Customer Reviews

Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming

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Prior to reading Taken by Storm I considered myself well-informed about the topic of global climate change.I was surprised at how much more this book was able to explain. Essex and McKitrick do an excellent job of outlining the basic science, underlying math and pervasive lack of true understanding that underpins the issue of gloabl warming.Their tone is non-judgemental, unequivocal and principled. They ask fundamental intellectual questions, explain concepts using accessible examples and highlight how good science has been lost. It is a must read for anyone seeking insights about climate change and the broader interplay of politics and science.

This is the best-written, most entertaining, most important Science book I've read in over 40 years! The authors draw on statistical theory, chaos theory, computer modelling, masses of scientific data and a whole lot of common sense to completely devastate the whole idea of "global warming" and any attempts to observe it, predict it or influcence it. They also wade into the issue of why this "Chicken Little" idea has gained such a grip on our politicians (and our purse strings).

Only problem: I suspect this would be a tough read for anyone who doesn't have a strong science, math and statistics background. Even though I do have such a background, I found myself deciphering the "dummed down" versions into the real theory in order to understand what they were talking about. It all rang true to me, but I'm not sure someone who didn't have access to the "real" math would be convinced.

Mr. Essex and Mr. McKitrick have written a very impressive critique of the faulty science and pseudoscience behind the global warming theory. Particularly impressive is their explanation of the faulty modeling of the climate by the U.N. working committees. The book demonstrates how the collection of average temperatures is no way to model the climate whose relationships are nonlinear and are in constant disequilibrium. The authors demonstrate the uselessness of the U.N. climate models better than anyone else I have read. The authors to their great credit also expose many of the propaganda devices of the establishment and environmentalist proponents of controlling global warming. Way too many of the media, government and establishment information outlets are controlled by people who uncritically support the global warming hypothesis.

Mr. Essex and Mr. Mckitrick might criticized a bit for their presentation. The authors discuss quite difficult concepts that might well be out of range for the average reader. Even a person like myself who has taken a number of college mathematics courses had to read slowly and carefully several of their chapters. I think the authors should have used gray boxes to carefully explain the more difficult concepts, as is done in some science textbooks. For less experienced readers the book by Michaels and Balling (The Satanic Gases) might be a clearer exposition.

But the work is still stupendous.

Many professors of Climate Science realize that carbon dioxide generated by human activity has caused little or no global warming. Essex and McKitrick, even as outsiders to the field, provide the most entertaining exposé of climate modeling nonsense I have seen. The flaws in climate modeling, the absence of
water vapor as the most important greenhouse gas in most enviro manifestoes, the fraud behind the "hockey stick" graph of temperature over the last 1,000 years that claims that the 20th century has been the warmest of the millenium, and the lack of coverage of the remaining ground temperature measurement
stations are all revealed, and backed with citations to peer-reviewed journals. Even the dynamics of human group polarization are explained at length as the reason why this subject receives almost no serious scientific discussion.

The hockey stick temperature vs. time graph was defended by its perpetrator (Mann). A new peer-reviewed article defends the work in the book and amplfies it: Stephen McIntyre and Ross
McKitrick.Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series. Energy and Environment 14(6) 751-772. This is one of the few journals on climate that will consider articles with the facts: there is no correlation, as the books shows, with CO2 levels and lower atmosphere temperatures. http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html

The views in the book are supported by other authors in the books Hot Talk, Cold Science; Fragile Science; Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths; and The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Funny, irreverent. A good look at science and global
warming. With only one year of chem eng under my
belt, I found some of the sections were a bit hard
going. But, on the whole, I found the book quite
accessible. Don't judge the global warming debate
until you've read TAKEN BY STORM.

In my attemps to grasp the core issues around the science and politics of global warming I have stumbled upon a very enlightening book. The book covers a variety topics from the current connection between facts, science, politics, and policy, to the the concept of uncertainty in existing climate technology. It is not overly ambitious in the scientific concepts it presents to readers who are at least aware of the current global warming discussion, and it remains respectful to the field of climate science. Overall, a fun read and a reminder to the world of science that life is unpredictable, non-linear, and has infinite outcomes.

Thank you to the authors for writing this book. I was a global warming believer for many years and read quite a bit on the subject. This book has completely opened my eyes to what the science and policy really says and they've done it in the most objective and matter-of-fact way possible with a bit of humor laced in to keep it interesting. When you actually take the time to learn what really is going on in the science of global climate it becomes a whole new argument. I've never felt more informed about this issue and I plan on recommending this book to everyone I meet. I am now and will always be a conservationist and an environmentalist and will continue to preach the importance of taking care of our earth but I will no longer support what policy makers are telling us about global warming and the bastardized science they are using as support. Thank you again to the authors for enlightening me. No one should get into a discussion, argument, or debate about this issue without first reading this book.

