This review of 'Climate Change: Natural or Manmade?' is by John Shade of Climate Lessons blog.
It soon becomes clear which way the author is inclined to answer the question in the book’s title. On page 22, we see these words ‘the biggest scientific fraud in history’, on page 77 ‘global temperature is not a function of CO2’, page 83 ‘one of the biggest scientific shams in history’, page 89 ‘CO2 emissions have nothing to do with climate’, page 106 ‘the flawed hypothesis that humans are causing catastrophic global warming’, and similar sentiments are to be found on pages 117, 135, 137, 140, 149, 156, 164, 175, 186, and 109. They are also to be found in the Appendix which reproduces the resignation letter of the distinguished physicist Hal Lewis who wrote, upon leaving the American Physical Society (APS) in 2010 ‘…the global warming scam … has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.’
The overall tone of this book, then, is one of denunciation. It is backed up by nearly 500 footnotes linking to a mix of scientific papers, magazine and newspaper articles, books, and blogs such as WUWT. There is also a ‘bibliography’ with some 43 references to books and scientific papers.
My hunch is that the author, Joe Fone, is representative of a good many people competent in physical science or engineering (he has worked as an electronics technician and designer) and who have been persuaded by Schneiderian Scenarios (‘scary’, ‘simplified’, ‘dramatic’ – the notorious quote can be found on page 33) to look into them in search of substance. Unsurprisingly (I am engaged on the same search!) he found nothing convincing about CO2 being a major driver of climate, but a lot to be concerned about in other ways where words such as ethics, prejudice, deception, political opportunism, profiteering, incompetence and vindictiveness start tripping off the tongue. To put it mildly, he was not impressed. His book is an introduction to his discoveries, and it ends with an appeal for continued questioning.
There are 8 chapters. The first begins with 19th century interest in ice age theories and the possible role of CO2 and continues into the 20thcentury with the work of Callendar whom he criticises for discounting measurements showing relatively high ambient levels, more than 400ppm for example during the 19thcentury. He notes, again with some criticism, the later work of Keeling, and Plass in the 1950s onwards and the ‘ice age’ scare of the 1970s. He mentions Jawarowksi’s reservations about CO2 estimates taken from ice cores, and the politic efforts of Schneider to raise alarm first over cooling. Noting that ‘there was nothing new in these reversals of climate alarm then over warming’, Fone quotes from newspapers in 1895 and 1912 about ice-scares, and in the 1920s and 30s on how the world was getting warmer and warmer. Chapter 2 is mostly about what he reports as a very unpleasant vendetta against the controversial polymath Velikovsky, in particular for his conjecture than the planet Venus ‘was a relative newcomer to the solar system’ and would have anomalously high temperatures. I am not at all familiar with this episode, but in Fone’s account it was not a very edifying one regardless of the credibility of Velikovsky’s views. The link to our climate issues is via Sagan’s deployment of a CO2-driven greenhouse effect to account for the high temperatures, and thereby refute some of Velikovsky’ ideas. According to Fone, ‘it did not take long for Sagan’s quick-fix application of the enhanced greenhouse effect on Venus to be shown to be unworkable…’. But perhaps more importantly, Fone draws attention to a study claiming ‘the suppression of Velikovsky’s ideas included “the techniques of denying and avoiding public discussion, of refusing access to scientific publications - via articles or letters of reply or even advertising”. To which can be added manipulation and distortion of scientific data and deliberate misquotations in order to give a completely warped idea of the scientific case. We witness the same ploys and scientific fraud today as so-called climate change “deniers” are treated in the same way by establishment figures.’
