“Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.”
—Arthur Schopenhaur
Usually with summer comes the chance to take some much-needed vacation time. Whether it’s camping, trips to the cottage, or hanging out at the pool, with vacation usually comes more free time than the hustle and bustle of the busy work week allows.
With my vacations, I always find more time to read than I can otherwise, and as a result I usually get a few good books read. Not everybody necessarily wants to read as much as I do, but chances are you’d enjoy at least a little opportunity. (Let’s face it: if you weren’t readers, you probably wouldn’t be here right now.)
So I’ve found a few books to offer for those who want to get some reading done, and perhaps enhance their understanding of the environment and global warming at the same time. One is a classic, one contemporary, and the third is a novel, albeit one that has a warning for us all.
1. Silent Spring. The classic book that launched the environmental movement is now fifty years old. Rachel Carson’s book pointed out many of the concerns for the environment related to pesticide use. It goes into great depth about our desire to control nature and the potential hazards associated with that. Although pesticide bans have helped this problem to some extent compared to when the book was first published, its core message is still pertinent today. Our desire to derive fossil fuels from every last orifice on this planet has repercussions that too many of us ignore. Controlling nature never looked so unappealing.
2. Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout. The subtitle of this book was particularly appealing to me: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist. Author Dr. Patrick Moore was a co-founder of Greenpeace but after fifteen years he left it to take a more science-based approach to environmentalism. That speaks my language because my whole goal is to be practical, sensible, and science-based, avoiding ideology as best as possible. This book was recommended to me by the federal Minister of the Environment, the Hon. Peter Kent, because he thought my journey toward environmentalism had a lot in common with Moore’s. I can only hope the comparison is worthy.
3. Polar City Red. When the space race started in earnest in the 1960′s, science fiction reflected the times with sources of entertainment such as Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey. For decades Michael Crichton did an excellent job of taking the threshold of science and creating scary science fiction with books like Coma, Jurassic Park, and Prey, warning us of what world our follies might create. So as the dawn of the climate crisis is upon us, it only makes sense that someone would create science fiction that can give us a glimpse of the horrors our planet may be facing if we continue with business as usual. Author Jim Laughter does a great job describing what a future dystopia will have to contend with as our planet contends with global warming taken to the extreme. A piece of fiction, but much to be learned nonetheless.
If you’re a reader and looking for some good book suggestions, I expect that any of these will have something to offer.
Brad… Excellent post. Thanks
Thanks for your good note above about Mr Laughter’s novel about climate change scenarios in the future. So far here are 4 small reviews on amazon:
1. By the time I had read the prologue, I was hooked. The description
of earth by 2075, supported by scientific research and most probable
outcomes, engaged my mind and heart. We’ve all heard the concerns
raised about global warming. This novel helped me to internalize that
reality.
2. Jim Laughter’s interpretation of many possible events is nearly
equal to my own. The story does look at some of the more troubling
aspects of what’s coming at us. However, he has some repetitive
tendencies laced throughout the book. Otherwise, it is a fairly decent
read.
3. An angry voice calling orders from out of the darkness immediately
brought me into the fascinating plot of POLAR CITY RED.
A family that had to escape the results of global warming in order to
survive is left defenseless as the man with the angry voice approaches
them–a huge man wearing an animal skin mask and carrying a primitive
crossbow.
Laughter’s book about the possible impact of global warming on our
society is fascinating, but also frightening–scary because of the
possible future reality of this fictional story. The amount of
research that went into this book is impressive. The characters are
well-developed with distinct personalities. One of the more
interesting aspects of this book is the Polar City Lottery–a lottery
that is implemented because the men outnumber the women in this town
approx. six to one.
4. I was drawn into the story with the first paragraph. Mr. Laughter’s
descriptive phrasing helped me to visualize the frightening
possibility of our planet truly experiencing this devastation. He does
an excellent job with characterization, showing his depth of research
into the subject of global warming and the inticacies of human
frailities. A very interesting book.
With apologies to Richard Feynman: Regardless of how many experts believe it or how many organizations concur, if it doesn’t agree with observation, it’s wrong.
The average global temperature trend has been flat since 2001. No amount of spin can rationalize that the CO2 increase caused the temperature increase to 2001 but that 25.2% additional CO2 increase had no effect on average global temperature after 2001.
Without human caused global warming there can be no human caused climate change.
I appreciate the information you’ve posted on my blog previously Dan, but this one is a bit much.
