After reading Michael Crichton’s latest book, State of Fear, I bought a copy of it as a Christmas present for a family member. This isn’t the “normal” Michael Crichton book. For one thing, unlike many of his books, there isn’t an over-aggressive company engaging in reckless behaviour. Rather, the target of scorn is rightfully the environmentalist movement, and the fanatic fear-mongering regarding global warming. I was pleasantly surprised that the book, despite being fiction, contains detailed references. The plot and characters are fictional; however, historical references and scientific references are real. The book hasn’t been particularly warmly recreived. Rather, it’s reception has been predictably polarized. Environmentalist extremists everywhere have come out of the woodwork to smear Crichton, his book, and his references. State of Fear has received criticism from Crichton’s devout fans as well, who think he should have just made it a non-fiction book. I disagree. The fictional aspect gives Crichton an opportunity to accurately portray the character of environmentalists, without launching into ad hominems.
When I first started reading the book, I had a sinking feeling, as it was initially told from the environmentalists perspective. There was predictable egotistical talk about saving the world from “industry”. However, as the reader slowly learns, the author does not agree with the environmentalists he is portraying. Issues the book tackles includes: the fatal conceit of believing that we can “manage” complex systems; the politicization of science; the unimpressive “evidence” for global warming; the folly of numerous regulations; and a brief touch on the environment under the care of the free market vs. socialism. Crichton also exposes the relation of environmentalism to the third world: “we’ve got ours, but you can’t get yours, because it’s ‘bad’ for the environment”. He explodes the myth that the Native Americans interfaces “naturally” with the environment and were in equilibrium with it. He also exposes the longing for primitivism as pure folly and ignorance.
I don’t know anything about Crichton’s political orientation; however, this work appears to have been influenced by libertarian ideas, and a love of freedom. Crichton’s biolography references Free Market Environmentalism and The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming (a CATO Institute book).
One of the books is sponsored by the Property and Environment Rsesearch Center.
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I’ve just finished it too. My favorite was when he talks about how the models they use have 300% error. The arguments he makes against environmental models may well have been against econometric models.
To attribute 300% error to economic models is too generous. Oftentimes, they don’t even have the signs right. They don’t even have an accurate qualitative prediction. That is, they predict an up when there’s a down. E.g., “Dow 40,000″ and “the price of gold will fall to its non-monetary value after being severed from the dollar”. Useless.
Then there’s this on LRC:
http://www.newsweekly.com.au/articles/2004nov20_c.html
Reading reviews of the book on amazon.com, I ran into a site that I believe was created just for environmentalists against this book: realclimate.org. In fact they even make a post near the bottom about the hockey stick point you bring up.
Anyway, the first comment on the 12/11/04 post on climate change disinformation asks the question of whether people wouldn’t have faith in the output of economic models. Interesting considering the above post.
Crichton does us the favor of providing a detailed bibliography at the end of his story. He is pleasantly brief in his summary of his references, and refers both to references which agree and which disagree with him; unlike global-warming environmentalists. There are also other issues Crichton covers in his book, such as the complete incompetence “environmentalists” have displayed when trying to manage environmental sistems, and the follies of bureaucracy. He also covers the millions of deaths that have occured due to what was effectively a DDT ban.
at first i liked the book because of its pro-enviromental veiw then the book changed to clowning the enviromentalists and i was pissed at cricton now about 90% of the book behind me i think that i will take a good look at arguments about the enviroment befors i jump on a band-wagon.
global warming? please, what a load
abrupt climate change? yea right…
my favorite part was when they were talking about the evolution of the park service with regards to yellowstone and the constant mismanagement of the park.
For me it seems that in Crichton’s book not all of “its historical references and scientific references are real”. The Realclimate.org has a good critique about the book.
Here is the link: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74
And for those of who think Realclimate.org is representing alarmist environmentalist I must notify that I have not come across of any suggestions of political measures to be taken on their web site. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I’m convinced of the science behind climate change but I’m unsure about the measures to be taken. I think technology is definitely needed but I also think that somehow injecting negative externalities in to the prices of co2 production could prove useful.
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