To quote a fair-minded news reporter “If the surface of Mars has warmed more than the temperature on Earth would you please explain to me how my SUV is causing this?”

valium …

James Hansen, the scientists that testified before Congress on global warming was mentioned in Crichton’s book several times and he actually wrote a really great response which can be read here:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/hansen_re-crichton.pdf

It basically comes down to this: Crichton was very selective in which data he presented in the book. He only included the data that supported the story he was writing–which makes sense (it sells books). So don’t look at the graphs and data in the book and think, “Gee, global warming sure looks sketchy.” There’s a point where there’s like 20 different temperature graphs from various individual locations throughout the world which are completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things. You have to take all measurements–from everywhere–and average them together to see if the global temperature is rising. Just because temperatures in upstate New York might be getting colder doesn’t mean the rest of the world isn’t getting hotter =)

The only graph that I *really* think people wary of is the one showing a cooling period from 1940-1970 on page 95 (paperback). Firstly, the graph in question only covers the northern hemisphere (not mentioned in the book, but if you look at Nasa’s GIS site it is there). There’s a reason why it’s called *global* warming =). Secondly, taking a 100-year sample of temperatures is one thing, taking a 30-year sample is another. Not only that, but if you look at the whole 1880-2003 graph, it is readily apparent that any major difference between CO2 levels and temperature between 1940-1970 was actually evened off by the fact that the two data sets come closer together as time progresses *after* 1970. It’s a course correction of sorts. The factors in global climate are constantly tugging at each other so it is likely that we’ll have years that cool and years that rise. The problem lies in the fact that over time, we’re rising and that’s not a good thing.

If you’re curious about the real science behind global warming, I suggest you take a look at http://www.realclimate.org/

The “most real” and scary data point–at least to me–has to be the fact that we’re currently at 381 PPM of CO2 in the atmosphere. At no point in the past million years has it ever been that high. CO2 levels greater than that pre-date humanity.

The only hope that I think we have is that if we caused it, we can fix it. I see no reason why humanity can’t suck out the CO2 in the atmosphere over time and pump it back into the ground (or at least convert it into C and O2). It is just sad that we’ll have to live with the problems associated with global warming for a long time to come. Burning fossil fuels produces CO2 faster and more efficiently than anything that could reverse the process.

-Riskable
http://riskable.com
“I have a license to kill -9″

I agree that our society is driven by fear. My husband read this book a while ago and liked it. It was after we watched that horrible movie, “The Day After Tomorrow”. Good review, I will put it on my “to read” list.

We live in odd times. By most reasonable measures, the times that we live in are pretty good. There haven’t been any serious terror strikes in the US in a couple of years. The economy is good by any measure except the US in the 90′s. We’ve got a sticky war in foreign lands, but democracies are evolving every day at an encouraging rate. But one would not get the sense of any of this by looking at the paper. Ecology will kill us, terrorists will kill us. The government is choking our last breaths of freedom out of us. Immigrants are going to take whatever jobs aren’t shipped to India. So on and so on. The news gives us something new to fear every day… and yet life goes on. I am concerned for those whose lives revolved around fear and resentment perpetuated by those whose lives depend on fear and resentment.

L Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology (of which I am not a member and do not by any stretch of the imagination endorse) made some interesting points in some of his books. Police, however well intentioned, thrive not on making you feel safe but by making you feel unsafe. Like Sutler said in V for Vendetta, “we need to remind them that they need us!” He calls these people Merchants of Chaos… those that make a living based on the fear of chaos. As troubling as I find the religion, I find his perspective on the issue interesting.