (formerly) and Dupont (at present), lobby for the passage of legislation similar to the Kyoto treaty because they stand to profit from it. Cap-and-trade policies for limiting carbon dioxide emisions can substantially increase the bottom line for many companies, even as they increase costs for customers with no discernable benefit for the environment or the economy. Similarly, journalists and major news outlets sell more by reporting sensationalist headlines than by carefully examining the evidence for such claims. This is one reason Mann's "hockey stick" went unchallenged for as long as it did. It was a nice visual for news consumers. But the bulk of this book is an analysis of ideologues and true believers: people who are so passionate about their cause that they will brook no dissent; people like history teacher Naomi Oreskes. Ms. Oreskes claimed she did an analysis of all 928 articles on climate change and found none that disputed the claim of manmade global warming. The fact that she cherry picked her 928 articles from a total of over 11,000 did (eventually) receive some coverage. Readers of this book will further learn how she intentionally distorted the findings of the limited articles she bothered to peruse. For the record, only 13 of those articles actually defended manmade climate change. This says much about the so called consensus, but even more about the tactics and mentality of those who believe in environmental Armageddon. This is the actual focus of Horner's book.
In some respects, this focus is a little disappointing. I for one would like to see more of the (actual) data about global warming, or at least more evidence as to why we should be skeptical of some, or all, of the claims made by the alarmists. You will not find in this book, for example, the study, also published in Nature, which purported to link grape harvests in Southern France to temperature increases. That study was thoroughly vetted (though not by Nature, which refused to publish a rebuttal). Similarly, you would never know from reading this book that some groves of ancient bristlecone pines, which grow at their upper elevation limits of their range in the White Mountains of California, are an excellent proxy for measuring long term local, if not global, warming. Visitors to the Patriarch Grove can see thousands of years of climate history before their very eyes. In times of warming, the pines move up the hillside above the grove, but die back in times of cooling. Thousand year old stumps show the limits of the grove in times of previous warming, while the edge of the present grove shows where these long lived pines retreated during the period of the Little Ice Age. Today, young bristlecone pines are again beginning to colonize the hills above the Patriarch Grove. Evidence for climate change? Yes. Evidence for the claim that this is the warmest period in world history? Hardly. But this is precisely the sort of evidence I would like to see more of in a comprehensive book on global warming. The real climate picture is far more complex than the wildly exaggerated claims of Al Gore, and easy as it is to refute those claims, it would be nice to find out more of the actual research on the topic. This book simply does not do that.
Nonetheless, I cannot fault Christopher Horner too much for devoting more space to satirizing (and sometimes savaging) the various global warming alarmists than to actual climate research. The very behavior of global warming advocates almost demands such treatment. They, after all, are the ones who claim there is a consensus and argue that we are past debate. They are the ones who try to silence scholars like Dr. Edward Wegman, mathematician, who has modestly suggested adding statisticians to the review boards of academic journals to prevent wildly misleading presentations of the data, and hurricane expert Christopher Landsea who had the temerity to note the 2005 hurricane season was not the result of global warming. (Neither was the almost non-existent 2006 season.) They are the ones, in short, who would like to abandon actual science, involving such standards as debate, access to data, and replicable experiments in favor of a politically imposed "consensus." Surely such (non) scholars as Al Gore, Oreskes, James Hansen, and Michael Mann deserve to be mocked by Horner. They are, as he says, watermelons: green on the outside by red on the inside. They hate capitalism and the wealth it brings and couch their attacks on it in terms of science.
