State of Fear
No blog is complete without a nifty guest blogger. Ours is philosopher Jay Richards. With astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez he is the co-author of The Privileged Planet and serves as senior fellow and vice president of Discovery Institute in Seattle.
Jay writes:
Michael Crichton's new novel, State of Fear, is a gripping novel about eco-terrorism that may do more to raise public awareness about global warming than any academic book on the subject.
In his research for the novel, Crichton spent three years immersed in the literature on global warming. His novel remains gripping despite and, in part, because of a wealth of charts, graphs, and footnotes from the scientific literature. Crichton embeds scientific arguments about global warming into the dialogue of the novel itself, so skillfully and lucidly that the narrative tension is enriched rather than hampered.
There are at least four open questions about global warming: (1) Is it bad; (2) Is it happening; (3) Are we causing it; and (4) Will efforts like the Kyoto protocols make much difference anyway?
If you can't imagine that all of these really are open questions, consider this one word: Greenland. Notice anything funny about its name? Right. It's not very green anymore--but it was in the Middle Ages when, as we know, the planet was warmer. Thanks to that extra plant energy, it was also a good time to be a farmer. The extra warmth wasn't bad then and it certainly wasn't caused by man.
Crichton never stops being a novelist, but he handles the technical material with such precision and thoroughness that the book could serve as a primer on the scientific debate itself, and on the way the debate has been manipulated by environmental groups and the mainstream media.
Anyone who raises questions about the global warming hysteria usually very quickly gets made to feel like he's against the earth, against trees, flowers, and butterflies. Crichton is to be commended for his willingness to suffer years of extreme discomfort at cocktail parties for the cause of truth.
Jay writes:
Michael Crichton's new novel, State of Fear, is a gripping novel about eco-terrorism that may do more to raise public awareness about global warming than any academic book on the subject.
In his research for the novel, Crichton spent three years immersed in the literature on global warming. His novel remains gripping despite and, in part, because of a wealth of charts, graphs, and footnotes from the scientific literature. Crichton embeds scientific arguments about global warming into the dialogue of the novel itself, so skillfully and lucidly that the narrative tension is enriched rather than hampered.
There are at least four open questions about global warming: (1) Is it bad; (2) Is it happening; (3) Are we causing it; and (4) Will efforts like the Kyoto protocols make much difference anyway?
If you can't imagine that all of these really are open questions, consider this one word: Greenland. Notice anything funny about its name? Right. It's not very green anymore--but it was in the Middle Ages when, as we know, the planet was warmer. Thanks to that extra plant energy, it was also a good time to be a farmer. The extra warmth wasn't bad then and it certainly wasn't caused by man.
Crichton never stops being a novelist, but he handles the technical material with such precision and thoroughness that the book could serve as a primer on the scientific debate itself, and on the way the debate has been manipulated by environmental groups and the mainstream media.
Anyone who raises questions about the global warming hysteria usually very quickly gets made to feel like he's against the earth, against trees, flowers, and butterflies. Crichton is to be commended for his willingness to suffer years of extreme discomfort at cocktail parties for the cause of truth.
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