Has anyone read "An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming"
Nigel Lawson?
It has only been published fairly recently. Just ordered my copy.
I haven't tried looking for reviews yet, but will do some searching.
This seems to be a fair review.
http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/heath_04_08.html
Last edited by bindeweede; 17th April 2008 at 09:02 PM. Reason: addition.
I'm not sure I agree with this part of the review:
If he is proved right, he has gone against the vast consensus of scientific opinion.If Lawson is eventually proved right, this book will be remembered as a milestone; if, instead, he turns out to have been completely wrong, at least Lawson had the courage of his convictions, an increasingly rare virtue in today's excessively consensual age.
I'd be interested in what you think of the book though.
I have also ordered the Ernst/Singh book, which isn't out until the 21st, I believe, so it will be a little while before I can say anything about Lord Lawson's.Originally Posted by FarSideOfTheMoon
Personally, I'm convinced about the scientific evidence for global warming. However, as I'm sure most people here would agree, we always need skeptics to question any consensus.
We humans have a nasty habit of jumping on band wagons. If a little is good then a lot must be better is the kind of logic produced by such a mob mentality. Without skeptics to constantly query things every step of the way, we might end up taking what later turns out to be the wriong route in tackling global warming and end up triggering a new ice age or even worse global warming!
I'm definitely skeptical about some of the proposed technical fixes. The problem is that with many of them, once they're started you cannot stop them and they could have unexpected side effects (or possibly not even work). Just look at the way biofuels may be causing food shortages that could easily end up triggering famine, global inflation and even new wars! That's definitely not a solution to our current problems.
From that review
If your're standing in the middle of the road and a car is comng towards you, do you wait until you have calculated it's momentum to several decimal places from multiple inertial frames or do you act as soon as your best estimate is that it is going to hit you?Lawson agrees that there has been some global warming over the past hundred years and that increased man-made emissions of carbon dioxide are partly to blame. But he argues that natural causes are more important than commonly agreed and that the science of climate remains in its infancy.
Climate science though in it's infancy has made it's best guess. It has acknowledged a margin of error but the time to act is now as it is more than likely correct on these core facts.
Increased atmospheric CO2 increases the warming of the planet.
We're releasing gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere that has been locked away under the earth since the carboniferous - many milloins of years before mankind (or mammals) evolved and adapted to these more temperate climes.
Atmospheric CO2 is increasing.
The globe is starting to warm.
Still, it's informed and credible skeptics that are useful. If anything, a poor skeptic is worse than nothing, since once they are dismissed, a mob might think all skeptics on the particular issue are as wrong.
Briefly donning a devil's advocate's horns, from a deeply cynical point of view, maybe it is a partial solution: less humans = less warming.
I'm with Matt on this one - things need to change regardless of whether everything that is being reported or said is 100% accurate or not.
Incidentally, I heard this on the radio this afternoon.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...arbonemissions
Another observation - my gut feel is that there are many parallels between anti-climate change campaigners and other conspiracy movements. Some of it may be people being contrarian for the sake of it, encouraged by rags like the Daily Mail.Sir Nicholas Stern has warned that the gloomy predictions of his high-profile review of the future effects of global warming underestimated the risks, and that climate change poses a bigger threat than he realised.
.....
Personally I'd have said that they're into full blown denialism at this point.
When it comes down to it, many of them are the same people. The problem with believing that a secret group of incredibly powerful people run everything is that it is extremely easy to connect absolutely everything to the conspiracy, which means that most conspiracists end up believing in almost all of the conspiracies they hear about. However, I think global warming denialism is more widespread than most other conspiracies.
The main problem that global warming has compared to other conspiracies is that it requires people to actually do something. Since most people don't want to accept responsibility for anything and don't want to change, the denialist view tends to be quite popular. If the world really is run by giant lizards, it doesn't actually make any difference and there's nothing we can do about it anyway, so very few people feel the need to worry about it. If global warming really is happening, regardless of whether it's our fault, we actually need to act, and so people refuse to believe because that would mean doing something. If it actually is partly our fault, that's even worse because not only would we need to do something, but we'd have to accept the blame as well.
