The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria,...

The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political ... | Lawrence Solomon | Proves that the science is not settled

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The Deniers: The W...

	The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political ... Lawrence Solomon Richard Vigilante Books, 2008 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 50 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Climate Realism Indeed

Lawrence Solomon is a columnist with the National Post of Toronto, author of other books, environmentalist and activist. In the latter role Solomon strives to save the world's rain forests and prevent nuclear power expansion. He works for an environmental group called Energy Probe. Despite these credentials, he has written an unusually accurate work about climate change.

The term "deniers" was coined by Al Gore et al. to discredit dissenters from his view on climate catastrophe, trying to place them in the same category as Holocaust deniers. Other forms of slander and intimidation are exposed by Solomon. The book was inspired by a bet by a climate "warmer" or alarmist that he could name three areas of climate science that were settled. Solomon showed that a credible dissenting scientist could be found to refute each one.

So one area of climate after another was discussed along with the findings of one or more experts in that area. The CVs of the experts showed that they were usually more qualified than than the alarmists making the doomsday claims. These CVs were in boxes, of which there were 29, nearly all on professors who were also authors of peer-reviewed papers or books as well as winners of scientific prizes. Several are or were members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) whose reports are normally revered as gospel by climate alarmists, but exposed as misleading or worse by some of these very reviewers, and also by entire books, such as Shattered Consensus, Prof. Patrick J. Michaels, Ed., 2005.

Examples are given of punishment of deniers, no matter how good their science was, just for disagreeing and thus threatening the alarmists. Loss of research funding, dismissal from expert panels, loss of office or status in scientific bodies as well as character assassination are all revealed.

Based on expert opinion, Solomon shows evidence that: (1) The 1990s were not the warmest decade in 1000 years, the period from 1100-1440 being warmer; and the evidence that the 1930s were warmer than the 1990s was given for the Arctic region, utterly uncorrelated with industrial CO2 emissions. (2) Storms are not more frequent or more violent in the last 20 years, but were probably most so in the 1940s in the last 110 years. (3) The Antarctic peninsula (2% of the area of the continent) has lost ice, but the rest of Antarctica is cooler since 1957 and has gained ice. (4) Global warming of about 0.5°C in the 20th century followed equal warming in each of the previous three centuries, an utter disconnect with the claimed CO2 levels in the air, which are not correlated with warming -- the central dogma of climate alarmism. (5) Unusual even for climate realists, Solomon noted that CO2 levels were higher than now in pre-industrial times (p91), and mentioned Ernst-Georg Beck's 2007 review of 90,000 direct chemical assays, but without the solid findings that those levels were over 420 ppm in 1823 and 1942, and the same as now in 1858. (6) Solomon showed that the ice core data for CO2 levels used by warmers was hopelessly unreliable. (7) Climate modeling was shown to be badly flawed mostly because it does not model cloud behavior. (8) Several solar effects were shown to account for the warmings and coolings of the last 400 years. These include changes in the output of the sun, changes in the distance of the earth from the sun, and changes in the sun's ability to deflect cosmic rays from the earth. More cosmic rays, more clouds, and lower temperatures, as in the Little Ice Age of 1600-1800. There were other angles as well.

On the other hand, Al Gore is taken to task for misinformation on temperatures, CO2 levels, storm frequency and severity, warming as a spreader of infectious disease, and misinterpreting the positions of his Harvard Professor, Roger Revelle, are all there. An article in Cosmos in 1991 by Revelle and Prof. S. Fred Singer (Meteorologist, University of Virginia): "What To Do About Greenhouse Warming: Look Before You Leap" was seen by Gore as a threat to his intransigent climate positions. Gore tried to show that Revelle had become senile. Through another Harvard scientist, Justin Lancaster, Gore tried to have Revelle's name removed from a proposed reprinting of the article, and accused Singer of using Revelle's name over Revelle's objections.Singer sued Lancaster, and with overwhelming evidence, won. "Quite recently, Lancaster retracted his retraction, claiming he had only issued the retraction in the first place because of the financial strain of the lawsuit." (p197) Of course, this sort of fracas discredits many climate alarmist politicians and scientists. More important to me, it is smearing all of science, and shows why so many deniers are professors emeritus like me with not much to lose.

