Customer Review: A Call for Green Patriotism

In Safe Trip to Eden, the author introduces an interesting concept called Green Patriotism, which is the call to Americans to protect our environment because it will ultimately strengthen our national security. He takes the readers on a trip across America and beyond (to the rainforest in Costa Rica, the San Juan Islands, the Adirondacks, etc.) and each place we learn something new about our current environmental state of affairs - the problems, what is being done by environmentalists to correct them, and how we can make choices in our own lives to support the solutions.

The author emphasizes our power as consumers in a capitalistic culture -that each of our purchase decisions is like casting a vote. He also makes the point that environmentalism is not a partisan issue. While it has been associated with liberals, he gives a history of Republicans and environmentalism in chapter 9.

The book is extremely comprehensive in that it discusses the presence of petrochemical toxins in food and home products, the evolving green car industry, a facinating Pentagon risk assessment report on global warming, natural medicine, the treatment of livestock, negative effects of underpricing in the marketplace, how to maintain a sustainable forest, and much more.

Overall, it’s a facinating, empowing and very educating read. I highly recommend it!

Stating that: “Fact: Antarctica has been cooling - and its glaciers thickening - for the past 30 years” is so totally ridiculous that I won’t even waste my time to go into details of this sudo-scientific work of fiction.

Customer Review: Came very quickly and was packaged well. Service excellent

The book came very quickly and was packaged well. Service excellent.

I wish to commend this wonderful book written by my colleague, David Archer. The class upon which this book is based is a runaway success, and each year it seems they need to find a bigger lecture hall. When you have read the books like “The Weather Makers,” and “Field Notes from a Catastrophe,” and are ready for something more quantitative but still fairly gentle on the math, this is the one for you. I think it’s the best source around for people who want to get a true scientific understanding of the physics and chemistry of climate change.

Customer Review: Great Book For Anyone!

I honestly believe that after reading this book, anyone will be able to confidently discuss global warming topics from an objective viewpoint.

Dr. Archer wrote this book after teaching a course with the same title for several years. His writing style is as great as his lecture style - non-intimidating, humorous, well-explained examples and analogies, and he teaches the science behind the famous words “global warming”. There is no arm-waving or magical answer. The descriptive text encourages the reader to find answers themselves via simple calculations. In addition, several fun and relevant web-based models are included. For example, in one model, you can calculate how the earth’s temperature may change if you increase the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere. In another, you can play with the supply of fossil fuels and predict how long it will be before we run out.

I’ve been a teaching assistant to Dr. Archer for two years, and his lectures, which this book is partially based on, have helped students with no previous background understand the science behind global warming, and enjoy themselves while doing it. But as a graduate student, I still find myself consulting his book for general facts about the carbon cycle or atmosphere. It truly is a book that can be enjoyed at any level of background, especially today, when global warming is such a hot (no pun intended) topic. I’ve read the book each year, and look forward to reading it again. Definitely a great buy!

Well, first of all, with China and India the two biggest nations, and the two fastest developing nations, who are both exempt from any Kyoto protocols, building coal power generation plants and buying oil as fast as they can, one thing is completely certain:

All of us in the developed nations can reduce our CO2 emmissions to ZERO without having the slightest effect on the current rate of increase in Greenhouse gasses.

But why do we take it on faith that we would even want too?

The paleoclimatological evidence points out two very significant periods in history since the end of the last Ice Age where the earth was very warm. In each case it was a wetter world. When the first of those periods ended, the Saharan lakes dried up, the flourishing civilization there was scattered, and the Sahara desert was born. In the most recent cooling, the most advanced civilization in North America, the Anasazi, was also destroyed. That cooling period, which we know as the Little Ice Age, may have also wiped out the Mayans, but certainly destroyed the Viking colonies in Greenland when they could no longer grow crops there, and caused the many scattered lakes that dotted the Arabian Penninsula to dry up.

There a few scattered exceptions, but the overall evidence is that these were global effects that made for wetter conditions and were of vast benefit to man.

So is there any evidence that the current warming trends might be making the same alterations to the rainfall in drought stricken areas? Indeed yes. Type in Sahel and rainfall in any search engine to see what is beginning to happen (the Sahel is sub Saharan Africa, where the photos of emaciated babies come from). It’s starting to RAIN!