Fone goes on to cover a lot more ground. He sees Prime Minister Thatcher spotting political advantage in concern over CO2 in her battles with coal-miners in the late 1970s and 1980s, and which led by this account to the setting up of the Hadley Centre. She became sceptical later, but she had lost power and influence by then. In Chapter 3, he describes how changes in CO2 generally follow changes in temperature in the geological reconstructions, reports on the case for a solar influence on climate, and mentions the lack of ‘statistically significant warming’ in recent decades. Chapter 4 is mostly on how little CO2 there is in the atmosphere, and that positive feedbacks involving water vapour are required before any grounds for alarm are to be found. Needless to say, he does not find the case for such effects convincing. Chapter 5 contrasts ‘tipping points’ with the logarithmic effect of rising CO2 levels on radiation budgets. He concludes that ‘runaway climate change’ is ‘little more than a catchphrase lacking scientific merit, a slogan designed to frighten the public’. He begins Chapter 6 with some fighting talk ‘Epicurus understood more about how the earth behaves than the IPCC does two millennia later.’ Now that, like his claim about CO2 emissions having no effect on climate, is an overstatement that will make it easy for some to try to discredit the whole book. As one who admires this book overall, I am trying to see it as understandable polemic in the face of much worse from those who want to frighten us about CO2. The chapter is, like all the others, quite hard to summarise given the range of topics touched upon, but it is mainly about the notion that climate has always changed, and that despite our increasing ability to cope with it, there are those who would suspend democracy or advocate extinction of the human race in response to the unremarkable climate variation we are seeing now combined with theories of doom to come. Chapter 7, entitled ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, is about the scheming that led to the formation of the IPCC, and the subsequent further promotion of the ‘theory that increased CO2 resulted in a corresponding increase in global temperatures, which supposedly would lead ultimately to climate doom unless emissions are reduced.’ The works of Laframboise on the IPCC, and Montford on the creation and subsequent breaking of the hockey-stick plot by McIntyre, McKitrick, and others, get mentioned, as do the shenanigans in New Zealand (where the author lives) over muddled and meddled-with temperature records. The Climategate Saga is also covered briefly. The final chapter, Chapter 8, begins with a lament over assertions that science is settled or done by consensus or that those who challenge it are heretics. He sees manmade global warming as just one among many fads supported by scientists and eagerly promoted by the media, but he asserts that this is one that ‘has become a Frankenstein monster and seems to be out of control’. He notes the huge sums of money that have been spent on it, and the money made by some and lost by most in carbon trading. He recounts some recent foolishnesses in Australian and New Zealand politics, and lists some of the abusive remarks from commentators in the States about climate heretics, labeling them ‘deniers’, ‘traitors’, ‘irresponsible’, ‘immoral’, worthy of murdering, and, on Australian national radio, comparable to paedophiles and drug-pushers. He concludes the chapter with these words:
‘Global warming hysteria eventually will subside, like so many earlier such scares that never materialized, leaving a strange legacy for future generations to ponder.’
A ‘Conclusion’ appears next as a kind of coda at the end. In it he asserts that the key assertions underpinning CAGW have been shown to be wrong, and ends this brief section with these words:
The climate science community has been hijacked by vested interest groups, from politicians to environmentalist extremists, who are more concerned with advocacy for their causes than true unbiased scientific endeavour. We can only hope to have begun here to redress the balance, and to ask the questions which vested interests do not want asked.
The writing style in generally straightforward, although occasionally a sudden change in topic made me recall the kind of wide-ranging conversations you can have with enthusiasts when one topic is displaced by a more recently raised one which is then pursued for bit. The book is packed with nuggets taken from many sources, so there is plenty of scope for distraction. The occasional over-the-top statements are a weakness.
I think it is an impressive and important book because for me it represents another ‘ordinary person’ fighting back against the top-down alarmism being imposed on us. It is part of the Independent Minds series by Stacey, a series which includes blockbusters such as the The Hockey Stick Illusion and Climate: The Counter Consensus. It does not have the forensic brilliance of the former, nor the academic clout of the latter, but it does pack a lot of punches nevertheless, and I think it will resonate with many others as it did with me. I also suspect that we shall see many more books like it, from policy perspectives, from economic ones, from humanitarian ones, even from sociological and psychological ones as well as from more people versed in the physical and mathematical sciences, as they all share their particular insights and shock at discovering how few clothes are to be found on the emperors of alarm about carbon dioxide. We shall need many bookshelves to contain what will then be a veritable encyclopedia on resistance to the climate madness and millennialism. From the southern corner, Joe Fone has entered the ring.
Buy it here.