Nobody should listen. He wrote fiction. I've got more. Don't try George Will, either. A serial climate liar committing treason.
13 December 2004
Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion
Filed under: Arctic and Antarctic Reviews Extras Instrumental Record Greenhouse gases Climate modelling Climate Science— gavin @ 10:09 PM - ()
In a departure from normal practice on this site, this post is a commentary on a piece of out-and-out fiction (unlike most of the other posts which deal with a more subtle kind). Michael Crichton’s new novel “State of Fear” is about a self-important NGO hyping the science of the global warming to further the ends of evil eco-terrorists. The inevitable conclusion of the book is that global warming is a non-problem. A lesson for our times maybe? Unfortunately, I think not.
realclimate.org
Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion II: Return of the Science
Filed under: Instrumental Record Climate modelling Greenhouse gases Climate Science— mike @ 1:54 PM
Our first post on Crichton’s new novel “State of Fear” hits most of the key points, though there are a few more errors in the book that we hope to expand upon in future posts.
But for those of you uninterested in buying and reading the book, you can actually find a similar-minded opinion piece by Crichton criticizing climate science (and everything from SETI and the “Drake Equation” to Carl Sagan in the process) here in the public domain.
realclimate.org
Inhofe and Crichton: Together at Last!
Filed under: Climate modelling Climate Science— group @ 10:33 PM
Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann
Today we witnessed a rather curious event in the US Senate. Possibly for the first time ever, a chair of a Senate committee, one Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), invited a science fiction writer to advise the committee (Environment and Public Works), on science facts–in this case, the facts behind climate change. The author in question? None other than our old friend, Michael Crichton whom we’ve had reason to mention before (see here and here). The committee’s ranking member, Senator James Jeffords (I) of Vermont, was clearly not impressed. Joining Crichton on climate change issues was William Gray of hurricane forecasting fame, Richard Benedick (a negotiator on the Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting chemicals), and David Sandalow (Brookings Institution). As might be expected, we paid a fair bit of attention to the scientific (and not-so-scientific) points made.
Many of the ‘usual suspects’ of half-truths and red herrings were put forth variously by Crichton, Gray, and Inhofe over the course of the hearing:
the claim that scientists were proclaiming an imminent ice age in the 1970s (no, they weren’t),
the claim that the 1940s to 1970s cooling in the northern hemisphere disproves global warming (no, it doesn’t),
the claim that important pieces of the science have not been independently reproduced (yes, they have),
the claim that global climate models can’t reproduce past climate change (yes, they can)
the claim that climate can’t be predicted because weather is chaotic (wrong…)
realclimate.org |