So before you try to save the beaches at Malibu and Martha’s Vinyard, think of the poor people in Darfur, and how great it would be if this respite from decades of horrible drought wasn’t “fixed” before it really got going.

Customer Review: A Great Inspiration as to What EACH of Us Can Do!

I picked up this book at the library’s NEW section…What a find! Ever since I saw Gore’s movie, I’ve been very troubled about Global Warming…it trumps all other problems on the planet if it destroys the planet! (duh!). The other day I answered a telephone poll as to “what do you feel is the biggest problem facing the world today?” When I answered “Global Warming!” The pollster sounded surprised, like she’d never heard that as an answer before and said, “What?” Global Warming, I repeated. “I’m sorry, did you say, you think _’Global Warming’_ is the biggest problem facing the World today?” “Yes!” I said. Geez, is that so far fetched?
So obviously, despite Gore’s fascinating and convincing movie…it still needs more publicity, which, thankfully Laurie David continues to provide in this gem of a book.
My daughter asked the other day, “Mom, what can we do to stop global warming?” Well, now I can quickly offer some tangible things beyond the usual…recycle, drive less, walk more, turn off the lights…because Laurie offers so much more insight as well as many more ideas. She concedes that if we do one thing thinking we’re helping, like request paper(uh oh, it cuts down virgin trees)or plastics (Akk! they’re made with petroleum oil), she points out alternative consequences can be just as bad on the environment– so most of all we need to demand recycling be made easy for EVERYONE.
We need to demand leadership from politicians to look for real, long term solutions! Since she wrote the book, thank God we have a new (dem.) chair of the Senate’s Environment & Public Works Committe who recognizes the reality of Global Warming. The last, Sen. Jim Inofe(R-OK) refused to accept the science, he instead “led” the Committee into waiting for more evidence! Which sounds a lot like President Bush, who is too closed minded to even watch Gore’s movie.
As Laurie notes: Republicans/Democrats/Independents, we ALL need to take action or we will destroy much of the earth in as little as (she predicts to help us get off our butts) 5 more years (judging by the faster- than-expected-rate the polar ice caps are melting).
Laurie, if you’re reading this review (and all other interested in finding solutions to the CO2 emmission asap) PLEASE check out a book on the Combustion Engine by Edwin Black. Laurie, I had the same SUV revelation you described when I heard him speak about his new book on CSPAN radio the other evening. But you, Laurie have the power/credibility/connections to do for him what you did for Al Gore’s slide show. It could be another, even higher, high point of your career…and just might save the Earth.
I mean who has heard of Edwin Black? Obviously he does not have the name recognition or get the publicity Gore does, though he’s been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize 10 times.
Anyway, Black tells FASCINATING, little known tales –going all the way back to ancient civilization–as to how we came to our oil dependency for transportation in the first place which gives so much power to middle eastern states (you may have read in Fast Food Nation how corporate greed destroyed California’s clean, cheap trolley system? But did you know that the _original_ clean electric “horseless carriage” invention was discarded in favor of noisy, dirty gasoline burning engines because the dirty, faster going engines were considered more “manly” and it took brute strength to crank them… while the sissy “ladies” electric cars started with just the touch of a button?
And that Thomas Edison was collaborating with Ford on a clean transportation solution and was on the verge of introducing it to clean up all the soot cars were leaving everywhere, when rivals, who favored the dirty engines for economic reasons, burned down (despite fireproof walls!) workshop!
But most important, Black has a very plausible Green Fleet idea: if corporate fleets (Fed Ex, UPS, Postal Services) DEMAND electric cars–he warns that hybrids only postpone the problem–that are NOT oil dependent–the motor companies will build them so fast our heads will spin!
Please check it out, Laurie. It is such an inspiration to me that you’ve done so much to educate me and millions like me who didn’t have a clue.
Thanks for this book and for putting Global Warming on the front page! Please keep going! (P.S. I loved your dedication. I guess we all need to thank Larry David for telling you it would be “Easier to change the world than me!”

