Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming [Hardcover]

Patrick J. Michaels (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2000

Climaologist extraordinaire Patrick J. Michaels says it is.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Michaels (climatology, Univ. of Virginia) and Balling (director, Laboratory of Climatology, Arizona State Univ., Tempe) examine the role played by politics, the media, and science in the creation of our present perceptions of humanity's effect on climate, particularly global warming. Their main thesis is that politicians and the media have blown this issue out of proportion, manipulating currently known information in order to fulfill their own objectives. The authors also assert that the current scientific paradigm accepts as fact both global warming and humankind's contributions to its acceleration. Scientists therefore tend to ignore contradictory data. Michaels and Balling present a good discussion of the climatological factors and theories of climate change and of the human activities that could be influencing climate. They counter each currently held theory with data and theory that support their own perspective. While they offer a well-thought-out overview in language that lay readers can understand, their conservative political agenda is also very apparent. Still, their book is recommended for public, academic, and high school environmental collections as a good balance to alarmist materials that present global warming as an imminent catastrophe.DBetty Galbraith, Owen Science & Engineering Lib., Washington State Univ., Pullman
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Cato Institute (May 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1882577914
• ISBN-13: 978-1882577910
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #861,668 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

118 of 133 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Evolving Mainstream?, July 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming (Paperback)

At the outset, I have been a global-warming-as-disaster agnostic. But I have followed the arguments for years and try to read everything that comes out, and I try (but maybe fail) to not "prejudge" if I know something about the authors etc...I also look at reviews with I hope an open mind.

That brings me to The Satanic Gases. The argument is really very simple: The planet warms, partially from human beings, but humans themselves cannot stop what they are doing and in fact have been adapting to this all along. But extreme scenarios get play from a political process that only funds our most lurid problems and a media that exists to sell media (surprise!). In fact, though, future warming is likely to be near the low end of the range, unless almost all scientific models are wrong to the core. This argument is made in very convincing fashion in this book.

What amazes me is that it seems you either agree with these guys, citing the obvious plethora of facts and figures in the book, or you disagree and attack personally. This itself bumps my review of this book up one star.

But, more important--and I hope I am not wrong here--it's beginning to look more and more like Michaels and Balling were in fact the correct prophets about the ultimate (non)-resolution of this issue. They have been screaming this from every available mountaintop (some supplied by industry, others from their University positions--major institutions like ASU and Virginia don't hand out Full Professor from cracker jack boxes) for years now.

I give this book 4.5 stars (rounded to 5)as a result. More evidence: A few months ago Nova/Frontline had a global warming show in which the entire second hour was devoted (without credit) to precisely Michaels' and Balling's proposition: you can't stop it, and you can't even slow it much, so why try? The July Atlantic Monthly is even more telling. A huge piece by Daniel Sarewitz and Roger Pielke concludes 1)The science will never adequately support policy, and 2) We can't do much about it anyway, and 3) We have adapted if we have enough money, so maybe we ought to help poor countries with infrastructure. Pielke was a Democratic staffer for the late (of Southern California) congressman Brown's Science committee.

Hey, those are the same arguments Michaels and Balling make in Satanic Gases, only based upon mountains of data.

It's rare to see (what I used to think) were caterwauling naysayers turn out right, but I am very close to moving off the agnostic fence as a result of The Satanic Gases. It probably doesn't hurt that the book is very well written--I have seen in local papers several Op-Eds by Michaels and he is a very hot, entertaining writer for a scientist, almost like the "Anti-Sagan".

102 of 122 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Facts not Rhetoric, May 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming (Paperback)

The cleverly titled "Satanic Gases" is a remarkably interesting book. Those of us who follow the greenhouse issue have been peppered with hot rhetoric and ad hominem attacks on the motives and the credibility of the authors. For example, see Ross Gelbspan's book, which makes the preposterous argument that these two authors have somehow convinced the entire nation that global warming isn't a threat, while the 2,500 scientists can't counter them.

But what comes out of The Satanic Gases is far different than boilerplate rhetoric--from either side. It is very highly referenced (so much for the argument that the critics don't publish), comes with the endorsment of the past presdients of the National Academy of Science, the American Physical Society, the past director of the U.S. Geological Survey, and the past director of the Board of Agriculture of the National Research Council.

The argument made has considerable internal consistency--read it for yourself and compare it to others and you may come to the same conclusion. But, moreover, Michaels and Balling provide a neat explanation as to WHY the issue has been overemphasized that breaks new intellectual ground and seems difficult to refute. In addition, the book is surprisingly evenhanded (considering the opposing rhetoric) taking on misconsceptions about this issue whether they are from the right or the left.

That's what makes this book different, and is why you should read it. I've read Stevens and Gelbspan and Gore's new edition (Satanic Gases is currently outselling all of them) and they just aren't as interesting, amusing, factual, or intellectually challenging. This book is a sleeper that is going to have a lot of staying power.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Read this and quit worrying, April 29, 2001

By 

Sean Hackbarth (Allenton, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming (Paperback)

Michaels and Balling offer a refreshing alternative to the alarmist screaming that comes from some over the issue of global warming. Through comprehensive analysis of the data and theory behind the issue, the authors find that climate change from industrial activity won't be the dramatic planet threat many think.

They acknowledge that carbon dioxide levels in the atmophere are increasing. However, they think global temperature will only increase 1.3 decrees Celsius by 2100. They do not think ocean levels will rise enough or fast enough to endanger people. Their findings also allow them to believe that storms may actually decrease in intensity and increased carbon dioxide may encourage plant life.

The Satanic Gases is a fine bit of science presented in a persuasive manner.