Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Updated and Expanded Edition by S. Fred Singer, Dennis T. Avery
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Book Reviews of Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Updated and Expanded Edition
Book Review: The anti-Al, clear logical and based on facts
Summary: 5 Stars
In this book, Avery and Singer argue that Al Gore's theory that the Earth is headed for catastrophic climate change due to increased CO2 production is a lot of hot air. They argue that the relatively mild global warming which we have experienced thus far is due to a long-established 1,500 cycle, in which the Earth naturally heats up and cools down, with no assistance from us.
I do not know if Avery and Singer are correct. I am not an expert in this field, and I have not yet read any of the serious guys on the other side. The only book on the other side which I have read is Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.
Singer and Avery wipe the floor with Al. Al's book is dreadful. It is filled with emotion and moralism. It has very little text, but lots of pictures. It has no footnotes. From any serious scientific perspective, Al's book is a joke. Al's theory may be correct, but Al's book is a rock video between book covers, not a scientific argument.
Singer and Avery's book is everything that Al's book is not. It is tightly argued. It is packed with facts. Everything in it is footnoted, and the footnotes largely take you to peer-reviewed scientific articles. You can agree or disagree with the book, but you have to take it seriously as science.
I am going to read more on the subject. My feeling, thus far, is that unless someone on Al's side makes a really serious effort to refute Singer and Avery, the contest goes to the global warming skeptics, more or less by default. Gore is an emotional non-scientist. These guys are professionals, and they take Al apart, bit by bit.
Book Review: Consider the source of this junk science
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm an alum of the University of Virginia (home of Prof. Fred Singer) and I'm ashamed to say that this man is a conservative whose "distinguished" career includes arguing against the link between CFCs and the ozone hole, the link between second hand smoke and cancer, and now the link between CO2 and global warming.
In 1960 he argued that Phobos was an artificial moon because it was hollow (of course not true, and Phobos is not hollow).
He's published no peer reviewed papers on climate change and is merely representing the oil industry with his bogus science.
Wake up people--don't believe bogus science funded by the oil industry. Believe the thousands of climatologists who have studied this problem and contributed to the IPCC report.
A 2007 Newsweek cover story on climate change denial reported that: "In April 1998 a dozen people from the denial machine -- including the Marshall Institute, Fred Singer's group and Exxon -- met at the American Petroleum Institute's Washington headquarters. They proposed a $5 million campaign, according to a leaked eight-page memo, to convince the public that the science of global warming is riddled with controversy and uncertainty." The plan was reportedly aimed at "raising questions about and undercutting the 'prevailing scientific wisdom'" on climate change. According to Newsweek, the plan was leaked to the press and therefore was never implemented.
Book Review: Exhaustively Detailed & Clear
Summary: 5 Stars
The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won't Run the World, Second EditionA Primer on CO2 and Climate, 2nd Edition
Asking good questions often results in good answers. The authors, without pre-conceived answers, review the history of Earth's climate, challenge the modes of predicting future climates, attack the claims of immanent disasters, and then examine responses.
Book Review: This Book Exceeded My Expectations
Summary: 5 Stars
Well written, well organized, very readable and full of truth! Everyone should read this book before deciding whether they want to get on Al Gore's Global Warming Alarmist Bandwagon, or take a view that is more educated, rational, and thought-out. I would like to see this book presented in classrooms alongside showings of "An Inconvenient Truth" (or other Alarmist-type films/programs) so that students are given the opportunity to see both sides and develop their own fully-educated opinions, rather than having fear-inducing, liberalist environmental/ political ideas shoved down their throats as if it is fact.
One thing missing from this book was attention to the polar bear plight that we so often hear of. I would have liked to have known what the authors had to say about that, as well as what they think the long-term climatic impact is of massive deforestation in a short period of time, such as is occurring in the Amazon rainforest.
Book Review: Fact-Heavy Case Against Anthropogenic Global Warming
Summary: 5 Stars
This book persuasively argues that:
* Global warming is a fact.
* Global warming is largely driven by natural phenomena. (i.e. is not heavily driven by human industry.)
This book is also structured well to make it ease to use as a reference. A few facts that you will learn from reading this book are:
* The case for that global warming is largely driven by solar activity and global warming occurs in natural cycles.
* How the CO2 explanation for global warming fails to explain the Roman Warming Period, the Dark Ages Cooling, the Medieval Warming and the Little Ice Age.
* How CO2 appears to be more of an effect of global warming rather than a cause.
* Various ways how historic temperatures can be monitored, including seabed sentiment cores, cave stalagmites, fossilized pollen, human migratory patterns, tree rings and ice cores.
* How the Earth's lower atmosphere as well as the south pole have cooled over the years.
* Scientific publications supporting the solar-driven global warming hypothesis.
This book also goes into extensive detail refuting many alleged dangers of global warming, such as that it will destroy ecosystems or that it will lead to many human deaths.
My main complaint about this book is the tone. The authors often address claims with snide remarks such as "Reality-based skeptics say...". Although it is fun to mock global warming hysterics, some of the claims they refute are seemingly plausible to an informed audience and are unworthy of an automatic derisive response in my opinion. In my perception, using sarcasm in such a fashion connotes more of an emotional and partisan response and detracts from the scientific objectivity that all researchers should encourage.
Nevertheless, this book is a serious and very informative read on an important topic.