When I saw this, my first thought was " What exactly are Lawson's credentials for writing a book about climate change". What next - a book on cosmology by a retired Home Secretary, or "How to Save the Whale" by Jack Straw?
Both books have just arrived .
The Lawson book in quite slim - 106 pages, + 23 pages of notes and a comprehensive bibliography. For what it's worth, this comes from the back cover -
"This brief and elegant book treats the science of global warming seriously, but convincingly shows that whatever view one has of the science, almost all proposed approaches to the putative problem are intellectually deficient, economically absurd and harmful, and morally misdirected at best. Lawson's "An Appeal to Reason" is an appeal that must be heeded if one is to truly avoid great harm to man and the planet"
(Richard S Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Physics, MIT.)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...ichard_Lindzen
So a climatologist endorses the book, not because of its science, but on the basis of his opinions on economics, morality and the intelligence of anyone who disagrees with him.
That wouldn’t be an appeal to authority at all, would it.
Hi All,
My theory of 'Global Warming' is that the politicians have realised that
the demand for oil and other fossil fuels is likely to become much greater
as the second and third world industrialises.
(We can see this already with China & India).
As a result the price goes up (as is happening) causing economic
and political crises.
To alleviate this they needed a way to get us to use less.
Saving the planet gives us a warm smug feeling as we shiver with the thermostat on minimum whilst being heavily taxed.
The truth of climate change wont be known for many years.
In the meantime we'll get fed a steady stream of dire predictions from dodgy computer models and any slightly unusual local weather will be attributed to it.
Nice theory, it fits some but not all of the known facts. I have a similar theory. Invisible pixies are putting holes in my socks. Like your theory it fits some but not all of the known facts.
It doesn't take a computer model to determine absolutely that CO2 is a greehouse gas, nor that without the very real greenhouse effect (from CO2, water vapour and other gasses) the average global temperature would be cooler by about 30 degrees celcius. You can do it with pen and paper using empirical data from experiments reproducible in any high school lab.
It doesn't take a computer model to determine what would happen to sea levels if large chunks of ice caps melted. Again you can do it with pen and paper using empirical data from experiments reproducible in any high school lab.
It doesn't take a computer model to determine which huge population centres would be affected by such sea level rises. This time all it takes is an atlas.
You can check these things for yourself or simply rely on the knowldge that if there is a conspiracy telling you lies it includes millions of proffessional and amateur scientists, science teachers and science students who have confirmed these details.
If you don't want to or can't check these facts for yourself then simply ask any scientist whether science is ruled by an oligarchy enforcing conformity to the party line or whether it is a brutal free for all where any fact presented will be assulted by a hundred eager individuals hungry to make their name by disproving it, finding exceptions or refining it.
The computer models you mention are of course imperfect. They predict how elevated CO2 levels will affect a system influenced by chaos theory. They not only give predictions but they provide error bars. They acknowledge the assumptions made. The models undergo continuous improvement. The assumptions are tested against reality.
The quesiton you must ask yourself is how dodgy you think they are. HOw much improvement you think is required before action is warrented.
They've given their best guess. That's all that's available. They say there's a 90% chance that at least 50% of the currently observed warming trend is down to our emissions. They say that even if we stabilise CO2 levels at their current value the earth will continue to warm for some time and some temperature to come. The uncertainty here is admittedly large but even the best case scenarios presented by reliable climate scientist predict disaster unless action is taken.
I hope those models are right. Because the bad news stays the same whatever is causing the warming. Millions will die. If the warming is being cause by our emissions then there's something we can do about it. If not then all we can do is hope that an unknown cause decides to cease for no discernable reason.
Last edited by Matt; 3rd May 2008 at 12:31 PM.
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