I have to take immediate issue with the [anonymous] reviews below that claim that this book doesn’t address the difference between natural climate cycling and anthropogenic climate change: that difference, in a nutshell, is PRECISELY what this book deals with. Those reviewers never read it, or failed completely to follow its line of reasoning. This is NOT a partisan, political, ideological book. It is simply a guided tour of the science of climate change, revised in 2004. It carefully parses the current research. Read the table of contents [you can click on it at the top of the page] and see that the book is organized around the following inevitable questions: Is climate changing? How much is it changing? How much of that change is caused by people? What are the likely effects, short- and long-term, of these changes? What can we do about it? In the case of climate change, despite all of the political complications that have accrued to what was originally science, these questions are PRECISELY the ones a thinking person needs to ask. To have a book structured around them, referring, as it does, to the best [scientific, independently-refereed] research is a gift. It seems that almost everybody today picks their position on climate change as part of an ideological package-deal: most American conservatives almost automatically disdain the science because the Bush White House and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter disdain it. Most American progressives almost automatically embrace the NOTION of climate change without actually knowing the science, because Al Gore, et al, have told them to. Both positions, taken in ignorance of the science, are ideolgical and symptomatic of the worst party-line politics. I urge you to read the science. It will take some effort, but that effort is our civic duty. This book has no agenda other than compiling the research and putting it before the reading public in an accessible format.

Customer Review: Excellent Science made intelliglble

I am not a climatologist - I studied physics and math - but it is clear that this man is an expert in his field. The book was very favorably reviewed by other climatologists and is convincing if you have the patience to follow the science. it is not “for Dummies” but looks very solid. Highly recommended if you don’t mind charts and scientific explanations. If you can read Scientific Amercian you will find this an easy read.

The conclusions are very objectively understated which only makes them more scary:

1 billion people displaced by floods and rising seas from some of earth’s most fertile areas; increasingly violent, larger and more frequent storms; a new ice age for northern Europe; the American midwest and California’s Central Valley becoming desert; major edible fish supplies running out; massive flooding of areas that have never been flooded before; major river arteries like the Mississippi and Missouri no longer being navigable.

For an example of what man can do to affect climate, take a look at Tuscon, AZ. Before whites started intensive grazing after 1860 it was grassy, with humid Summers and temperatures in the 80s. After grazing denuded the grass, it became the desert it is now with Summer temperatures over 100 by morning and periodic flash flooding. Nothing grows there now except cactus.

The species that humans are currently endangering with their “head in the sand” approach is […] sapiens, but after that species is gone things will return to normal. Stupidity is not a survival trait.

It’s undeniable. The earth is warming. For the first time since the dawn of civilization, the earth’s temperature is rising. Scientists and governments around the world, including the United States, not only agree that global warming is happening, they assert that we must do something about it fast. Yet while Gallup polls indicate that 70 percent of Americans are concerned about global warming, most people are unaware of what they can do to help fix the problem.51 Easy Ways You Can Prevent Global Warming (and Save Money!) converts this public concern into positive action, providing simple, everyday things you can do to minimize global warming-and save yourself money at the same time! Global warming may seem like an overwhelming and insurmountable problem. But there are easy things you can do around your home, in your backyard, and with your automobile that will help the planet and your pocketbook. While the book contains 51 topics, there are actually hundreds of tips and suggestions within the book that will help you address this global problem.Whether you are one of the nearly three-quarters of Americans who consider themselves environmentalists, or you’re interested in practical ways you can save money each year, the straightforward tips packed within 51 Easy Ways You Can Prevent Global Warming (and Save Money!) will make this one of the most important and useful books on your bookshelf.

Customer Review: Great book for saving money and helping environment

This is a great book for anyone that has an interest in the environment. The practical tips also help individuals save money while making a positive impact.

Customer Review: Save Money, Make an Impact, Share it With Others

This is an amazing book. I didn’t think I had a lot to learn about saving energy. The Authors do a great job describing just about all one needs to know in order to save money…and the planet and its resources while preventing climate change.

It was a very well-researched book. On some of the calculations, they state assumptions. Some are left on faith. This is OK. There were a few subtle details that may have been a bit overstated, however their estimates on how much can be saved are not exaggerations. If anything, they are conservative, especially given the cost of gas, heating and electricity…If only water were more expensive…alas!

This book inspired a Weatherstripping party at my apartment complex and has helped me have even more footholds into discussions about conservation and how much difference it can make.

Thanks to the Authors. Wonderful!!!

This “30 Day Program to Lose 5000 lbs” is a fun, accessible, easy to use guide that will show you, step-by-step, how to dramatically reduce your CO2 output in just a month’s time.

