The Real Global Warming Disaster
Encyclopedia
The Real Global Warming Disaster (Is The Obsession With 'Climate Change' Turning Out To Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder In History?) is a 2009 book by English journalist and author Christopher Booker
written from a standpoint of environmental scepticism which aims to show how scientists and politicians came to believe in anthropogenic global warming
.
In the book, Booker seeks to combine the science of the subject with its political consequences, and writes that, as governments become poised to make radical changes in energy policies
, the scientific evidence
for global warming is becoming increasingly challenged. He states that global warming is not supported by a significant number of the world's climate scientists
, and criticises how the UN
's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) presents evidence and data
, citing its reliance on potentially inaccurate global climate models to make temperature projections. He concludes "it begins to look very possible that the nightmare vision of our planet being doomed" may be imaginary, and that, if so, "it will turn out to be one of the most expensive, destructive, and foolish mistakes the human race has ever made".
The book's claims were strongly criticised by science writer Philip Ball
, but the book was praised by several columnist
s. The book opens with an erroneous quotation, which Booker subsequently acknowledged and promised to correct in future editions.
The book was Amazon UK
's fourth bestselling environment book of the decade 2000-10.
and Dennis Avery
's Unstoppable Global Warming
, Booker presents a graph
showing changes in temperature and carbon dioxide concentration over the last 11,000 years. In his analysis, rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the 1970s led scientists such as Paul Ehrlich
to postulate that the earth, as a result of the greenhouse effect
, may have been heating up or cooling down, either of which could have potentially disastrous consequences. Figures such as the environmental activist Maurice Strong
and scientist Bert Bolin
are then introduced, who would, according to Booker, "play a crucial role in what lay ahead" in influencing governmental policy and helping form the scientific basis for global warming. Booker contends that 1988 was a key year in which the IPCC was set up and James Hansen
appeared at the Senate Committee of Natural Resources
in Washington
, where he stated that he was "99 percent certain" that man's contribution to the greenhouse effect was the cause of global warming. According to Booker, "on all sides 'global warming' became the cause of the moment" after Hansen's appearance. He then describes how:
Booker writes that the SAR was criticised by Frederick Seitz
, who alleged that "more than 15 sections in Chapter 8 of the report—the key chapter setting out the scientific evidence for and against a human influence over climate—were changed or deleted after the scientists charged with examining this question had accepted the supposedly final text". Part one ends with an account of the signing of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol
and the setting of new targets for reduced emissions.
"contradicted the idea that late twentieth century temperatures had suddenly shot up to a level never known before in history", and that this problem was dealt with by a 1999 graph
depicting temperatures "suddenly shooting up in the twentieth century to a level that was quite unprecedented. Familiar features such as the Medieval Warm Period and the little ice age simply vanished". Booker writes that the graph became the "supreme iconic image for all those engaged in the battle to save the world from global warming". He then states that the IPCC's methods, and in particular the draft summary of its next report
, came in for serious criticism from scientists such as Richard Lindzen
.
Booker then examines Davis Guggenheim
's Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth
and the subsequent questioning of many of its assertions, including retreating glaciers
, drowning polar bear
s, use of the "hockey stick" graph, the melting of the ice caps
and snows of Kilimanjaro
and rising sea levels
.
Booker begins part three by quoting the statement of the then British Environment Secretary
that the IPCC's fourth assessment report
was "another nail in the coffin of the climate change deniers". Booker contrasts this assertion with what he sees as evidence emerging to the contrary: that the earth had in fact begun to cool, possibly as a result of solar variation
, and that may thus not be the only driver of climate change. However, the results of research into this theory by the scientists Knud Lassen, Eigil Friis-Christensen
and Henrik Svensmark
were dismissed by Bert Bolin as "scientifically extremely naïve and irresponsible". Booker then alleges that a "consensus" and "counter-consensus" had begun to form, and gives details of a 2007 report by the US Senator James Inhofe that claimed to list 400 scientists "now prepared to express their dissent, sometimes in the strongest terms, from the IPCC's 'consensus' view of global warming". Booker then quotes the June 2007 International Energy Agency
announcement that the cost of halving emissions by 2050 (the US and UK governments were intending 80% cuts) would be US$ 45 trillion—equivalent to "two thirds of the world's entire current annual economic output".
