A. Holliday says:

This book is the ultimate (I hope) collection of highly selective and distorted climate change denial all in one volume. What little value it has (except in the future as a bizarre historical curiosity) is the insight it provides into the simplistic and paranoid world of the climate change naysayers,

To save time, here’s a short excerpt from Philip Ball’s review in the Observer:

Suppose you are genuinely undecided on climate change and determined not to be guided simply by what you’d like to believe. If unpicking the real story demands so much effort and insider knowledge, how can you possibly make up your mind? Here’s an unscientific suggestion. Booker’s position would require that you accept something like the following: 1) Most of the world’s climate scientists, for reasons unspecified, decided to create a myth about human-induced global warming and have managed to twist endless measurements and computer models to fit their case, without the rest of the scientific community noticing. George W Bush and certain oil companies have, however, seen through the deception. 2) Most of the world’s climate scientists are incompetent and have grossly misinterpreted their data and models, yet their faulty conclusions are not, as you might imagine, a random chaos of assertions, but all point in the same direction.

There’s a third option: the world’s climate system is hugely complex, hard to predict and constantly surprising; yet in the long term the world is getting warmer, for reasons we basically understand, and there is good reason to believe that humans are mostly responsible for it.

That says it all really. Now the conspiracy theorists can return to their more longstanding obsessions, such as the supposedly faked moon landing – after all there were only about 50,000 people involved in that project, so I guess they could all be hiding something…

Rating: 1 / 5

Mr. Guy Walker says:

It only takes a few moments to understand why Booker’s conspiracy theory is wrong. In order to understand, ask yourself the following questions: 1) Do I believe in photosynthesis? 2) Do I accept that the rainforests affect the climate, due to the fact that they take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen during photosynthesis? 3) Do I accept that between 1991 and 2000 alone, the Amazon rainforest lost 587,000 km2 to deforestation, and that within the last 100 years around 60% of the world’s rainforests have been destroyed by human activity?

Any rational and educated human being would answer `yes’ to each of the above questions, and it automatically follows that human beings have most definitely affected the climate, just on that one issue alone, not even taking into account our many other industrial activities.

Booker just ignores basic scientific evidence-based realities and blindly pursues his political conspiracy theory, encouraged and supported by the media (who depend upon controversy for their existence).

Scientists have observed that species extinctions are currently occurring at several thousand times the normal rate observed in the fossil record, and at a faster rate even than that observed in the fossil record at the time when the dinosaurs became extinct. If the current rate of destruction continues there will be less than half the existing rainforest in 2025, and none by 2060. The world’s coral reefs are declining faster than the rainforests.

Fish prices are increasing because the fish stocks are collapsing around the world due to overfishing of the oceans. Already, more than one third of once viable coastal fisheries are now barren. Fishermen are having to travel further and further to find fish. Many fisheries are in a state of crisis.

The major greenhouse gases are water vapour (H2O), which causes about 70% of the greenhouse effect; CO2, which causes 20%; methane (CH4), which causes 5%; and ozone, which causes 5%. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased by 31% above pre-industrial levels since 1750. All the scientific research concludes that just like deforestation and overfishing, this is having a significant effect on the world.

The scientific consensus on manmade climate change is not a faith or a political conspiracy as Booker would have his readers believe, but is in fact the result of a mountain of evidence-based scientific research carried out by hundreds of thousands of highly qualified men and women of great integrity, each with huge credibility, unlike Booker.

Even ignoring manmade climate change, the world is rapidly approaching Peak Oil. Once Peak Oil is reached oil prices will rapidly increase, having a huge negative impact upon world economies. Politicians cannot afford to take this risk, therefore it is unsurprising that they are using manmade climate change as the reason for converting the world from fossil fuels to renewable energy. It is a necessity and a political reality which has to be faced by everyone.

Christopher Booker has previously been accused of describing John Bridle as “the world’s foremost authority on asbestos science”, but who in 2005 was convicted under the UK’s Trade Descriptions Act of making false claims about his qualifications, and who the BBC has accused of basing his reputation on “lies about his credentials, unaccredited tests, and self aggrandisement”.

Christopher Booker has been accused by the UK government’s Health and Safety Executive, of publishing an article on asbestos that was “substantially misleading”.

Christopher Booker has attacked the overwhelming scientific consensus on another occasion, claiming that “scientific evidence to support the belief that inhaling other people’s smoke causes cancer simply does not exist”. Yet only scientists working in that specific field for many years have the necessary background knowledge to be able to understand the evidence and reach a conclusion. A man with a history degree and no background in science isn’t qualified to even comment on this.

Christopher Booker has written that there is “no proof that BSE causes CJD in humans”, once again claiming greater knowledge of the subject, without any background in the subject, than the scientists working in that field.

Christopher Booker has previously attacked the overwhelming scientific consensus on evolution and defended the ‘theory’ of intelligent design.

Christopher Booker’s articles on asbestos, smoking and cancer, BSE, intelligent design and now climate change have left him with no credibility whatsoever in the global science community. He has been branded “scientifically illiterate” and “the patron saint of charlatans” (an internet search will confirm this).

Many creationists systematically attack modern science, because they are angry that science doesn’t support their religious beliefs. This is essentially where Christopher Booker is coming from. He attempts to brand the scientific consensus as a ‘religion’, likening scientific consensus to a faith, even though the scientific consensus is evidence based. Scientific method works on evidence, just as our courts of law separate fact from fiction through the study of evidence. The difference between science and faith IS evidence.

Christopher Booker’s latest book on climate change is yet another cynical attack on overwhelming global scientific consensus. He lacks any scientific background in climate science, yet doesn’t see his lack of scientific knowledge and experience as any barrier to writing on such a hugely complex scientific subject. As usual, he claims to know more about the subject than the scientists who have written the science papers on the subject and studied all the scientific research in the field and worked in the field for many years. As usual, and for the same reasons, he misunderstands, gets his facts wrong and spreads misinformation. For example, he claims it is a myth that global warming theory is supported by a consensus of the world’s top climate scientists and spreads the suggestion that there is great controversy on the subject within the science community. The easiest way to damage the truth is to spread political false suggestions and to make unsubstantiated allegations, and this is what Booker does.

Rating: 1 / 5

Robert Milliken says:

I found it interesting in that it keeps you focused on the problem at hand and that is always good as a great man once said, Most people spend more time going around problems than trying to solve them. – Henry Ford -

Robert E. Milliken author of, Stupid In Montana As America
Rating: 4 / 5