It is a bizarre book that is quite typical of the sceptics that are the authors.

In the first instance it is a re-run (with no substantive changes) to a book first published in 2002. Since that time far more detailed analysis and scientific research has been carried out including, but not limited to, the IPCC (Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change) report that was published in mid-2007 and which caused the sceptical Bush administration to embark on a volte-face. As such, anything based on science in this book (and I haven't found anything) would be out of date.

On the subject of a lack of science, the book seems to be written on the basis of (unqualified) opinions and statistical analysis. On further investigation that is hardly surprising: one of the authors is an economist and the other is a mathematician: neither is a scientist and neither is qualified to opine on the science of global warming. Their attempt to pitch their arguments against the IPCC, a leading independent panel of the world's greatest scientists, is ludicrous.

Finally, in support of my last argument about the lack of science and the lack of qualification of the authors, I give one example. The authors of this book argue that drinkers of carbonated drinks are contributing to increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and so activists ought to drink flat drinks. The fact of the matter is that drinks are carbonated by pumping carbon dioxide into them and so when the bubbles release the gas on opening a can/bottle it is the same carbon dioxide that was put into the drink that subsequently escapes...i.e. it is a zero sum game...no new carbon emissions are being created. While this may have been a parody of some of the arguments being made in support of global warming, it only goes to highlight that the authors of this book are making light of a very serious issue that may threaten the lives of tens of millions of people and the eco-system on which we depend.

Maybe global warming is a big problem, maybe it is not. It is, however, an identified potential risk of devastating proportions. The important thing now is to ask what measures we may take in order to mitigate that risk and to act on that advice. Is it not better to over-estimate the consequences and be fully prepared for the worst, than to underestimate the consequences and to fail to act now while we still have the chance to do so? Since none of us will know the true consequences of global warming until it is too late, I advocate acting now. This book is only likely to persuade people to do otherwise.

In summary, the authors of this book owe me several hours of my life (which were wasted reading it). Save yourself the time and the money. If you want a qualified independent and un-policitically driven opinion on the threat of climate change read the 2007 IPCC report [...]

Review of Essex and McKitrick's Taken by Storm

Christopher Barrinton-Leigh

10 June 2006

1 Introduction

I have a background (PhD, postdoctoral research) in
upper atmospheric and space physics, and am currently a
PhD student in Economics. I am by no means a specialist
in climate research, but believe I have a pretty good
b.s. filter for both physical and economic arguments.

Recently I attended a workshop on Kyoto Protocol
politics and was highly struck by the fact that in
private conversations with both of the two other
economists in attendance, the issue of questioning the
science of climate change came up. Most of my friends
are scientists, and I hardly know any other "climate
change skeptics". One of these two fellow economists, a
professor I respect, suggested I look at Christopher
Essex and Ross McKitrick's Taken by Storm: The troubled
science, policy and politics of global warming [2002]
for a worthwhile perspective.

I did not get much beyond the 2nd chapter (other than
skimming) in this book because every page I read
compelled me to write to debunk the logic or
interpretation. I suspect that given developments since
this book was written, much of the thesis is
indefensible now. However, even when it was written,
this kind of selective picking of minutiae, exhaustive
construction of strawman after strawman, and simplistic
polarisation of facts and debates speaks simply of
ideology, not skepticism, even when it is ideology
against which it rails.

If it has a contribution to make in the ever-important
task of keeping the scientific process open to
self-criticism, then I congratulate the authors for that.
However, I believe the authors of IPCC reports and
concensus assessments are generally aware of the
sketchy nature of their enormous task, and that the
scientific process with all its warts is working in its
ideal aim. Maybe some of the extreme care and caution
with which scientists report to the press their results
on such major issues as climate change can be credited
to works such as this one.

Overall, the book comes across as a whiney rant from
someone whose ideas were published in top journals but
have not "won" the battle through the extensive
scientific debate. It opens with a superlatively and
openly glib demeanor which characterises some of
McKitrick's work elsewhere, as well as that of his
fellow "anti-science" profiteers such as S. Fred Singer
(on which more, later).

2 First two chapters

The book begins with a deconstruction of science on the
basis that things are very complex and that not all
descriptions of the world are based directly on some
unspecified level of theory which the authors call "fundamental"
. That they believe they have something to bring to
these topics is unfortunate. A good introduction to the
issues of symmetry breaking and multiple scales in
science could be found in the classic paper "More is
different" by (Nobel physicist) Phil Anderson in
Science (1972).