Booker sums up the book's content in a long epilogue, which quotes Theseus
in A Midsummer's Night Dream:
"In the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear".
Booker contends that in this quote Shakespeare
is identifying that "when we are not presented with enough information for our minds to resolve something into certainty, they may be teased into exaggerating it into something quite different from what it really is".
In his review in The Observer
, Philip Ball
(former editor of Nature
) stated the book was "the definitive climate sceptics' manual" in that it makes an uncritical presentation of "just about every criticism ever made of the majority scientific view" on global warming. Though expressing "a queer kind of admiration for the skill and energy with which Booker has assembled his polemic", Ball called the claims made by the author "bunk". Ball also criticised Booker's tactic of introducing climate sceptics "with a little eulogy to their credentials, while their opponents receive only a perfunctory, if not disparaging, preamble".
In The Spectator
, Rodney Leach wrote that "the shelf of sceptical books keeps filling and Booker's belongs there with the best", remarking that Booker "narrates this story with the journalist's pace and eye for telling detail and the historian's forensic thoroughness which have made him a formidable opponent of humbug
". Columnist James Delingpole
described the book as "another of those classics which any even vaguely intelligent person who wants to know what's really going on needs to read".
Writing in The Herald
, Brian Morton
was largely sympathetic to the position taken by Booker in the book: "The question isn't whether climate is changing, but what is to blame. A crippling tithe of international political effort and social action is directed to the assumption that we are", and "the climate change debate—or enforced consensus—concerns the way science is done and perceived. As Booker says, 'consensus' is not a term in science but in politics".
A positive review by Henry Kelly
in The Irish Times
, referring to the book as "meticulously researched, provocative and challenging", was criticised by Irish environmental campaigner and climatechange.ie website founder John Gibbons, who said that the decision by The Irish Times to allow Kelly to review The Real Global Warming Disaster was part of a recent trend of "the media giving too much coverage to 'anti-science' climate change deniers and failing to convey the gravity of the threat, making readers and viewers apathetic".
In The Scotsman
, writer and environmentalist Sir John Lister-Kaye
chose The Real Global Warming Disaster as one of his books of the year, writing that "though barely credible in places" this was an "important, brave book making and explaining many valid points".
the words "Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen". The publishers apologised for this misquotation, confirmed that it would not be repeated, and agreed to place a corrigendum in any further copies of the book. In an article which appeared in The Sunday Telegraph on 20 February 2010, Booker wrote "we shall all in due course take steps to correct the record, as I shall do in the next edition of my book".
Houghton referred the matter to the Press Complaints Commission
(PCC Reference 101959), following whose involvement The Sunday Telegraph published on 15 August a letter of correction by Houghton stating his actual position.
An article supportive of Houghton appears in the New Scientist
magazine.
Christopher Booker
Christopher John Penrice Booker is an English journalist and author. In 1961, he was one of the founders of the magazine Private Eye, and has contributed to it for over four decades. He has been a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph since 1990...
written from a standpoint of environmental scepticism which aims to show how scientists and politicians came to believe in anthropogenic global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
.
In the book, Booker seeks to combine the science of the subject with its political consequences, and writes that, as governments become poised to make radical changes in energy policies
Energy policy
Energy policy is the manner in which a given entity has decided to address issues of energy development including energy production, distribution and consumption...