But the problem Horner is writing about also deserves more serious attention. Why is it that "science" now demands consensus? What do self professed scientists hope to gain by making their wild doomsday prophecies? I've personally come to believe that "science" is really more of a religion than a methodology to enhance our understanding of the natural world. Like many other evangelical faiths "science" hopes to convert others by offering sacred texts that can only be properly interpreted the ordained priesthood. This explains the criticism, often levelled against those who disagree with a particular scientific consensus, that they are not "scientists" and therefore cannot hope to understand, much less comment on, claims made by the self appointed guardians of the new faith. (As if one needed more than a sixth grade mathematics background to know, for example, that removing multiple low outliers from your data set will raise any mean, even that of "average global surface temperature.") And like other faiths, science proposes various end-of-the-world scenarios from which the faithful can only be saved if they will abandon their sinful ways (in particular, their SUVs) and accept the discipline of their new priesthood. All this is far removed from the traditional caution that used to be commonplace among scientists. Of course, there are still many people, including many amateurs, engaged in serious scientific research who make careful, nuanced, and limited claims about data that they have laboriously gathered and considered from multiple angles. But the new religion of science has little use for such people. They can continue to publish in obscure journals, but their careers are over should they publicly express hesitation, much less outright dissent, from the popular claims of the day. This dramatic change in the nature of science is a fascinating story in and of itself. Hopefully Christopher Horner can be persuaded to pursue it further in another book.
Despite these stunning indictments of some of the more popular claims for global warming, this book is not primarily a review of the scientific evidence. Horner is far more concerned with motives and the psychology of those who embrace global warming than he is with the arguments used to advance it. In some cases, these motives are fairly obvious. Despite the mantra that "Big Energy" opposes the "scientific consensus" about global warming, the fact is that some companies, like Enron (formerly) and Dupont (at present), lobby for the passage of legislation similar to the Kyoto treaty because they stand to profit from it. Cap-and-trade policies for limiting carbon dioxide emisions can substantially increase the bottom line for many companies, even as they increase costs for customers with no discernable benefit for the environment or the economy. Similarly, journalists and major news outlets sell more by reporting sensationalist headlines than by carefully examining the evidence for such claims. This is one reason Mann's "hockey stick" went unchallenged for as long as it did. It was a nice visual for news consumers. But the bulk of this book is an analysis of ideologues and true believers: people who are so passionate about their cause that they will brook no dissent; people like history teacher Naomi Oreskes. Ms. Oreskes claimed she did an analysis of all 928 articles on climate change and found none that disputed the claim of manmade global warming. The fact that she cherry picked her 928 articles from a total of over 11,000 did (eventually) receive some coverage. Readers of this book will further learn how she intentionally distorted the findings of the limited articles she bothered to peruse. For the record, only 13 of those articles actually defended manmade climate change. This says much about the so called consensus, but even more about the tactics and mentality of those who believe in environmental Armageddon. This is the actual focus of Horner's book.
In some respects, this focus is a little disappointing. I for one would like to see more of the (actual) data about global warming, or at least more evidence as to why we should be skeptical of some, or all, of the claims made by the alarmists. You will not find in this book, for example, the study, also published in Nature, which purported to link grape harvests in Southern France to temperature increases. That study was thoroughly vetted (though not by Nature, which refused to publish a rebuttal). Similarly, you would never know from reading this book that some groves of ancient bristlecone pines, which grow at their upper elevation limits of their range in the White Mountains of California, are an excellent proxy for measuring long term local, if not global, warming. Visitors to the Patriarch Grove can see thousands of years of climate history before their very eyes. In times of warming, the pines move up the hillside above the grove, but die back in times of cooling. Thousand year old stumps show the limits of the grove in times of previous warming, while the edge of the present grove shows where these long lived pines retreated during the period of the Little Ice Age. Today, young bristlecone pines are again beginning to colonize the hills above the Patriarch Grove. Evidence for climate change? Yes. Evidence for the claim that this is the warmest period in world history? Hardly. But this is precisely the sort of evidence I would like to see more of in a comprehensive book on global warming. The real climate picture is far more complex than the wildly exaggerated claims of Al Gore, and easy as it is to refute those claims, it would be nice to find out more of the actual research on the topic. This book simply does not do that.
Nonetheless, I cannot fault Christopher Horner too much for devoting more space to satirizing (and sometimes savaging) the various global warming alarmists than to actual climate research. The very behavior of global warming advocates almost demands such treatment. They, after all, are the ones who claim there is a consensus and argue that we are past debate. They are the ones who try to silence scholars like Dr. Edward Wegman, mathematician, who has modestly suggested adding statisticians to the review boards of academic journals to prevent wildly misleading presentations of the data, and hurricane expert Christopher Landsea who had the temerity to note the 2005 hurricane season was not the result of global warming. (Neither was the almost non-existent 2006 season.) They are the ones, in short, who would like to abandon actual science, involving such standards as debate, access to data, and replicable experiments in favor of a politically imposed "consensus." Surely such (non) scholars as Al Gore, Oreskes, James Hansen, and Michael Mann deserve to be mocked by Horner. They are, as he says, watermelons: green on the outside by red on the inside. They hate capitalism and the wealth it brings and couch their attacks on it in terms of science.
