Customer Reviews

The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the Obsession with "Climate Change" Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?

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This is a very thought'provoking book, though some may find it just provoking. It presents evidence that undermines the claims of the most extreme Green zealots.

Yet the book has its flaws too. It has a key misprint: a 7.7 degrees C temperature drop, for 0.7 degrees C. Don't publishers employ proof-readers any more? Carelessly, Booker writes that 1934 was the world's warmest year, when the research he cites clearly referred to the USA's warmest year.

The recent warming is not unprecedented. The Holocene Maximum of 7000-3000 BC, the Roman Warming of 200BC-540AD, the Medieval Warming of 900-1300 were all warmer than now, yet the planet survived.

The Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research rejected Freedom of Information requests for data on the weather stations it used. Professor Phil Jones (now head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia) wrote in 1990 that its stations had 'few, if any changes in instrumentation, location or observation times'. He based this statement on a US Department of Energy report on just 35 of the 84 stations, which had found that fully half of the 35 had been moved!

The Met Office consistently predicts more warming than actually happens. For example, using the same computer model that gave the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change its forecasts for 2100, the Met Office forecast that 2007 would be the world's 'warmest year on record', with Britain 'set to enjoy another sizzling summer', that 2008 would be one of the 'top ten warmest years' ever, that 2009 would be one of the 'five warmest years on record', with a 'barbecue summer' in Britain, and that our winter would be 'milder than average'. All wrong: in February it admitted that 2008-9 was 'the coldest winter for 13 years'.

We are told that global warming causes an ever-growing number of extreme weather events. Yet hurricane activity was lower in the 2000s than in the 1930s, 1940s or 1950s. The IPCC's 2007 report confirmed, "there is no clear trend in the annual numbers of tropical cyclones." There were seven major droughts between 1900 and 1920, seven between 1921 and 1940, eight between 1941 and 1960, five between 1961 and 1980, but only three between 1981 and 2000.

The same IPCC report said, "Antarctic sea ice extent continues to show inter-annual variability and localised changes but no statistically significant average trends, consistent with the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region. ... Current global model studies project that the Antarctic Ice Sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and is expected to gain in mass due to increased snowfall."

Coal and nuclear power stations produce 55 per cent of our electricity, wind turbines just 0.5 per cent. Many of these power stations are to be closed down under EU orders, causing a 40 per cent energy shortfall. EU rules allow subsidies for wind farms, but not for nuclear power stations. The government's 2003 White Paper said, "We do not propose new nuclear build."

The Climate Change Act of 2008 committed the state 'to ensure that the net UK carbon account for 2050 is at least 80 per cent lower than the 1990 baseline.' This could only be achieved by closing down the rest of our industry. As Energy Minister John Hutton said in September 2008, "no coal and no nuclear means no power, no future." Brown sacked him two weeks later.

This April, the government said no new coal-fired power stations would be allowed unless they used carbon capture - a technology which has not yet been developed. The government also said it would build 10,000 wind turbines, at a cost of £100 billion. The USA's 10,000 wind turbines produce just 3.9 Gigawatts, the same as one coal-fired power station.

I have read dozens of books about the global warming, from both camps, and found this one the most informative and well documented. It is difficult to understand and believe Barak Obama and Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel and other heads of States are still believing Al Gore and the other few catastrophic OVERT LIES produced by the IPCC bureaucrats, and not the true CLIMATE SCIENTIST like Professor Richard Lindzen. As he put it, they are threatening the whole human kind with "a roll-back of the industrial age", or a global economic suicide, from an unbelievable set of gross exaggerations and lies.
A must-read for all serious defenders of the thruth and sanity.

EDIT of 9 Dec 09: Bogged down on the data matrix but have created a ClimateGate Rolling Update at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, linking to others who have inventories lies & "tricks," and dirty deeds against dissenting scientists--but this book is the best I have found overall.

Short version: bad science, bad media, bad politics, bad finance.

Two other books I have reviewed that support this one:
The Resilient Earth: Science, Global Warming and the Fate of Humanity
Global Warming False Alarm: The Bad Science Behind the United Nations' Assertion that Man-made CO2 Causes Global Warming

This book also helps reinstate Lomborg, whom I am ashamed to say I doubted after he was first denounced (publicly) and then redeemed (quietly) in Denmark. See my reviews of:
The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World
Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming (Vintage)

I list these--and point to others at the end of this preliminary review--to make the point that this author's stellar and very complete work with very good notes is the coup de grace--the final bullet in the head of the IPCC, a mercy killing long over-due. [Disclosure: I funded the first three years of the Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 Public Charity that accepts the ten high-level threats to humanity for action, and places climate change within priority #3, Environmental Degradation--we also place a very high priority on clarity, diversity, integrity, and sustainability of effort].