, the scientific evidence
Scientific evidence
Scientific evidence has no universally accepted definition but generally refers to evidence which serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis. Such evidence is generally expected to be empirical and properly documented in accordance with scientific method such as is...
for global warming is becoming increasingly challenged. He states that global warming is not supported by a significant number of the world's climate scientists
Scientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
, and criticises how the UN
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
(IPCC) presents evidence and data
Data
The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which...
, citing its reliance on potentially inaccurate global climate models to make temperature projections. He concludes "it begins to look very possible that the nightmare vision of our planet being doomed" may be imaginary, and that, if so, "it will turn out to be one of the most expensive, destructive, and foolish mistakes the human race has ever made".
The book's claims were strongly criticised by science writer Philip Ball
Philip Ball
Philip Ball is an English science writer. He holds a degree in chemistry from Oxford and a doctorate in physics from Bristol University. He was an editor for the journal Nature for over 10 years. He now writes a regular column in Chemistry World...
, but the book was praised by several columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
s. The book opens with an erroneous quotation, which Booker subsequently acknowledged and promised to correct in future editions.
The book was Amazon UK
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
's fourth bestselling environment book of the decade 2000-10.
Background
Before the book's publication, Booker wrote in The Sunday Telegraph that the motivation behind it lay in a consideration of "the supposed menace of global warming—and the political response to it". In the book's introduction, Booker also describes how The Real Global Warming Disaster became for him a necessary continuation of a brief analysis he had made of the anthropogenic global warming issue in his previous book, Scared to Death, and followed a similar theme he had explored there, i.e., that of the media overstating the danger of an issue facing the public, and governments overreacting to the issue by passing legislation entailing considerable economic cost.Part One: Forging the 'consensus': 1972–1997
Drawing from Fred SingerFred Singer
Siegfried Fred Singer is an Austrian-born American physicist and emeritus professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia...
and Dennis Avery
Dennis Avery
For the Indiana State Representative, see Dennis Avery Dennis T. Avery is the director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, where he edits Global Food Quarterly....
's Unstoppable Global Warming
Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years
Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years is a book about climate change, written by Siegfried Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, which asserts that natural changes, and not CO2 emissions, are the cause of Global Warming...
, Booker presents a graph
Information graphics
Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education...
showing changes in temperature and carbon dioxide concentration over the last 11,000 years. In his analysis, rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the 1970s led scientists such as Paul Ehrlich
Paul R. Ehrlich
Paul Ralph Ehrlich is an American biologist and educator who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology. By training he is an entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera , but...
to postulate that the earth, as a result of the greenhouse effect
Greenhouse effect
The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface, energy is transferred to the surface and the lower atmosphere...
, may have been heating up or cooling down, either of which could have potentially disastrous consequences. Figures such as the environmental activist Maurice Strong
Maurice Strong
Maurice F. Strong, PC, CC, OM, FRSC is a Canadian entrepreneur and a former under-secretary general of the United Nations. Strong's first name is pronounced "Mor'ris" with the accent on the first syllable....
and scientist Bert Bolin
Bert Bolin
Bert Rickard Johannes Bolin was a Swedish meteorologist who served as the first chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , from 1988 to 1997. He was professor of meteorology at Stockholm University from 1961 until his retirement in 1990....
are then introduced, who would, according to Booker, "play a crucial role in what lay ahead" in influencing governmental policy and helping form the scientific basis for global warming. Booker contends that 1988 was a key year in which the IPCC was set up and James Hansen
James Hansen
James E. Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, a part of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He has held this position since 1981...
appeared at the Senate Committee of Natural Resources
United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
The United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources has jurisdiction over matters related to energy and nuclear waste policy, territorial policy, native Hawaiian matters, and public lands....
in Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, where he stated that he was "99 percent certain" that man's contribution to the greenhouse effect was the cause of global warming. According to Booker, "on all sides 'global warming' became the cause of the moment" after Hansen's appearance. He then describes how:
- in 1990, the IPCC published its first assessment reportIPCC First Assessment ReportThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change first assessment report was completed in 1990, and served as the basis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ....
which made projections of future temperature rises; - at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit "politicians from 154 countries queued up to sign a 'UN Framework Convention on Climate Change'United Nations Framework Convention on Climate ChangeThe United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to 14, 1992...