On the downside, while Solomon mentions water vapor as a greenhouse gas, but not that it is by far the most important one. Also, he does not seem to understand that the nuclear reactor that failed at Chernobyl, Ukraine, was an inherently unstable type never built outside of the former USSR or its satellites. He mentioned a reactor failure in Ontario, PA, which I could not locate. The only one I know of in PA was on Three Mile Island, which did not kill or injure anyone (p212). He calls hydroelectric dams and nuclear plants "grandiose govermnent-backed relics of yesteryear". On the other hand, Solomon sees environmental havoc from the new designation of "carbon" as a currency (p210).

On the whole, The Deniers is highly recommended for its unique approach, solid climate science and some astute environmental understandings. Very easy to read with mostly clear graphs. Has good citations and index.

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Proves that the science is not settled

The most powerful weapon that Al Gore has, in support of his theory that human use of fossil fuels is causing catastrophic global warming, is his assertion that "the science is settled." According to Al, no serious scientists disagree with him; everyone who disagrees is a nutcase, or a whore bought and paid for by the oil industry.

This book demolishes that argument. Solomon is a Canadian environmentalist and journalist. In this book, he does not take a position for or against the Al Gore theory. Instead, he gives us facts, about the actual state of scientific opinion. He presents a large number of profiles of prominent scientists who disagree with a significant part of the Al Gore/IPCC theory. In each case, the scientists disagree with Gore, regarding a question within their own expertise. Thus, Gore's claim that no credible scientists disagree with him is not true.

It is more than a lie. It is a threat. When a major politician, such as Gore, with the support he has on the issue says "no one disagrees" what he means is, if you dare to disagree you risk having your funding cut off and your career ended. As this book shows in spades, the science community is divided on the many issues presented by this complex question. There is, however, EXTREMELY heavy political interference in the science. Funding is cut off, tenure is denied and slander campaigns launched against any who dare disagree.

The purpose of this intimidation campaign, of course, is to isolate those who disagree, make them afraid and make them keep their head down. The net result is that, although hundreds, if not thousands, of prominent scientists disagree with Al, Al is able to get away with this brazen lie that "the science is settled" and only kooks disagree.

Solomon is careful not to take a position on the underlying issue. Two things come out loud and clear, however. First, a great deal of the hysteria around this issue is utterly unfounded. There is absolutely no reason to believe, for example, that global warming causes hurricanes. That whole claim is, and always has been, unscientific nonsense. Second, the IPCC -- the UN panel of global warming -- does not follow anything resembling ordinary scientific methods. It does not publish its underlying data. It does not describe its methodology. Thus, none can check its results. It also has a long history of making wild and unfounded claims, which it has later had to quietly retreat from after the "nutcases" pounded it so hard with the facts that it was forced to retreat.

It is possible that some global warming is happening, and it is possible that CO2 emissions have some connection to it. On this issue, however, Al Gore and the IPCC are utterly unreliable; they have permitted science to be so polluted with politics, that their science has no objectivity and should have no credibility.

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Bad title but excellent book

The Deniers is an excellent and invaluable book, showing readers the other side of the global warming debate. Without editorializing, author Lawrence Solomon, a journalist and environmentalist, presents the views of many prestigious scientists who do not believe global warming is the dire threat to civilization we have been pressured to believe. I don't like the title much; many of the dissenting scientists are not actually deniers that C02 influences climate- many of them simply believe that other factors are equally or more important. But this is a quibble- please read the book. It is a much-needed counterpoint to the daily propaganda given to us by the mass media. It's not the final word, but it's an important point of view.