This book, in combination with ClimateGate, could possibly be the stake in the heart of Maurice Strong, Al Gore, and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), all three of them frauds to the core. The UN Secretary General has realized the depth of this fraud and ordered an investigation (not unmindful of the fact that Strong took the $1 million bribe from Saddam Hussein asa determined by Pual Volker's investigation); Brazil, China, India, and Russia may, possibly, be planning to dance on the IPCC's grave in Copenhagen.

The big question on my mind, given that Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in part from being the lead speculator in climate change carbon funds, is: will someone responsible please tell the Queen of England she's being made a fool of, and put a stop to carbon trades? From where I sit Strong and Gore and Carbon trades make Maddoff look like a pick-pocket.

Below are a few rough notes. This is such an important work that I will do a more organized table of notes and prepare something suitable for publication.

Right up front I want to cite Steve Carmel, one of the most talented merchant marine thinkers I know, who helped me understand that it is the bad decisions of governments that cost businesses huge fortunes. In the case of his firm, he was pointing to measures enacted after a terrorism incident that was, in his words, "a traffic accident" that government decisions then turned into a nation-wide black-out and all that implies for commercial shipping.

This book documents both a massive scientific fraud by a handful (50) of individuals who sold their souls for a place on the world stage, and mass insanity across multiple political cadres who swooned before the combination of Strong's financial temptations and Gore's celebrity deceptions. In my view, there should be an immediate freeze of all carbon trades, and a multinational investigation.

At the same time, this book leaves me shaking my head because up to this summer, the US and UK and Australia, among others, have totally hosed their future energy situation by suppressing coal, avoiding nuclear, and falling for the chimera of renewable energy. At the very end of the book the author explains his epiphany in 2003 when he learned Denmark was stopping the building of wind turbines, and why. So much for Boone Pickens and his fantasies, in passing.

Early on this book resonated with me because I had already read, among many others:
Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America
The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations
The Weather Makers : How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

The bottom line for me, with that background reading, was that carbon emissions is slightly nuts, that paving over wetlands and Army Corps of Engineer incompetence (they have just been found liable for Katrina damage to New Orleans) and many other things--including sun spots, ocean currents, and other natural trends, make more sense. Indeed, I recommend:

Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization
Catastrophe & Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster (School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series)

My reviews summarize those supporting works. The first is about volcanoes creating the first Dark Ages, the second is about government incompetence, poor planning, bad programming, inept execution, all turn minor disasters into global catastrophes. The author of THIS book is correct: the real global warming disaster is the idiocy of our governments, our media, and our timid spoiled academics (see my preface on "Paradigms of Failure" in Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography).

A handful of highlights pending my final review:

1) Collapse of the Soviet Union took nuclear lobbying (and profiteering) off the table, Global Warming was a heaven-sent substitute for all those who live on "the big scare."

2) Collapse of the financial marketplace (led by Lehman and its bad carbon investment) has left polititians neck deep in feces of their own making--promises they cannot keep, checks they cannot write.

3) Wirth-Gore manipulated the original hearing, picking hottest day, cutting off air conditioning the day before, this sordid little story describes Al Gore's life in a nut-shell.

4) Enron got its big breaks under Clinton-Gore, not Cheney-Bush

5) Maurice Strong is ripe for a massive investigation, to include not only the illicit funds he has been attracting, but also the specifics of how he arranged for 5,000 lobbyists to have their expenses covered for Kyoto in 1997.

6) Flawed code, expensive super-computers, complete lack of integrity among individuals to be listed in my final review,, and politicians who collectively lost their minds are all part of the story.

7) A number of key articles have been identified. I almost sent this book for a $1000 scanning job to be converted into ASCII and then clustered and visualized, but the cost and time argue for me doing the highlights manually. At Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, I will create an electronic backdrop for this book, I consider it that important.

Hit Amazon word limit. More at Phi Beta Iota.

I think this is a valuable book that should be widely read. I don't mean by this that the author's thesis will be proved true--maybe not--but nonetheless the chicanery of the IPCC and Al Gore need to be thoroughly examined, as this book does.

Those guys might turn out to be right, but only on blind luck, not the crappy propaganda they have been issuing, and certainly not on the sloppy scientific "reasoning" they employ. The recent emails fiasco, and an even more recent goof about the rate of glacier retreat, simply add to the Keystone Kops aspect.

That said, my understanding is that CO2 levels were about 280 ppm say 50 years ago, but about 330 ppm now. The earlier number has been questioned lately, but I don't yet know how meritoriously.