But the problem Horner is writing about also deserves more serious attention. Why is it that "science" now demands consensus? What do self professed scientists hope to gain by making their wild doomsday prophecies? I've personally come to believe that "science" is really more of a religion than a methodology to enhance our understanding of the natural world. Like many other evangelical faiths "science" hopes to convert others by offering sacred texts that can only be properly interpreted the ordained priesthood. This explains the criticism, often levelled against those who disagree with a particular scientific consensus, that they are not "scientists" and therefore cannot hope to understand, much less comment on, claims made by the self appointed guardians of the new faith. (As if one needed more than a sixth grade mathematics background to know, for example, that removing multiple low outliers from your data set will raise any mean, even that of "average global surface temperature.") And like other faiths, science proposes various end-of-the-world scenarios from which the faithful can only be saved if they will abandon their sinful ways (in particular, their SUVs) and accept the discipline of their new priesthood. All this is far removed from the traditional caution that used to be commonplace among scientists. Of course, there are still many people, including many amateurs, engaged in serious scientific research who make careful, nuanced, and limited claims about data that they have laboriously gathered and considered from multiple angles. But the new religion of science has little use for such people. They can continue to publish in obscure journals, but their careers are over should they publicly express hesitation, much less outright dissent, from the popular claims of the day. This dramatic change in the nature of science is a fascinating story in and of itself. Hopefully Christopher Horner can be persuaded to pursue it further in another book.
125 of 154 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What a shame that this penetrating, sarcastic yet accurate polemic has to be made available as something "politically incorrect". Since it was written by a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Insitute, this by itself might have been enough to make an old "tree-hugger" avoid it.
Part I is an exposé of the true motivations of today's self-proclaimed enviros, who are shown to take seriously the line: "We're from the government, and we're here to help you!" Their priorities are shown by Horner to be global government, tight controls over individuals, and, very oddly for Americans, leveling the playing field for business by transferring wealth from developed countries to the rest. This is shown to be the only result so far among the 15 countries participating in the Kyoto Treaty to lower carbon dioxide emissions. Actually the Treaty is said to be aimed at lowering carbon dioxide concentrations, which is a stretch. Emissions among the 15 have not been lowered at all, but wealth has been transferred. Since human-caused warming has little basis in science, as shown below, enviro beliefs must be considered to be a strange religion, according to Horner. Claims of consensus for the enviros' alarmist views are dismissed by showing how certain literature searches were woefully incomplete and how many climatologists with credentials, as well as other scientists, do not agree with the alarmist view even though they are not "Holocaust deniers".
Part II deals with the claims made for the effect of carbon dioxide on "global warming". Changes in near-surface temperatures of the Earth are presented in clear form with adequate graphs.
Horner depicts enviro efforts to control temps as requiring lying about what actual temps are and have been. According to Horner, enviros have "eliminated" the global cooling from 1940-1970, tried to hide the warming from 1900-1940 and the "Little Ice Age" from 1450-1850, and especially the "Medieval Climate Optimum" from 1000-1450 AD, when temps were warmer than now. The most extreme fraud was said to be that of Michael E. Mann in his "hockey stick" graph of temps from 1000-1998, published in 1999. Two Canadians, Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, found data selection and computer massaging of the data series used, and persuaded the Editor of Nature to demand a "correction of error", which was done with ill grace. Yet the "hockey stick" graph is still presented as the temp record of 1000 years by alarmists. Many other details are given of disappearing ground stations for temps, no correction for urban heat island effects, general cooling in the southern hemisphere for 50 years, and the total non-correlation of temps with carbon dioxide concentrations. Like old Communist re-writing of history, the Medieval Climate Optimum during low carbon dioxide concentrations had to be written out of history so the innocents would think there is unprecedented warming NOW.