First you claim there hasn’t been a temperature increase but that’s certainly a point in dispute. Nine of the ten hottest years on record have occurred since 2000 and your observations haven’t been widely accepted as far as I can tell. Most experts seem to disagree. Here’s NASA:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-temps.html
Secondly, even if your observations are correct, it’s a huge leap of logic to conclude that humans have no impact on climate change simply because of a decade-long plateau, for the simple reason that there are many confounders that affect global temperatures as I know you’re aware, and there may even be some we haven’t completely understood yet. Ten years is much too short a time span from which to draw such a conclusion.
All temperature data come from only two data bases (surface or satellite). The five agencies that process this data each think that their way is most accurate. I, like everyone else, use THEIR DATA. I average the five to avoid bias. Others may pick and choose to support their agendas. There is at present only one source for CO2 data that I know of. My only agenda is to discover the truth and I regularly challenge my own findings as well as others.
Dr. Hansen is a devout Warmer who appears to be blind to anything that disagrees with his perception. He is in charge of what NASA says about weather and climate. All reports from NASA must be viewed in that light.
He introduced Feedback Control Theory into climate in a 1984 paper (and I commend him for that). Unfortunately the paper was somewhat misleading (he is not a Mechanical Engineer like me that actually understands that stuff) and many Climate Scientists have been misled since. If he truly understood Feedback Control Theory he would know that there cannot be significant net positive feedback in climate. The Global Climate Models depend on significant net positive feedback to show warming. I discussed this further in a pdf made public 4/13/9 at the CR web site.
Pointing out that it is warmest at the end of a warming period is not very profound and says nothing about whether it is still warming. Measured temperatures do that, at least eventually.
I certainly agree that 11 data points is not enough to be confident of a flat trend especially when history indicates that they have a random scatter with a standard deviation of about +/-0.1C. The most likely conclusion, however, is a flat trend. One denier of natural climate change opined that he/she may reconsider if the current trend continued for another five years.
If the trend of the 1975 to 2000 time period had continued, the temperature now would by about 0.2C higher than the trend line or about 0.3C higher than the latest report. Also, if added atmospheric CO2 was the cause of the rise in average global temperature from 1800 (anomaly about -0.4C) to 2001 (anomaly about 0.5C) then the temperature now, with 25.2% added CO2 should be about 0.2C higher than the trend line or about 0.3C higher than the latest measurements.
Realize that all of the confounders and unknowns along with the +/-0.1C random component in temperature measurements must find space in that 12% that my equation does not explain.
Given all that I know and have discovered over the years, it is my conclusion that it takes a huge leap in logic to believe that humans have had a significant influence on climate.
http://berkeleyearth.org/results-summary/
1.6 billion temperature reports, that seems hard to ignore.
If you’re data are so conclusive, then they should be published rather than simply posted as a PDF file on a website. I’d encourage you to submit it for peer review. If you’re right, the message will get out. If you’re wrong, perhaps we can learn why.
Mr. Mechanical Engineer doesn’t seem to know much about the ocean heat lag. Or understand latent heat of fusion. If he did his math differently, he’d see that we’re already committed to at least +3ºC of warming by 2100 — and that’s if we start slowing our emissions now. (Far hotter if we don’t.)
I’ve observed that a lot of the people who spout hot air on this issue are those who don’t have a background in the life sciences. They’re well educated, but they’re people who only “do” numbers; they’re ecologically illiterate and can’t imagine that living beings and ecosystems might react in nonlinear ways to global average temperature increases and resulting changes in climate.
I admire your ability to be civil with these people. They dither and cast doubt and debate and delay us as the Earth burns. Children all over the world are being impacted, losing their lives and their loved ones, their food security and water sources, their homes and entire homelands — while these comfortable people in their comfortable armchairs continue to play with their comforting numbers. They have some pathological need to be right, even when they’re dead wrong, and it is downright deadly.
Thanks for posting your comments, JJ. Those are my thoughts exactly, as I too have observed that most educated dissenters are not educated in climatology. Mr. Mechanical Engineer is a numbers man, as you point out, but I’ve seen it with scientists who understand one aspect of climate (geology, hydrosphere, atmosphere) but not the whole picture as well. I’ve held out hope that these skeptics are the most likely to be convinced by further education, but I’ve been disappointed with a lack of results thus far, and your final paragraph explains way, I think.
As for civility, it’s not always easy, but I never want it to become a shouting match because I lose credibility if that happens. That point was reinforced last week with my training in San Francisco with Al Gore and I believe it’s the best approach. (But sometimes I do have to bite my tongue. Or fingers, I suppose, in a written response.)
Thanks again, I appreciate your input.
I have had a copy of Silent Spring sitting in my bookshelf for over a year now and I just haven’t got around to reading it yet. Thanks for the reminder!
I haven’t heard of Polar City Red but I will pick up a copy to take a look next time I’m in the library!