The authors absurdly conclude with the understatement "
There is no comprehensive scientific theory for climate!"
Essentially everything said about climate models here
could be said about daily weather forecasts. Yet it is
good policy to use competing weather models for
probabilistic predictions. Similarly, climate models
are calibrated and tested on recent history and
paleoclimate. By varying parameters or model choice,
modelers in both cases attempt to report confidence
bands as part of their predictions. The difficult
science evolves.

The authors suggest that "no engineer would sign off on
a model that was not tested". I find this an odd
analogy, and lacking in humility when coming from an
economist! Consider as a better analogy (and sharp
contrast with economists, who still have no Hippocratic
Oath) the behaviour of practitioners in medicine. What
matters is not that there be no doubt, but the measure
of a concept called risk. As an economist McKitrick is
intimitely familiar with the concept of risk but has
made it the overwhelming and remarkable omission in
this book (throughout, apparently!?).

After first admitting that scientists in modern culture
do in fact think independently, the authors go on to
liken them to a set of coupled mechanical oscillators
which all end up in phase. I have personal experience
in science with competing, strongly rivalrous
explanations of new phenomena. While it can be
frustrating being in the camp which knows it has the
data on its side and that its theory is likely to
prevail (while evolving) in the end and yet has to
spend time playing the battle fairly and patiently in
the mean time, it is the very knowledge that the system
works well enough to select the truth in the end that
makes the "frustration" an acceptable part of the game.
Indeed, the scientific community --- not just the press
--- loves irreverance, revolution, skepticism etc, even
while individual scientific communities naturally
develop inertia and myopia. Look at the history of
metal-catalyzed "cold fusion", for example. It was met
with excitement, support, and skepticism initially, and
on the long term suffered the rigours of the scientific process.

Indeed, some of the very journals which the authors
falsely (and disingenuously, since they have published
there) accuse of being closed to climate-skeptics are
precisely the ones to go to with counter-culture
theories. I once had a young colleague with fantastic
(crazy, misguided) ideas about some fundamental physics
concepts. The remarkable advice he received from my
mentors was "I think you should submit your ideas to Nature".

Taken by Storm goes on to discuss the "players" in its
strawman "Doctrine of Certainty". Here, a resentful, if
playful, language and set of irreverant acronyms that
characterize the authors' style comes across as petty
and again reminds me of the snide manner of S. Fred
Singer. Environmentalists are described as "private politicians"
while industry is not a lobby and is described as
entirely removed from the debate except that it
ostensibly tends to fund the environmentalists' side!
This is coming from a Senior Fellow of one of corporate
America's major mouthpieces in Canada, the Fraser Institute.

On page 28, the text shows some declining measures of
air pollutants (typically, such pollution is
economists' only concept of "environment") in the late
20th Century and it is posed as a mystery that
environmental awareness was growing in this time; this
mystery is supposedly solved by the existence of mass
hysteria. The authors claim that during this period the "
environment was getting better on its own". The authors
ought to know more about the possible directions of
causality than this. Environmental improvements through
legislation, and every piece of land conservation
throughout the last century, have occurred as a result
of hard work by people typically working without, and
against, the kind of corporate funding and support
which is available to the authors of this book.
Meanwhile, Earth increasingly appears to be in the
midst of the largest mass extinction event in the last
two hundred million years. Can it really be a sincere
belief that the rise of environmentalism, or the
reduction of certain gases and aerosol concentrations
in the USA are the result of independent
self-propagating phenomena? These authors boast in
their Preface that "We have no idea when Earth Day is,
nor do we care, as long as the malls stay open", which
suggests to me that scientific and economic claims made
in the book may be just so much more tongue in cheek.

The authors quote a cogent editorial from Nature which
rails against people just like Essex and McKitrick, "
many of whom are not even atmospheric scientists" who
have used "specious scientific findings" to muddy the
issues. Essex and McKitrick fear that Nature's even
carrying this kind of editorial deters real results
which don't "fit" with the main thrust of research.
Ironically, the comment in Nature is about efforts like
Essex and McKitrick's, not that of scientists with
contributions to make. Indeed, both sides of
conflicting data such as that of the ground and
satellite measurements debate of the late 1990's were
carried in top journals. When writing in a scientific
capacity, the authors themselves have published their
own "dissenting" interpretations in G.R.L., Nature, and
so on. Their ideas simply haven't held up.

Next, the book rails against the idea that 0.1 degree C
could be a significant or measurable deviation in ocean
temperature, based on the limited precision of a home
consumer thermometer. This appears to be an appeal to
the reader to now have better scientific knowledge than
the peer-reviewed primary literature.