Part III shines light on the complicity of most mainstream media in the climate hoaxes, the willingness of corporations to find ways to get fatter on some of that wealth transfer, and Al Gore's "Inconvenient Ruse". In this, Horner lists 15 specific omissions in the prize-winning docuganda An Inconvenient Truth, and 19 errors of commission. Meaning that if AIT were used as evidence in a court trial, there would be at least 34 counts of perjury possible. It might have been better if the excoriation of Gore had been left until after the factual points had been made.
Part IV delineates the probable lack of effect of Kyoto on warming and the staggering costs if it were ever seriously implemented, as China, India, Brazil and for now the USA, say they will not do. Horner's political sympathies are clear as he points out that former President Clinton had a proxy sign the treaty, but never pushed for its approval, knowing how it would fare in the US Senate. Then there are many examples of Bush-bashing for not signing the treaty as though it had not already been signed by a USA designee. Again, global governance is shown as the true goal of climate malarkey.
Finally, on p303, Horner wrote: "As the curtain descends on the remnants of scientific inquiry into and free speech about "environmental" and other such issues of controversy, we confront a circumstance in which a naturally driven climate is seized upon to cow a population with fear by governments seeking to expand their powers and businesses itching to profit from Man's gullibility. But it isn't over yet."
Horner's writing is easy to read fast, academically referenced (but with very few citations to peer-reviewed journals) and has a good index. One of the very few errors was writing that the breaking of the strong C-C and C-H bonds in hydrocarbons releases energy (p68). Of course, this process requires energy as any Chemistry text would show. Ethanol does not evaporate more easily than gasoline (p267). There are reasonable numbers of graphs and quotations.
For an equally accurate book without the pejoratives and sarcasm, and better sources of citations, see "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years" by S. Fred Singer, PhD, and Dennis T. Avery, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, Oct 2006. Fewer laughs, though.
Part I is an exposé of the true motivations of today's self-proclaimed enviros, who are shown to take seriously the line: "We're from the government, and we're here to help you!" Their priorities are shown by Horner to be global government, tight controls over individuals, and, very oddly for Americans, leveling the playing field for business by transferring wealth from developed countries to the rest. This is shown to be the only result so far among the 15 countries participating in the Kyoto Treaty to lower carbon dioxide emissions. Actually the Treaty is said to be aimed at lowering carbon dioxide concentrations, which is a stretch. Emissions among the 15 have not been lowered at all, but wealth has been transferred. Since human-caused warming has little basis in science, as shown below, enviro beliefs must be considered to be a strange religion, according to Horner. Claims of consensus for the enviros' alarmist views are dismissed by showing how certain literature searches were woefully incomplete and how many climatologists with credentials, as well as other scientists, do not agree with the alarmist view even though they are not "Holocaust deniers".
Part II deals with the claims made for the effect of carbon dioxide on "global warming". Changes in near-surface temperatures of the Earth are presented in clear form with adequate graphs.
Horner depicts enviro efforts to control temps as requiring lying about what actual temps are and have been. According to Horner, enviros have "eliminated" the global cooling from 1940-1970, tried to hide the warming from 1900-1940 and the "Little Ice Age" from 1450-1850, and especially the "Medieval Climate Optimum" from 1000-1450 AD, when temps were warmer than now. The most extreme fraud was said to be that of Michael E. Mann in his "hockey stick" graph of temps from 1000-1998, published in 1999. Two Canadians, Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, found data selection and computer massaging of the data series used, and persuaded the Editor of Nature to demand a "correction of error", which was done with ill grace. Yet the "hockey stick" graph is still presented as the temp record of 1000 years by alarmists. Many other details are given of disappearing ground stations for temps, no correction for urban heat island effects, general cooling in the southern hemisphere for 50 years, and the total non-correlation of temps with carbon dioxide concentrations. Like old Communist re-writing of history, the Medieval Climate Optimum during low carbon dioxide concentrations had to be written out of history so the innocents would think there is unprecedented warming NOW.