Grounded in over two decades of environmental behavior change research, this illustrated workbook offers much more than a list of eco-friendly actions. It walks you through every step of the process, from calculating your current C02 “footprint” to tracking your progress.

By making simple changes to actions you take every day, you’ll learn how to reduce your annual household CO2 output by at least 15%. And, for those who are more ambitious, you’ll discover how you can become “carbon neutral” and help your workplace, local schools, and community do the same.

Go on a Low Carbon Diet today, and join the growing number of Americans who have decided to take global warming into their own hands.

Customer Review: Fun, Inspiring and Practical

The carbon diet program provided our household a way to learn what
our carbon footprint was (shockingly massive) and a way to reduce our
impact on the earth in a fun, inspiring and practical manner.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to do more than just read
about global warming. The Low Carbon Diet is the book you need
to learn how to make a real difference.

Customer Review: Buy Ten Copies–Create a Good Neighborhood

This book is about more than reducing the carbon foot-print of your home, it is tailor made for creating a good neighborhood by giving busy neighbors distanced by suburban sprawl or urban anonymnity a really fun and rewarding focal point for coming together.

There are twenty-two specific things that one can do in their home or in relation to their local school or community (most have to do with the home).

I see a real opportunity for a third party developer at Amazon to create a niche business–what I really need as a busy professional is a single Amazon URL where I can go and select all of the low-cost products needed to implement this book’s recommendations (e.g. the water-saver showerhead with the instant off-on lever), have them charged to my Amazon account, and delivered to my front door.

I’d also like to see a way for people to register their homes the way we register Wildlife Habitats–completing this check-list should allow registry of the home and count toward the appraisal value.

I recommend the book be bought in lots of 10, used to bring together the other 9 houses nearest you, and then passed on down the neighborhood.

The resource section at the end is helpful, and I was especially struck by the disaster resilience recommendations. I know a lot of otherwise mainstream folks that are starting to sign up for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Red Cross courses on disaster relief, earning the green hard-hat and body covering. Something is happening at the grass roots level–a combination of innate fear that the federal and state governments will fail us as they did with Katrina, and a more constructive sense of responsibility, with more people realizing that resilience starts at the local level with specific individuals planning and preparing so as to prevent local disasters from becoming catastrophes.

For related reading on the psychology of what prevents people from preparing and reacting, see my review of “Catastrophe & Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster.” Disasters do NOT have to become catastrophes, we make them so through denial before, during, and after.

Global warming is the story of the twenty-first century. It is the most serious issue facing the future of humankind, and American energy and environmental policy is driving the whole world down the path of global catastrophe. Hell and High Water is nothing less than a wake-up call to the country. It is a searing critique of American environmental and energy policy and a passionate call to action by a writer with a unique command of the science and politics of climate change.

We have ten years, at most, to start making sharp cuts to our greenhouse gas emissions or we will face catastrophic consequences. The good news is that there is something we can do—but only if the leadership of the U.S. government acts immediately and asserts its influence on the rest of the world—in particular such emerging powers as China and India—to join an international effort to stop global warming.

Joseph Romm, an expert in the science, business, and politics of climate change, lays out a plan of action that involves:

• reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by midcentury
• adopting a California-style energy-efficiency effort nationwide
• embracing high-mileage, advanced “hybrid” cars that can run on both electricity and biofuels

Unfortunately, the required government policies and spending are strongly opposed by conservatives, who have blocked serious action on climate change and continue to publicly deny the dire warnings of scientists. Never before has there been such a sharp divergence between what top scientists know and what policymakers, the general public, and the media believe. And, sadly, never has so much been at stake.

Romm, who ran the largest program in the world that was concentrated on climate solutions, offers an authoritative dissection of this disastrous policy. Hell and High Water goes beyond ideological rhetoric to offer pragmatic solutions to avert the threat of global warming—solutions that must be taken seriously by every American.

Customer Review: Physist Backing Al Gore’s Assertions.

Al Gore has now been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. For years now, he’s been warning us about global warming. In this volume, Joseph Romm has come on board with his expertise to support Gore in letting people know what to do to prepare for an upcoming catastrophe. He was prompted to tell us exactly why we need to change our ways because of Katrina’s wrath which caused his brother in Mississippi to lose his house to the waters. He claims that by the time the federal governments closes down their pollution from the hydro plants, it will be too late.