The authors claim that all official bias has been
pro-warming, i.e. fueling and responding to a global
warming hysteria. This seems fantastic. The USA
government has led the world in dismissing and muddying
the science of climate change, and has harassed its own
scientists, replaced key advisors with non-scientists
with a counter-science and pro-status-quo view,
actively censored NASA scientists, changed the
conclusions of reports, etc, all in favour of a
Doctrine of Optimism.

The remaining text of the section continues with
hyperbole and polarisation in nearly every sentence.
There is no monolithic view anywhere in the scientific
community on climate. There is debate at all the levels
listed -- science, media, and public/political
discourse. The system is naturally imperfect in many of
the qualitative ways they describe, yet their claims
that it is completely broken, or collectively deluded
on climate change are not in the least bit convincing.

There is an alternate possibility. Science may be
working reasonably well, overall. The lack of
peer-reviewed articles in good --- no, any ---
specialist journals in recent years which could be said
to disagree with the cautiously-worded, inclusive, and
concensus-oriented conclusions of IPCC might, in fact,
be a success story for science. This remarkable
convergence of conclusions from countless different
scientists, methods, and instruments contrasts, of
course, with the even split of the "two sides" in the
media, and the distortions towards those two extremes
(not just one of them) in political discourse.

Let me make a quick comment on the authors' associate,
S. Fred Singer, a once highly respected magnetospheric
physicist who in his retirement has taken up the cause
of fighting tobacco regulations by refuting the health
effects of smoking, the cause of fighting the Montreal
Protocol by refuting the role of CFCs in destroying
stratospheric ozone, and the cause of promoting the
benefits of climate change, disputing the existence of
climate change, and denying the role of humanity in
contributing to possible climate change. Two or three
of these causes now appear ridiculous in retrospect,
and thankfully sense prevailed amongst the majority.

I have discussed Fred Singer's views on climate with
him on two occasions during his visits to Stanford.
This is a man who shares the odd, gleeful, almost
reckless, contemptuous language and attitude for
mainstream concensus on these scientific issues. While
claiming conspiracies of delusion and "doctrines of certainty"
, he quite openly believes that it is healthy to have
preconceived notions like he himself does that one way
or another we should not be taking costly measures
against climate change. On page 55 of Taken by Storm,
the authors describe Singer's message as focused on the
discrepancy between ground, air, and space temperature
measurements (there is no longer any discrepancy; the
scientific process and open debate has led to a strong
concensus). This is not correct. His message has
consistently (in my experience) been on all three
fronts mentioned above --- climate change is good for
us, it isn't happening, and if it did it would be
natural. This is an odd collection unless you are the
oil companies which have funded Singer's organisation.
That David Anderson declined to attend Singer's talk,
as described in this book, saved one busy person from
listening to what in my estimation is a decidedly
unscientific (unrepresentative) rant.

The book goes on to harp on things like the fact that
the popular notion of the "greenhouse effect" describes
the climate issue but not that of real greenhouses.
This is true, but the politics is not about
greenhouses. I only skimmed beyond Chapter 2, but saw
mostly just more hyped, playful language.

3 Conclusion

With Singer I always got the impression that he did not
care too much what people think of his views, maybe
because he knew that his reward for the work was coming
in another, more concrete form than scientific respect.
I detect a similar smugness and willingness to ignore
the big picture, or 90% of the details, in the authors
of Taken by Storm.

Just a few of points on this book that should give one pause:

1. The case for a significant human influence on climate goes far beyond the "hockey stick". Still, McKitrick's claims have been thoroughly addressed by ACTUAL CLIMATOLOGISTS and those who closely follow their work. You can easily find rebuttals and analysis on the web, from Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt, Tim Lambert, and others. The hockey stick temperature reconstruction has also been independently verified.

2. Regarding the surface temperature record: Other data, including the satellite record (corrected for stratospheric bias), and recent oceanic research, confirm the warming trend, as do numerous observational studies.

3. Misleading arguments about water vapor are often made in "skeptic" circles, despite the fact that water vapor is included in climate studies - but as a feedback. Evaporation and precipitation cycle water vapor through the atmosphere about every 10 days on average, maintaining an overall balance at levels determined by temperature. In other words, water vapor can amplify a warming trend, but it's irrelevant as a forcing factor (excepting small anthropogenic amounts in the stratosphere). If humans were to pump a million tons of extra water vapor into the air tomorrow, most of it would precipitate out within a week and a half. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, can remain in the atmosphere for decades to centuries (determined by various processes), and have feedback effects far beyond that. Human CO2 output (the full influence of which is delayed by oceanic inertia) is exceeding natural absorption, and accumulating rapidly.

So one piece of advice when reading material like this: Look into the REST of the story before coming to the comfortable or convenient conclusion that we're having little impact on the future.