" that would "commit all the signatory governments to a voluntary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions"; - the second IPCC reportIPCC Second Assessment ReportThe Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , published in 1996, is an assessment of the then available scientific and socio-economic information on climate change...
(SAR) in 1995 found that the "body of statistical evidence now points to a discernible human influence on the global climate".
Booker writes that the SAR was criticised by Frederick Seitz
Frederick Seitz
Frederick Seitz was an American physicist and a pioneer of solid state physics. Seitz was president of Rockefeller University, and president of the United States National Academy of Sciences 1962–1969. He was the recipient of the National Medal of Science, NASA's Distinguished Public Service...
, who alleged that "more than 15 sections in Chapter 8 of the report—the key chapter setting out the scientific evidence for and against a human influence over climate—were changed or deleted after the scientists charged with examining this question had accepted the supposedly final text". Part one ends with an account of the signing of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , aimed at fighting global warming...
and the setting of new targets for reduced emissions.
Part Two: The 'consensus' carries all before it: 1998–2007
Booker begins part two by asserting that the medieval warm periodMedieval Warm Period
The Medieval Warm Period , Medieval Climate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region, that may also have been related to other climate events around the world during that time, including in China, New Zealand, and other countries lasting from...
"contradicted the idea that late twentieth century temperatures had suddenly shot up to a level never known before in history", and that this problem was dealt with by a 1999 graph
Hockey stick controversy
The hockey stick controversy refers to debates over the technical correctness and implications for global warming of graphs showing reconstructed estimates of the temperature record of the past 1000 years...
depicting temperatures "suddenly shooting up in the twentieth century to a level that was quite unprecedented. Familiar features such as the Medieval Warm Period and the little ice age simply vanished". Booker writes that the graph became the "supreme iconic image for all those engaged in the battle to save the world from global warming". He then states that the IPCC's methods, and in particular the draft summary of its next report
IPCC Third Assessment Report
The IPCC Third Assessment Report, Climate Change 2001, is an assessment of available scientific and socio-economic information on climate change by the IPCC. The IPCC was established in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme and the UN's World Meteorological Organization ".....
, came in for serious criticism from scientists such as Richard Lindzen
Richard Lindzen
Richard Siegmund Lindzen is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than...
.
Booker then examines Davis Guggenheim
Davis Guggenheim
Philip Davis Guggenheim is an Academy Award-winning American film director and producer. His credits as a producer and director include Training Day, The Shield, Alias, 24, NYPD Blue, ER, Deadwood, and Party of Five and the documentaries An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for 'Superman...
's Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
and the subsequent questioning of many of its assertions, including retreating glaciers
Retreat of glaciers since 1850
The retreat of glaciers since 1850 affects the availability of fresh water for irrigation and domestic use, mountain recreation, animals and plants that depend on glacier-melt, and in the longer term, the level of the oceans...
, drowning polar bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
s, use of the "hockey stick" graph, the melting of the ice caps
Polar ice cap
A polar ice cap is a high latitude region of a planet or natural satellite that is covered in ice. There are no requirements with respect to size or composition for a body of ice to be termed a polar ice cap, nor any geological requirement for it to be over land; only that it must be a body of...
and snows of Kilimanjaro
Mount Kilimanjaro
Kilimanjaro, with its three volcanic cones, Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira, is a dormant volcano in Kilimanjaro National Park, Tanzania and the highest mountain in Africa at above sea level .-Geology:...
and rising sea levels
Current sea level rise
Current sea level rise potentially impacts human populations and the wider natural environment . Global average sea level rose at an average rate of around 1.8 mm per year over 1961 to 2003 and at an average rate of about 3.1 mm per year from 1993 to 2003...
.