We all are aware of how slowly those agencies get anything done. That’s the way it goes with any government agencies which claim to help people. The deadly heat waves accompaning the global warming will be the end to some elderly folks who can’t tolerate extreme heat or cold. It won’t be just the hear; coastal cities could and some will be inudated and underwater. Coastal areas from Houston to Miami are the most vunerable and will be the first to submerge. Zach will leave Fort Lauderdale before that happens and return to his native region where less damage will occur. If he re-locates to the East Tennessee area, they can always drive up into the mountains where the temperatures are considerably cooler. The trees help. But beware the snakes and black bears — they can be deadly.

Written by a PhD in oceanography, some of his rhetoric is complex, perhaps complicated for the lay reader. But his warning is loud and clear. It is time to take action and realize that Al Gore was serious (as always) with his award-winning documentary all along. He had the votes to be president of U.S.; today, he’s trying to save our country from devastation. Two educated men can’t be wrong. Heed their advice.

Customer Review: Summary of and Politics of Global Warming

The author outlines the overwhelming case that, with a 90% certainty, global warming is a fact and humans caused it. On our present course and over a period of multiple decades or a couple of centuries - nobody knows how long - the polar ice caps will melt and sea level will rise 20 to 80 feet. Great cities built on coastlines throughout the world will be under water. Much of the mid -United States will become desert as will many other areas throughout the world. Economies will collapse. Climatologists have actually been hedging - this scenario is rosier than what they really think.

In the face of convincing data, why would the same people that rely on scientific technology for air travel, cell phones, and other conveniences of everyday life, deny the validity of science when it comes to conclusions they don’t like? Joseph Romm answers this question on page 107. “Ideology trumps rationality. Most conservatives cannot abide the solution to global warming - strong governmental regulations and a government-led effort to accelerate clean-energy technologies into the market.” To libertarians and to some conservatives, the villain is not global warming, it is fear of government.

Unfortunately, history shows that corporations don’t clean up their act voluntarily - they only do so when forced. As a matter of fact, corporations in the US conform to a set of legislated rules that is overtly sociopathic. If they DON’T act strictly with self interest and profit in mind, they can be successfully sued by stock-holders (”The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power,” by Bakan). The job of their PR departments is to present them as responsible environmental citizens when they’re not.

So what techniques do naysayers use to combat this longtime concensus among scientists and growing concensus in the general public? They use the same techniques used in political campaigns - programs carefully thought out by think tanks that try to make both sides of an issue appear to be what they are not. More than 2/3 of this book is dedicated to the political fights over global warming.

At the risk of losing half my readers, these are the same techniques Intelligent Design advocates use against the theory of evolution, and for analogous reasons. You don’t see any groups clamoring for alternate views about atomic structure in high school physics classes - but introductory physics is not perceived as a threat to a cherished belief system. In both cases, a strongly held ideology prevents unbiased assessment of the data. In both cases (Evolution and Global Warming), the theory can be reduced to basics and easily understood. In both cases, the learning curve is steep for an in-depth understanding of the subject matter, leaving plenty of room for convincing spin to the casual observer (most of us).

In closing, may I paraphrase from memory an observation that Robert Wright (author of “The Moral Animal”) made: Humans have an exquisite array of moral equipment, a relentless tendency to misuse this equipment, and are tragically unaware of this misuse. The naysayers honestly believe they’re doing the right thing - at least some of them.

The scientific method may not be perfect, but it has proven over and over to be the closest we’re going to come to the truth, and it’s self-correcting. History shows that the findings of science are eventually accepted. I hope governments believe and act on the concept of global warming sooner rather than later. The earth doesn’t care. Ninety-nine percent of the species that have ever existed are now extinct and earth isn’t going anywhere for several billion years no matter what we do to it. Nor is life likely to be wiped out - just species that evolve too slowly to make appropriate adjustments to climate change, including most of the big mammals. I hope it’s not our turn.

Dramatic full-color photos, illustrations, and graphs combine with Gore’s effective and clear writing to explain global warming in very real terms: what it is, what causes it, and what will happen if we continue to ignore it. An Inconvenient Truth will change the way young people understand global warming and hopefully inspire them to help change the course of history.