Part III shines light on the complicity of most mainstream media in the climate hoaxes, the willingness of corporations to find ways to get fatter on some of that wealth transfer, and Al Gore's "Inconvenient Ruse". In this, Horner lists 15 specific omissions in the prize-winning docuganda An Inconvenient Truth, and 19 errors of commission. Meaning that if AIT were used as evidence in a court trial, there would be at least 34 counts of perjury possible. It might have been better if the excoriation of Gore had been left until after the factual points had been made.
Part IV delineates the probable lack of effect of Kyoto on warming and the staggering costs if it were ever seriously implemented, as China, India, Brazil and for now the USA, say they will not do. Horner's political sympathies are clear as he points out that former President Clinton had a proxy sign the treaty, but never pushed for its approval, knowing how it would fare in the US Senate. Then there are many examples of Bush-bashing for not signing the treaty as though it had not already been signed by a USA designee. Again, global governance is shown as the true goal of climate malarkey.
Finally, on p303, Horner wrote: "As the curtain descends on the remnants of scientific inquiry into and free speech about "environmental" and other such issues of controversy, we confront a circumstance in which a naturally driven climate is seized upon to cow a population with fear by governments seeking to expand their powers and businesses itching to profit from Man's gullibility. But it isn't over yet."
Horner's writing is easy to read fast, academically referenced (but with very few citations to peer-reviewed journals) and has a good index. One of the very few errors was writing that the breaking of the strong C-C and C-H bonds in hydrocarbons releases energy (p68). Of course, this process requires energy as any Chemistry text would show. Ethanol does not evaporate more easily than gasoline (p267). There are reasonable numbers of graphs and quotations.
For an equally accurate book without the pejoratives and sarcasm, and better sources of citations, see "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years" by S. Fred Singer, PhD, and Dennis T. Avery, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, Oct 2006. Fewer laughs, though.
72 of 91 people found the following review helpful
By thefonz
Format:Paperback
Mr. Horner did a very thorough analysis of current popular and widely believed commentary about global climate change. Due to the fact that the media tends to oversimplify the topic in order to create fear and impact for ratings, most of his work was about putting cogent, rational perspective into this debate. Science is complicated, tricky and slow and also its method is part of a long tradition of cautious inquiry. Suffice it to say that to think of it in terms of the Academy Awards, ratings or popularity is to trivialize science.
This trivialization is due to the fact that those who propagate presumed facts about the earth and even probabilities of future events are not always, in fact, scientists. Nonetheless, Mr. Horner does the IPCC great justice and shows it great respect because the oft-quoted political summary of that report does not refer to the lack of scientific consensus and even very deliberate, reasoned language that is not alarmist contained in the report. I was also not aware that the vast majority of scientists who commented on this were not specialists in the earth sciences. (I recall the mention of OB/GYN.) To claim that the science is unsettled is not denying anything. The temperature of the earth, the average will always change, either up or down. Stasis is not the expected condition of nature.
Although I don't regard it as a demerit, there is some repetition of facts throughout the book. One example is the closing of the Siberian temperature stations after the collapse of the Soviet Union which made the average global temperature, predictably, go up immediately, showing higher averages for the 1990's. In Mr. Horner's defense, the book is divided into distinct sections that could be read independently and would be complete unto themselves.
One extremely important lesson in Mr. Horner's work (and one that immediately shows that some reviewers haven't read the book, and if they did, something was lost in the translation from English to English) is that big oil and government (meetings with the Enron, President and VP in 1994, Ken Lay, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, respectively) were designing plans to basically create a government supported cartel of domestic oil producers. On top of this, energy companies are the ones who get the big taxpayer funded subsidies for alternate energy research and development. To further sweeten the icing, one of the plans in this meeting was to get the energy industry more involved in the trading of carbon credits, which effectively means that the government would help them diversify their own industries. (Add ag corporations) It's kind of like what would happen behind the scenes with national health insurance. Employers would love it. They would be relieved of the costs of keeping personnel to search for the best insurance plans, to administrate claims, changes. Larger companies and insurance companies could lay off lots of people, thanks to the government, who would absorb only a small portion of those unemployed. And, we're kidding ourselves if we think insurance companies would despise this. They'd simply consolidate and become a federal department, ridding themselves of competition and then, any permitted public insurance they provided would be guaranteed by the government, which is the taxpayer. Nothing different with big government and big oil - government programs that meddle in industry only serve to create corporatism, the marriage of government and business in order to protect markets, increase costs and prices and, since taxes work on percentage cuts, government revenue - all with your money. This can't even be described as win-win for both sides, because there are no sides.
