State of Fear

State of Fear
by Michael Crichton
Is a blood and thunder novel which came my way by chance. It has more than sex, lust and violence though. There is a long, hard look at global warming and the environmental campaigning racket. Save the Muesli sounds fairly harmless if misguided but it part of a major industry which generates a multimegabuck income for its management. There is a hard sell behind the soft, warm image.

Very few people have the scientific background to understand the physics and geology of our environment. The  minority who do and it is much less than 1% of us are liable to be involved directly. It turns out that they have life styles and mortgages too. They need the money that goes into research; it is another industry just like environmental campaigning.

Doctor Crichton slips in the message about very dodgy science and high pressure sales campaigns under the radar but he has been over the ground. When a man gives sources for his assertions his stuff is checkable. When the accused say nothing and do not sue for libel it is evidence for the prosecution. To be fair he fingers big business as well as government operations and greenies.

He tells us how governments manipulate us using Fear, whence the State of Fear which is the book's title. See it at page 536 on. It is a good read with real reality behind it.
PS Bjørn Lomborg deals with statistics and goes over a lot of the same ground in a different way. He has access to the data and understands it. Professor Lomborg wrote  The Skeptical Environmentalist and got hated for his pains. The World Wildlife Fund [ WWF ] didn't sue for libel. Nor did any of them.

State of Fear has a heavy weight reading list at the back. Look for yourself. Read for yourself. Think for yourself. Decide for yourself. I have chosen the sceptics rather than the believers. He found those by Messrs. Beckerman, Chase, Huber, Lomborg and Wildavsky to particularly revealing.

Amazon's entry for State of Fear gives Doctor Crichton a potted biography and he has a solid background on his own account. He is qualified in medicine and anthropology. Who ever wrote the Wikipedia entry wants us to disbelieve his science in State of Fear without giving much in the way of reason.

PS Other entirely reasonable views are put  in:
                      
Global Warming by Godzilla Pimp
                       Global Warming and Nicholas Stern
                       Free Speech and Climate Change
                      
Global Warming is Natural
                       Global Warming is a Political Boondoggle

 

The Case for Global Warming

 

Beckerman, Wilfred A
A Poverty of Reason- Sustainable Development and Economic Growth Oakland California: Independent Institute 2003

Black, Edwin
War Against the Weak- Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race: Four Walls 2003

Carson, Rachel
Silent Spring Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962 - patter merchant gets it wrong, big time but she was very influential at the time.

Chase, Alston
In a Dark Wood: The Fight Over Forests and the Myths of Nature. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publisher, 2001
and
Playing God in Yellowstone- The Destruction of America's First National Park New York: Atlantic 1986 - come highly recommended.

Deichmann, Ute
Biologists under Hitler Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press 1996 - heavy going - not amusing.

Dörner, Dietrich
The Logic of Failure: Recognising and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations. Cambridge Mass: Perseus 1998 - this one should be used by the English government. Multigigabuck projects foul up as a matter of course but the civil servants still get their knighthoods.

Dowie, Mark
Losing Ground- American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press 1995 - an example of a fluent patter merchant and worth reading as such.

Edgerton, Robert B
Sick Societies- Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony.- An article from- Commentary  New York: Free Press 1992 - good on the Noble Savage line - it is tosh.

Feynman, Richard
The Character of Physical Law Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press 1965 - shows a refreshing clarity of thought.

Fisher, Andy
Radical Ecopsychology- Psychology in the Service of Life - a splendid demonstration of total bollocks.

Forrester, Jay W
Principles of Information Systems Waltham Massachusetts: Wright-Allen Press, 1971. Very sound. First man into managing complex systems.

Forsyth, Tim
Critical Political Ecology- The Politics of Environmental Science New York Routledge 2003 - has important insights not found elsewhere. LSE wallah but refers to "laws" of science which do not rate the name.

Furedi, Frank
Culture Of Fear- Risk-Taking And The Morality Of Low Expectation  New York Continuum 2002 - an English sociologist on the safety boondoggle.

Huber, Peter:
Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists A Conservative Manifesto. New York: Basic Books 1999 - sound man, solid background.

Kline, Wendy
Building a Better Race- Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom Berkley California: University of California Press 2001 - feminist? Zionist controlled source.

Kuhl, Stefan
The Nazi Connection- Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism New York: Oxford University Press, 1994

Levack, Brian P
The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe Second Edition. London Longman, 1995 - educated people swallowed this one - just like the racism racket today.

Lomborg, Bjorn
The Skeptical Environmentalist - very sound, follow the link for my review. The mob that run the Scientific American treated him disgracefully.

Meadows, Donella H, Dennis L Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William W Behrens III
Limits to Growth- A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind  New York: New American Library, 1972 - out of print sadly. Another splendid example of ignoramii feeding us a load of tosh.

Morris, Julian
Rethinking Risk and the Precautionary Principle Oxford, England: Butterworth/Heinemann, 2000 - sound on the damage to children.

Nye, David E
Consuming Power- A Social History of American Energies Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1998 - good on technology. He has implication for the validity of IPCC scenarios.

Ordover, Nancy
American Eugenics- Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2003 - heavy going - blames left and right. Her background? Dubious.

Park, Robert
Voodoo Science- THE ROAD FROM FOOLISHNESS TO FRAUD New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Sound man - good on the power line and cancer boondoggle.

Penn and Teller
Bullshit! Showtime series [ television? America? ].  Banning dihydrogen monoxide sounds good to environmental ignoramii. To the rest of us it is water.

Pepper, David
Modern Environmentalism  London Routledge, 1996 - sympathises with environmentalists and looks at why incompatible views are held.

Ponte, Lowell
The Cooling Englewood. NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972 - highly praised and warms us about the impending Ice Age. Has it already begun? Whoops. Good for a laugh and more.

Roszak, Theodore
The Voice of the Earth- An Exploration of Ecopsychology  New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992 - leading edge tosh. He was there at the beginning. He was wrong at the beginning.

Singer, Fred
Hot Talk Cold Science- Global Warming's Unfinished Debate Oakland California: Independent Institute, 1998 - Fred is a leading sceptic with a first class background.
 

Slovic, Paul - editor
The Perception of Risk (Risk, Society and Policy Series) Earthscan, 2000 - tells us about popular perception of risks - these are normally wrong in unfamiliar areas. Education is Mr. Crichton's answer.

Tengs, Tammo O, Miriam E Adams, Joseph S Plitskin, Dana D Graham
"Five Hundred life saving interventions and their cost effectiveness"  From Risk Analysis 15 Number 3 [ 1995 ] 369 - 390. The Harvard School of Public Health - lefties do not like this one. This suggests that it is right as in correct. It says that a lot of government meddling is very wasteful. Are they wrong? I doubt it.

Victor, David
Climate of Doubt: The Sciences Spring 2001 18 - 23 - favours carbon emission control but says the Kyoto Treaty is worthless.

Wallack, Lawrence, Katie Woodruff, Lori Dorfman and Iris Diaz
News for a Change: An Advocate's Guide to Working with the Media  London: Sage Publications, 1999

Wildavsky, Aaron
But Is It True? A Citizen's Guide to Environmental Health and Safety Issues. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995 - a professor made is his students look into DDT, global warming etcetera. His position is that nearly all environmental claims are untrue or wildly over stated.

Ibid
Searching for Safety New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1998 - a sensible look at the issues.

 

Errors & omissions, broken links, cock ups, over-emphasis, malice [ real or imaginary ] or whatever; if you find any I am open to comment.

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Updated  on  Thursday, 14 March 2024 21:48:44