Its nice to see some truth about the climate and that the lies about climate change are being exposed. Great work Dr. Michaels!

Customer Review: An Oasis in a Desert of Hyperbole

MELTDOWN by Dr. Patrick J. Michaels attempts to shed light on the “Global Warming” debate but as the subtitle states; “The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media”, the book takes a broader view of not only the scientific implications but societal and institutional issues that the discussion has raised. Michaels, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, doesn’t deny that some of the earth is warming and some of it is cooling, his position is that it is a natural cycle and that the impact of human activity is not significant enough to justify the “hysteria” produced by some scientists, politicians and media outlets.

The major portion of the book provides the basis for his position; it is well documented with graphs, charts and materials that traces the climate for at least the last 100 years substantiating that there have been periods that have been hotter, dryer, cooler or wetter previous to today when there were fewer “greenhouse gases”. Intermixed with the data are quotes by scientists or politicians as well as newspaper or magazine copy that builds a case for greenhouse gas induced “global warming” where none seems to exist.

He talks of a peer review process where scientific articles questioning GW are subjected to an institutional bias against these arguments resulting in many not being published. This bias has an impact on the university system because to receive tenure and move through the ranks, the younger instructors have to be published. Michaels believes the system doesn’t produce enough independent thought. MELTDOWN also goes into detail about the federal funding of climate research and the cycle of politics and science (plus their lobbyists) where one funds the other to produce data that will result in conclusions that bring more funding. Scientists have a tendency not to produce work that will result in a decrease or elimination of funding. The media does its part by sensationalizing climatological events attributing normal occurrences to “global warming”; they also ignore positions that are counter to current scientific thinking, this way the “heat” is kept on the politicians.

For the “Global Warming” skeptics the book provides substantial information to reinforce that position. To the “Global Warming True Believers” no amount of evidence to the contrary will change their point of view. If you approach the subject with an open mind it is an informative and interesting book.

any book that challenges to apriori assumptions of the enviromentalist religious dogma of man made global warming is needed. Al Gore and his celebrity loving, psuedo scientific friends need to be mocked for their hypocrisy and stupidity

Customer Review: Another Denialist “Classic”

This book gets some “greenie” points because it recycles…it recycles what are, by now, tired and well-worn denialist homilies. They are the denialist equivalent of “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here”, or “the insurgency is in its last throes”. That the compiler of this compendium of the careworn is an oil company shill doesn’t help matters, doesn’t improve his credibility exactly, but this would still be a completely transparent hack job, even if his motives were as seemingly as pure as the proverbial, driven (and melting snow)…In response to this kind of charge of bias, denialists always kvetch, “well, you can’t get funded for research if you don’t join the groupthink of global warming, so that’s the only place they can get funding. Wannnhhh”. Did it ever occur to them that maybe it’s simply that those who control grants know that that’s a worthless avenue that’s destined to be completely fruitless? Would they have there be NO standards for handing out grants?

Anyway, to take just one completely muddled, wrongheaded and misleading example of the “facts” this tome sets forth…The Mann Study and the famous “hockey stick” graph it generated, supposedly debunked by the two Canadians (one a petroleum geologist, the other an economist, just to establish their bona fides). For starters, keep in mind that that was just one study, one speck of evidence in a veritable mountain of evidence supporting global warming. The two Canucks objected to it on the grounds of alleged statistical assumptions that they claimed rendered the conclusions it reached to be in error. The supposed correction published by Nature, the infamous corregendum, corrected the descriptions of supplementary information that accompanied the Mann et al article detailing precisely what data were used. As clearly stated in the corrigendum, these corrections have no influence at all on the actual analysis or any of the results shown in Mann et al (1998). There have been, incidentally, numerous reconstruction studies conducted by various parties, all reaching the same conclusions, all with graphs demonstrating the same hockey stick configuration, though in some cases not as completely uniform and straight.

The study by the two Canadians was, by the way, rejected by Nature magazine and was never published by them. Though they tried to make the excuse that they had been rejected for publication due to limited space in the magazine, the simple, verifiable truth is that it was for editorial reasons.

As is typical of the denialist “literature”, which really does always seem to have an oil company connection, by the way, they know just enough to be dangerous. They tell just enough of the “facts” to raise doubts without following them through to their all too inevitable conclusion.