Sticking tentatively with the 280 to 330 growth, whether human-caused or otherwise, suggests that we should be looking for ways to reduce atmospheric CO2. Even if this ultimately proves unnecessary, we would gain the ability to control this variable. And even if we overreacted, it would be easy to reverse course and generate more "greenhouse gases." The main thing is, we should find methods to go BOTH ways.

In that regard, noncoercive measures are likely to be best. If it becomes better determined that atmospheric CO2 should be reduced, a proper cap-and-trade system would be a good tool. I don't want to start a long disquisition on Ronald Coase's theorem, except to say that it applies. The problem with cap-and-trade is that it is vulnerable to political-football games, unless it is set up carefully. What I hear so far is not careful, and would mostly reward fakers and speculators.

Christopher Booker's work may not prove to be the ultimate truth, but I think it is highly important at this stage of human knowledge, or lack thereof. And it is a good read.

This books documents the history of the global climate as a major public policy issue beginning with concerns about global cooling in the 70's and continuing on to the political concensus that the science is settled. Note this is a political and not a scientific concensus! The good news is that global warming is not a major problem and we do not need to commit mega dollars on carbon dioxide reduction. However, this good news about global warming does not reduce the need for better engergy efficiency and environmental responsibility as the world population continues to grow rapidly.

I have recently started to follow the climate change debate and found this book a fun read. Booker is a denialist who does not accept the "consensus" on climate change. He concludes that man-made CO2 is not destroying our world and helpfully summarizes the views of other heretics. Booker points out many of the absurdities of this new climate change obsessed world we live in and you worry a little for his safety, such is the fanaticism of some in the warmist camp. Booker contributes to Private Eye which is a British satirical magazine so it's a well written tome and easy to read.

You'd think this would be a dry read, but it reads like a novel. I wish every world citizen could read this book. The author documents his sources at the end of each chapter so you can verify what you are being told if you so desire. He presents the facts in great detail and leaves little doubt what is really going on with global warming. What has been going on in the scientific community is nothing short of unbelievable. It will change the way you evaluate things scientists say, particularly if the subject has political ties. I've recommended this book to many friends and relatives. You NEED to read this book! I couldn't put it down. Normally it takes me six months to read a book, but I read this one in a week. The time to read it is now, before the world wastes trillions of dollars on the wrong technologies.

This, as opposed to an actual scientist. Christopher Booker makes the argument (generally) that the earth is probably not warming so much from greenhouse gases, as from solar activity variations and ocean current changes. Further, current pushes to spend heavily on greenhouse gas cures for global warming will rather shift the balance of power and money away from the U.S. In fact, he argues that the whole process being forced by supporters of the IPCC will simply mail us the hugest bill for any project in history. His "conclusion" chapter lists the four reasons why global warming will likely end up the most expensive scare in history (p. 338). To his credit, the author details the myth that the global warming theory today is "settled science," and that "all scientists" support the IPCC findings, as claimed by Mr. Al Gore. The IPCC was shown to have been started and kept active by only a few famous scientists (and several non-scientists).

Importantly, Booker lists a dozen fields of science which will have to be heavily involved with analysis and remedy for global warming; simply listening to single-science advocates, especially from marginal science fields, will lead us to dangerously incomplete conclusions. He also spends considerable time demonstrating why the popular "hockey stick" graph turned out to be at best, just incorrect. At worst, and more appalling than the very bad statistical methodology used to create the conclusion, was the sloppy way the IPCC dealt with the whole affair, from acceptance to lack of critique (p.104)

Booker interlaces the science with the politics, a method that makes for interesting reading, if not causing occasional flipping pages back and forth the check former details and claims. The book's editor should take 10 lashes for not catching some publishing errors (10 were discovered by this reviewer!), but these are easily passed over, as they are mostly not substantial ones. The smart reader will catch the few more substantial ones. No science writer can be fully up-to-date with all sciences, and Booker may need to do more research on biofuels, as he discounts the energy value of this source because of crowding out food crops (p. 221). He makes no mention of using methanol, which would not have to use edible crops, and can exist in huge quantities on non-farm lands. Anyway, get this book to get one of the best, and most easily readable, critiques of global warming hyperbole.

This is the best book on the global warming scam I have read to date.
With lots of references to information from reputable sources.
Helped me improve my conference on climate change.
[...]
Higly recommended.

I found this information highly enlightening it got me angry that Global warming was used to enhance the wealth of a few so called scientist.

The millions that made so many rich as Al Gore was troubling.

These lies did more harm to so many American youth concerning their trust in our system. It explained the fallacy of the warming in a way that helped all reading it, that we better check things more closely.