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Calm, Thoughtful, and Informative

THE DENIERS is a calm, thoughtful, and highly informative consideration of many of the flaws in the man-made Global Warming "scientific consensus" and "settled science" that Al Gore and David Suzuki and the Environmental Movement keep hammering us with. It is presented in the work of leading scientists who have challenged the near-religious dogma and zealous claims of the True Believers. The counter-evidence is revealing, overwhelming. The book even explains in quiet, cogent terms why the Kyoto Accords and their successor requirements would be damaging to the world, particularly the Third World.
I consider this book a must-read for anyone who wants to think for him/herself.

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A wake-up call of a different sort

I should preface my review by saying that at one time in my life, I wholeheartedly believed in the science of global warming -- as caused by man-made influences -- hook, line and sinker, dating back to my senior year in high school. However, Lawrence Solomon's book has opened my eyes to the fact that so much more science needs to be done on the subject, and that Gestapo-style tactics to undermine global warming "deniers" only prohibit the attainment of real facts. One thing is for sure, I now view Al Gore's movie and book, "An Inconvenient Truth," to be an utterly unscientific joke that has shammed millions of people and inexplicably earned the former vice president countless accolades that he does not deserve.

That said, I expected Solomon's book to be a relentlessly harsh diatribe on the pro-environment movement in the vain of conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and the like, one that condescendingly embarrassed scientists and citizens who felt human doings here on Earth were steadily making the planet hotter. That wasn't the case at all, though. Although written for laymen like me, Solomon's book relies heavily on actual science about global warming by highly respected -- though sadly spurned -- scientists. So if you aren't up for reading about the seriously studied, potential causes of global warming as it relates to non-human entities, then don't even touch this book. Obviously the mainstream press and Al Gore opted for a shortcut to science by taking this route. But if you really want to get to the heart of the issue, I highly recommend "The Deniers." Here is just a sampling of why global warming is far from "settled science":

- The models used by the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to predict future weather are crude at best, and fail miserably to factor in such crucial elements as cloud cover, the ocean and the sun's solar energy.

- The Earth goes through natural and major climate changes all on its own, irregardless of how humans behave. It's believed by many scientists that, though temperatures have risen slightly into the start of the 21st century, a cooling period will begin as early as 2010.

- The idea that warmer weather causes more hurricanes -- and more violent hurricanes -- is completely unproven. The temperatures of the ocean fluctuates, as does its propensity to either absorb or release major amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

- Carbon dioxide does not linger in the upper regions of the atmosphere for as long as 50-200 years, as the global warming hype machine would lead the public to believe. Numerous studies indicate the number is closer to two to six years.

- Mosquito-born diseases are not caused or increased by an Earth that is steadily warming -- they're caused by poor economic conditions, chaotic governments and lack of resources to fight them.

The tact and style of this book are extremely evenhanded throughout. A working environmentalist himself, Solomon admits at the end of the book that he is not TOTALLY convinced by the global warming deniers, mainly because the deniers have disagreements among themselves. But that is the gist of Solomon's point: The science of studying the atmosphere is a severely messy, complicated business, not a two-hour movie that has all the answers.

Through Solomon's book, I've come to understand that the money used to fund global warming research, though extremely important, might be better directed toward ending world hunger, deforestation, disease and famine. Tackling those huge issues, in fact, as well as ending large subsidies for energy companies, would go a long way toward helping the environment and the economy.

Along those lines, I was also amazed to learn how the Kyoto Treaty has done more harm than good. It may be chic, for instance, for celebrities like Pearl Jam to purchase huge tracts of land and plant trees as a "carbon offset" for the jets the band flies in, but all that does is displace millions of people and perpetuate the "carbon into currency" practice that so many Brazilians are against, including its citizens, churches, NGOs, trade unions and the World Rainforest Movement itself.

In sum, if you're already recycling, reusing, conserving and doing your best not to pollute, good for you and keep it up. But in my newfound opinion, based on the science I read about in Solomon's book, the actions of humans play an infinitesimal part in the weather you view outside your window, and the science on global warming is hardly definitive as of right now. When thinking about the global warming issue, remember that lone and dissenting voices amid media hype are often looked back upon in later years as the most reasonable.

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