The distresses with Gore’s propaganda book for global warming are manifold. The first and worst sin Gore commits is he’s NOT FAIR AND BALANCED in his struggling argument that global warming is real, caused by man, and the single-biggest threat facing the world. If Gore was FAIR AND BALANCED in his presentation, he could persuade more readers to give him the benefit of the doubt. Gravely for him, his presumptuous, one-sided and absolutist/elitist argument for global warming–where he brainwashes the reader to believe that global warming is 100% fact through arrogant declaration but no foundations–actually sours the reader and makes Gore appear as a fanatical, ideological DEMAGOGUE with an agenda and shabby credibility.

The most flagrant trespass in Gore’s book is it’s constructed to indoctrinate grade school/high school kids in the Religion of Global Warming. This is indisputable if we look at the layout of Gore’s propaganda: it’s short on text, full of colorful graphs, size 30 fonts on some pages, and full of pictures. With this shortcoming of substance, it’s clear Gore’s slideshow-turned-book was NEVER designed to make an intelligent argument about global warming’s allegedly looming threat. It was designed to proselytize impressionable kids at the K-12 levels to believe in the Religion of Global Warming.

The predicament of failure of substance is found everywhere in Gore’s propaganda book. He never has many sources to credibly validate the legitimacy of graphs and projections he cites!!!! Even gloomier for Gore’s trustworthiness is that his sources come from biased, agenda-driven organizations whose “statistics” you cannot trust–if you’re being intellectually honest, which the majority of sycophant-reviewers here refuse.

For instance, a purportedly “authoritative” chart claiming to show 2005 was the hottest year EVER in the history of humankind was conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an ideological group sponsored by the UN!!!! Their whole mission statement is to prove that global warming is to be blamed on human activities, so any statistics emerging from their partisan group must be discounted. However, unfair and unbalanced Gore has the insolence to cite this statistic as “authoritative.”

Another misconstruction in Gore’s argument of ideology is to blame man and global warming for Africa’s abysmal problems with genocide and civil wars!!!! Despite the insanity of this supposition, Gore shamelessly alleges that this is so, yet if we analyze his thinking, it can easily be discreditable. Gore’s accusatory misconstruction is we (read: US and the West) are single-handedly to blame for the murderous genocide and afflictions in Africa because of our alleged contribution to global warming!!!!

Gore charges the US “helped manufacture the suffering in Africa,” as he bases this antagonistic accusation on the supposition that US greenhouse gas emission caused the drying up of Lake Chad–which he then misuses to account for the genocide in Darfur!!!! To any intellectually honest person, of course, the ethnic cleansing and civil war in Darfur are mainly caused by Muslim Janjaweed fighting the non-Arab rebels who are in turn fighting the Sudanese government. With self-hating, anti-American allegations like these, Gore’s credibility itself suffers.

Yet another, equally heavy reprimand Gore deserves is for the irrational conclusions and methodology he continually abuses to arrive at his presumption that the scientific community has a consensus that global warming’s manmade. In example, Gore mendaciously cites a Science magazine study of every massive, peer-reviewed article on global warming from scientific journals and magazines. He cites this utterly dissolute study to pretend to prove that there’s consensus among EACH AND EVERY SCIENTIST ON THE PLANET that global warming is manmade. However, killing Gore’s believability is the mortifying fact that said Science magazine study only reviewed TEN PERCENT of every available article on global warming. With this contemptible restriction on what a proper population sample of articles would be, Gore assumingly and pitifully declares that there is basically complete, 100% consensus on the fiction that every single scientist on earth is in unison about global warming.

If this is reliably the case, as Gore forges it to be, then why in the hell are there so many scientists who outright dispute Gore’s BS allegations?!?! Some prominent critics of global warming are French geophysicist Claude Allegre; director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University Robert Balling Jr.; Associate Professor of Geology and Environmental Science at University of Auckland Chris de Freitas; and so on and so forth. These scientists only scratch the surface; for a more comprehensive list of authorities discrediting global warming, simply do a Google search or check Wikipedia.