Part Three: The 'consensus' begins to crumble: 2007–2009
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is a UK cabinet-level position in charge of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the successor to the positions of Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport...
that the IPCC's fourth assessment report
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , is the fourth in a series of reports intended to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information concerning climate change, its potential effects, and options for...
was "another nail in the coffin of the climate change deniers". Booker contrasts this assertion with what he sees as evidence emerging to the contrary: that the earth had in fact begun to cool, possibly as a result of solar variation
Solar variation
Solar variation is the change in the amount of radiation emitted by the Sun and in its spectral distribution over years to millennia. These variations have periodic components, the main one being the approximately 11-year solar cycle . The changes also have aperiodic fluctuations...
, and that may thus not be the only driver of climate change. However, the results of research into this theory by the scientists Knud Lassen, Eigil Friis-Christensen
Eigil Friis-Christensen
Eigil Friis-Christensen is an expert in space physics, and Director of the Danish National Space Center.- Career :Friis-Christensen received a Magisterkonferens in Geophysics from University of Copenhagen in 1971. In 1972, he was a geophysicist at the Danish Meteorological Institute...
and Henrik Svensmark
Henrik Svensmark
Henrik Svensmark is a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen who studies the effects of cosmic rays on cloud formation. His work presents hypotheses about solar activity as an indirect cause of global warming; his research has suggested a possible link through the interaction...
were dismissed by Bert Bolin as "scientifically extremely naïve and irresponsible". Booker then alleges that a "consensus" and "counter-consensus" had begun to form, and gives details of a 2007 report by the US Senator James Inhofe that claimed to list 400 scientists "now prepared to express their dissent, sometimes in the strongest terms, from the IPCC's 'consensus' view of global warming". Booker then quotes the June 2007 International Energy Agency
International Energy Agency
The International Energy Agency is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis...
announcement that the cost of halving emissions by 2050 (the US and UK governments were intending 80% cuts) would be US$ 45 trillion—equivalent to "two thirds of the world's entire current annual economic output".
Booker sums up the book's content in a long epilogue, which quotes Theseus
Theseus
For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...
in A Midsummer's Night Dream:
"In the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear".
Booker contends that in this quote Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
is identifying that "when we are not presented with enough information for our minds to resolve something into certainty, they may be teased into exaggerating it into something quite different from what it really is".
Reception
The book received a mixed reception by press reviewers.In his review in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, Philip Ball
Philip Ball
Philip Ball is an English science writer. He holds a degree in chemistry from Oxford and a doctorate in physics from Bristol University. He was an editor for the journal Nature for over 10 years. He now writes a regular column in Chemistry World...
(former editor of Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
) stated the book was "the definitive climate sceptics' manual" in that it makes an uncritical presentation of "just about every criticism ever made of the majority scientific view" on global warming. Though expressing "a queer kind of admiration for the skill and energy with which Booker has assembled his polemic", Ball called the claims made by the author "bunk". Ball also criticised Booker's tactic of introducing climate sceptics "with a little eulogy to their credentials, while their opponents receive only a perfunctory, if not disparaging, preamble".
In The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
, Rodney Leach wrote that "the shelf of sceptical books keeps filling and Booker's belongs there with the best", remarking that Booker "narrates this story with the journalist's pace and eye for telling detail and the historian's forensic thoroughness which have made him a formidable opponent of humbug
Humbug
Humbug is an old term meaning hoax or jest. While the term was first described in 1751 as student slang, its etymology is unknown. Its present meaning as an exclamation is closer to 'nonsense' or 'gibberish', while as a noun, a humbug refers to a fraud or impostor, implying an element of...
". Columnist James Delingpole
James Delingpole
James Delingpole is an English columnist and novelist. A self-described libertarian conservative, he writes for The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Spectator. He has published several novels and four political books, most recently Watermelons: The Green Movement's True Colors [2011]...
described the book as "another of those classics which any even vaguely intelligent person who wants to know what's really going on needs to read".