It's that last point - your money - where Mr. Horner hits hard. The eagerness of people to support non-governmental movements, ones that are full of unelected persons supporting more layers of regulation in the private citizen's life, under the guise of the greater good is something of concern. For many centuries people fought off kings, queens, tyrants and struggled to get more liberties. Now, people seem to willingly want to cede control of their lives and choices to government and the weight of its alliances with non-governmental interests. Moreover, these purveyors of our behavioral changes haven't really been on the level about what it's going to cost us, not only in terms of money, but in so many other qualitative aspects of our lives as we know them. The impacts on the developing world would be worse. Per Kyoto, only the very wealthy economies are expected to make changes to their energy use to avert global climate catastrophe whereas all of the other countries can emit without limit or restrictions on the types of emissions. The lesson is that when it's a problem, it's global, when it needs to be paid for to be fixed, it's selective by region, so some regions are more equal than others.
There was one surprise. I always though Al Gore was a lawyer and had a brilliant academic career. So said his handlers and marketing people. Mr. Gore eeked out a BA, which included two science courses with grades of C+ and D (the D reserved for Man's Place in Nature, ironically), yet Mr. Gore plants himself in a career that is about science. He attended, but did not complete, graduate school. This brings back memories of Mr. Gore's condescending eye-rolling in the debates preceding the 2000 election. It's fair to question the motives of all strong opinions in the climate issue, but Mr. Gore's in particular, should be equally suspect, especially given his "qualifications". This is where a "be worried, be very worried" applies.
In spite of the doomsaying, misery-merchandising and bleakness of the messages and messengers of climate change, Mr. Horner injects some humorous one-liners that provide relief between the footnoted citations of horror. Considering the topic, that's a feat in and of itself.
This trivialization is due to the fact that those who propagate presumed facts about the earth and even probabilities of future events are not always, in fact, scientists. Nonetheless, Mr. Horner does the IPCC great justice and shows it great respect because the oft-quoted political summary of that report does not refer to the lack of scientific consensus and even very deliberate, reasoned language that is not alarmist contained in the report. I was also not aware that the vast majority of scientists who commented on this were not specialists in the earth sciences. (I recall the mention of OB/GYN.) To claim that the science is unsettled is not denying anything. The temperature of the earth, the average will always change, either up or down. Stasis is not the expected condition of nature.
Although I don't regard it as a demerit, there is some repetition of facts throughout the book. One example is the closing of the Siberian temperature stations after the collapse of the Soviet Union which made the average global temperature, predictably, go up immediately, showing higher averages for the 1990's. In Mr. Horner's defense, the book is divided into distinct sections that could be read independently and would be complete unto themselves.
One extremely important lesson in Mr. Horner's work (and one that immediately shows that some reviewers haven't read the book, and if they did, something was lost in the translation from English to English) is that big oil and government (meetings with the Enron, President and VP in 1994, Ken Lay, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, respectively) were designing plans to basically create a government supported cartel of domestic oil producers. On top of this, energy companies are the ones who get the big taxpayer funded subsidies for alternate energy research and development. To further sweeten the icing, one of the plans in this meeting was to get the energy industry more involved in the trading of carbon credits, which effectively means that the government would help them diversify their own industries. (Add ag corporations) It's kind of like what would happen behind the scenes with national health insurance. Employers would love it. They would be relieved of the costs of keeping personnel to search for the best insurance plans, to administrate claims, changes. Larger companies and insurance companies could lay off lots of people, thanks to the government, who would absorb only a small portion of those unemployed. And, we're kidding ourselves if we think insurance companies would despise this. They'd simply consolidate and become a federal department, ridding themselves of competition and then, any permitted public insurance they provided would be guaranteed by the government, which is the taxpayer. Nothing different with big government and big oil - government programs that meddle in industry only serve to create corporatism, the marriage of government and business in order to protect markets, increase costs and prices and, since taxes work on percentage cuts, government revenue - all with your money. This can't even be described as win-win for both sides, because there are no sides.