Gore’s book stumbles in its ineffective struggle to convince the reader of the conclusiveness of global warming. Instead, Gore and his fellow, global-warming co-conspirators simply incriminate themselves as ideologues menacingly dismissing the REAL, BIGGEST threat to the world: Islamic terrorism. Gore often speaks of his kids’ kids hating our current generation for not addressing global warming, but they’ll likely hate our generation more if we succumb to Gore’s advice and pursue the unreliability of global warming while ignoring terrorism!!!!

Customer Review: Mandatory Reading

This may not be a masterpiece of the English language (it reads more like a slide show than a novel or even a magazine article, but I guess that was to be expected given it’s origins and purpose), but nonetheless it should be a required reading for all of our country’s junior high and high school students (it should be mandatory for all of us, but I’m not sure how to enforce that). I have heard that some European countries are already doing that (either with the book or the movie). The illustrations and graphs are for the most part easy to read and understand, and even the most ADHD teen will be able to grasp the message.

I recommend this book to anyone and everyone. Politics do not matter. All that matters is that you are a human being walking on the face of this Earth.

It is delightful for a scientist (yes, unlike the many who write politically motivated reviews, I actually have knowledge in this field) to read such an excellent book. Singer and Avery dispatch the global warmers with ease. Bravo and thank God, people with scientific training are replying to the mindless political nonsense of Gore and his unquestioning following hordes.
The people who complain of a corporate bias or many of the other tired ad hominem attacks can not face the reality of the actual science. Sad really.
But truth conquers all….

Customer Review: Consider the source. This is not science.

The author Fred Singer, lost all credibility a long time ago. Just do a quick search on wikipedia if you don’t believe me. The following quote is from the article done on him. Click on the links to the organizations he has worked for and you will find that every one of them is funded by Exxon mobile and some by Phillip Morris.
“Singer is also skeptical about the connection between CFCs and ozone depletion, between ultraviolet radiation and skin cancer and between second hand smoke and lung cancer. Singer has also worked with organizations with similar views, such as the Independent Institute, the American Council on Science and Health, Frontiers of Freedom, the Marshall Institute, and the National Center for Policy Analysis.”

Here is another quote from the same article for you. The article goes into detail if you’re interested.
“Singer has been accused of conflicts of interest, most notably involving financial ties to oil and tobacco companies.”

Also, if the reader has any sort of background in science I shouldn’t have to explain how well documented the connection is between CFCs and ozone depletion, and as far as the relationship between UV radiation, second hand smoke, and cancer…Well, I will just say that I get the impression that this guy enjoys being the laughing stock of the scientific community…or at least enjoys being paid very well to be the laughing stock.

I think the fact that this book comes straight from the dark, gloomy, oil-money driven corner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute is enough to reduce this book as rubbish. That being said, I actually read the book for a laugh and it confirmed my expectations: similar to 95% off what the CEI published and wrote so far, it’s junk/pseudo science at it’s finest.

Throughout the book, I haven’t found a single, solid, scientificly valid argument against apparent global warming. What I did find are inaccuracies, heaps of doubtful generalizations and enormous logical fallacies everywhere, and sometimes plain lies and made-up ‘facts’. Moreover, this book is extremely polarizing. It attempts to rearrange entire mankind and dumps every single person on one of two heaps: the lying-bastard-hippie-commie-liberal-totalitarian-Greenpeace-terrorist ‘leftists’ on one side, and the good-freedom-righteous-individual ‘right’ on the other.

All this coming from a person who dismisses a large scientific consensus as being rubbish, himself having no scientific background or knowledge whatsoever.

I consider myself as a pragmatic ‘leftist’, who is open-minded and willing to accept different opinions. I’m not quite convinced of global warming, though if it is happening, I think there’s solid proof to believe that humans are causing it. I’m always willing to see if someone can prove me wrong though. This book however, along with the vile CEI monster which spawned it, does nothing but make me wonder: how far can a person, a group of persons, or ExxonMobi… errr, I mean, a company, go to make a profit?

Customer Review: Why don’t you skip the “politically”?

This guy is an attorney, for heaven’s sake! A bought swindler writing for Exxon and everyone else bidding the appropriate amount. A book full of wisdom like “glaciers are melting and glaciers are growing” or “there have always been climate changes”. Yeah, right, and people have always been dying and have always been born. And the sun has always been rising and rain has always been falling…

What I regret the most is that we will save the planet, even for hacks like him. I wish we could let them live on an earth according to their deeds and books.