Writing in The Herald
The Herald (Glasgow)
The Herald is a broadsheet newspaper published Monday to Saturday in Glasgow, and available throughout Scotland. As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 47,226, giving it a lead over Scotland's other 'quality' national daily, The Scotsman, published in Edinburgh.The 1889 to 1906 editions...
, Brian Morton
Brian Morton (Scottish writer)
Brian Morton is a Scottish writer, journalist and broadcaster, mainly specialising in jazz and modern literature. Born in Paisley, near Glasgow and raised in Dunoon, Morton was educated at Edinburgh University and taught in the late 1970s at the University of East Anglia and the University of...
was largely sympathetic to the position taken by Booker in the book: "The question isn't whether climate is changing, but what is to blame. A crippling tithe of international political effort and social action is directed to the assumption that we are", and "the climate change debate—or enforced consensus—concerns the way science is done and perceived. As Booker says, 'consensus' is not a term in science but in politics".
A positive review by Henry Kelly
Henry Kelly
Patrick Henry Kelly is an Irish television presenter and radio DJ.Henry Kelly was born in Athlone, Co Westmeath, Ireland. He was educated at Belvedere College SJ, and at University College Dublin where he was Auditor of the Literary and Historical Society...
in The Irish Times
The Irish Times
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...
, referring to the book as "meticulously researched, provocative and challenging", was criticised by Irish environmental campaigner and climatechange.ie website founder John Gibbons, who said that the decision by The Irish Times to allow Kelly to review The Real Global Warming Disaster was part of a recent trend of "the media giving too much coverage to 'anti-science' climate change deniers and failing to convey the gravity of the threat, making readers and viewers apathetic".
In The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
, writer and environmentalist Sir John Lister-Kaye
John Lister-Kaye
Sir John Philip Lister Lister-Kaye, 8th Baronet OBE is an English naturalist, conservationist, author and owner and Director of Scotland's premier field studies centre, Aigas Field Centre, among other business interests...
chose The Real Global Warming Disaster as one of his books of the year, writing that "though barely credible in places" this was an "important, brave book making and explaining many valid points".
Houghton misquotation
The book opens with an incorrect quotation which wrongly attributes to John T. HoughtonJohn T. Houghton
As co-chair of the IPCC, he defends the IPCC process, in particular against charges of failure to consider non-CO2 explanations of climate change. In evidence to, the Select Committee on Science and Technology in 2000 he said:...
the words "Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen". The publishers apologised for this misquotation, confirmed that it would not be repeated, and agreed to place a corrigendum in any further copies of the book. In an article which appeared in The Sunday Telegraph on 20 February 2010, Booker wrote "we shall all in due course take steps to correct the record, as I shall do in the next edition of my book".
Houghton referred the matter to the Press Complaints Commission
Press Complaints Commission
The Press Complaints Commission is a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC is funded by the annual levy it charges newspapers and magazines...
(PCC Reference 101959), following whose involvement The Sunday Telegraph published on 15 August a letter of correction by Houghton stating his actual position.
An article supportive of Houghton appears in the New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
magazine.
See also
- Global warming controversyGlobal warming controversyGlobal warming controversy refers to a variety of disputes, significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature, regarding the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming...
- Public opinion on climate changePublic opinion on climate changePublic opinion on climate change is the aggregate of attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population concerning the science, economics, and politics of global warming. It is affected by media coverage of climate change.-Regional:...
- The Hockey Stick IllusionThe Hockey Stick IllusionThe Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science is a book written by Andrew Montford and published by Stacey International in 2010...
- The Deniers
- The Great Global Warming SwindleThe Great Global Warming SwindleThe Great Global Warming Swindle is a polemical documentary film that suggests that the scientific opinion on climate change is influenced by funding and political factors, and questions whether scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming exists....
External links
- Booker's synopsis of the book in The Daily Mail