It's that last point - your money - where Mr. Horner hits hard. The eagerness of people to support non-governmental movements, ones that are full of unelected persons supporting more layers of regulation in the private citizen's life, under the guise of the greater good is something of concern. For many centuries people fought off kings, queens, tyrants and struggled to get more liberties. Now, people seem to willingly want to cede control of their lives and choices to government and the weight of its alliances with non-governmental interests. Moreover, these purveyors of our behavioral changes haven't really been on the level about what it's going to cost us, not only in terms of money, but in so many other qualitative aspects of our lives as we know them. The impacts on the developing world would be worse. Per Kyoto, only the very wealthy economies are expected to make changes to their energy use to avert global climate catastrophe whereas all of the other countries can emit without limit or restrictions on the types of emissions. The lesson is that when it's a problem, it's global, when it needs to be paid for to be fixed, it's selective by region, so some regions are more equal than others.
There was one surprise. I always though Al Gore was a lawyer and had a brilliant academic career. So said his handlers and marketing people. Mr. Gore eeked out a BA, which included two science courses with grades of C+ and D (the D reserved for Man's Place in Nature, ironically), yet Mr. Gore plants himself in a career that is about science. He attended, but did not complete, graduate school. This brings back memories of Mr. Gore's condescending eye-rolling in the debates preceding the 2000 election. It's fair to question the motives of all strong opinions in the climate issue, but Mr. Gore's in particular, should be equally suspect, especially given his "qualifications". This is where a "be worried, be very worried" applies.
In spite of the doomsaying, misery-merchandising and bleakness of the messages and messengers of climate change, Mr. Horner injects some humorous one-liners that provide relief between the footnoted citations of horror. Considering the topic, that's a feat in and of itself.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of great facts and information
This book presents a very convincing argument that anthropomorphic global warming is totally unsubstantiated and that those doomsayers who are trying to force the world to shut... Read more
Published 1 month ago by j d walker
4.0 out of 5 stars
Policically incorrect, of course
The information in startling after hearing all the "hype" on the news. More people should read it--it should be made public more oten
Published 5 months ago by Gena Cook
1.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible pure pitbull-like attack with no reasoned backing.
All I got from reading one third of this book is a picture of an author who constantly and continuously attacks environmentalists and climate scientists and does so without any... Read more
Published 20 months ago by hobby fan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should debunk the global warming scam
Whether you are a true believer worried about the terrors of global warming (climate change/climate catastrophe) or a skeptic who wants some solid information to convince your... Read more
Published 22 months ago by David Hoffman
5.0 out of 5 stars
Communists to Greens: A Natural Progression
A devastating look at the green movement. Lots of numbers and data to back up the thesis that the earth is used to fluctuations in the environment and that the political melodrama... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Chris Serger
1.0 out of 5 stars
ugh - thought I'd read a good book from this POV, instead wasted my...
I read a single chapter and can't really stand to read another page... I've looked ahead to many of his claims throughout the book (a warmer medieval period, debunking of the... Read more
Published on May 4, 2011 by Paul
3.0 out of 5 stars
Politics, not science, but still useful
The bio-blurb on the author makes it clear that he is not a scientist, but is in fact a political advocate. This makes for both the weakness and the strength of this book. Read more
Published on March 13, 2011 by Larry Gilstrap
1.0 out of 5 stars
I want my time back.
If you believe that unbridled greed and mindless consumerism is the All American Way, then this book is for you. Read more
Published on January 12, 2011 by Fred B. Mullett
1.0 out of 5 stars
Horner
So, I found one these book by Horner in a Barnes and Noble and opened a couple pages to view the material. Read more
Published on September 12, 2010 by J. Goldner
1.0 out of 5 stars
Glen Beck on the environment
Let me preface this with the fact that I'm a conservative who wants to understand both sides of the climate change issue. Read more
Published on May 14, 2010 by graybeard
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