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Undid revision 344039268 by ChrisO (talk)Why is this unnecessary? Quoted at the begining and end of the book and discussed at length by the author
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'''''The Real Global Warming Disaster''''' is a 2009 book by [[Christopher Booker]] that examines, from the point of view of [[:List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming‎|climate change skepticism]], the subject of [[Attribution of recent climate change|man made global warming]]. In the book Booker charts chronologically the history of how scientists came to believe that [[global warming]] as a result of [[carbon dioxide]] ({{chem|CO|2}}) emissions had brought the Earth to what he calls the brink of catastrophe; he interweaves the science of the subject with that of its political consequences to show that, as governments become poised to make radical changes in [[Energy policy|energy policies]], the [[scientific evidence]] for global warming is also, in his opinion, becoming increasingly challenged. Booker questions whether global warming is in fact supported by the [[scientific opinion on climate change|world's climate scientists]], and consistently criticises how the [[United Nations|UN]]'s [[Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]] (IPCC) presents evidence and [[data]], citing in particular its reliance on potentially inaccurate [[global climate models]] to make future temperature projections.
'''''The Real Global Warming Disaster''''' is a 2009 book by [[Christopher Booker]] that examines, from the point of view of [[:List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming‎|climate change skepticism]], the subject of [[Attribution of recent climate change|man made global warming]]. In the book Booker charts chronologically the history of how scientists came to believe that [[global warming]] as a result of [[carbon dioxide]] ({{chem|CO|2}}) emissions had brought the Earth to what he calls the brink of catastrophe; he interweaves the science of the subject with that of its political consequences to show that, as governments become poised to make radical changes in [[Energy policy|energy policies]], the [[scientific evidence]] for global warming is also, in his opinion, becoming increasingly challenged. Booker questions whether global warming is in fact supported by the [[scientific opinion on climate change|world's climate scientists]], and consistently criticises how the [[United Nations|UN]]'s [[Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]] (IPCC) presents evidence and [[data]], citing in particular its reliance on potentially inaccurate [[global climate models]] to make future temperature projections.


The book was described in ''[[The Guardian]]'' as "the definitive climate sceptics' manual".<ref name="guardian.co.uk">[http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/15/real-global-warming-christopher-booker The Real Global Warming Disaster by Christopher Booker]</ref> Before publication, Booker gave a synopsis of the book, both in one of his columns in ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''<ref>[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6425269/The-real-climate-change-catastrophe.html The real climate change catastrophe]</ref> and in ''[[The Daily Mail]]''.<ref>[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1230113/The-devastating-book-debunks-climate-change.html The devastating book which debunks climate change]</ref>
The book was described in ''[[The Guardian]]'' as "the definitive climate sceptics' manual".<ref name="guardian.co.uk">[http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/15/real-global-warming-christopher-booker The Real Global Warming Disaster by Christopher Booker]</ref> Before publication, Booker gave a synopsis of the book, both in one of his columns in ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''<ref>[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6425269/The-real-climate-change-catastrophe.html The real climate change catastrophe]</ref> and in ''[[The Daily Mail]]''.<ref>[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1230113/The-devastating-book-debunks-climate-change.html The devastating book which debunks climate change]</ref>

{| class="toccolours" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 90%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;" cellspacing="5"
| style="text-align: left;" | '''"In the night, imagining some fear,'''
'''How easy is a bush supposed a bear."'''

''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'', Act V, Scene 1
|-
| style="text-align: right;" | — quoted by Booker at both the beginning and the end of ''The Real Global Warming Disaster''.
|}

==Synopsis==

The book is divided into three parts.

===Part One: Forging the 'Consensus': 1972—1997===

Chapter 1: '''How it all began'''
Cooling and warming: 1972—1987.
In this chapter Booker asserts that in the early 1970s a group of American scientists feared that the earth was in the grip of [[global cooling]] and began warning of the imminent threat of a new [[ice age]]. He also presents a [[Information graphics|graph]] depicting average global temperatures over the past 11,000 years<ref name="Booker-21">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=21}}</ref> and describes how temperatures over the last 1,000 years have consistently fluctuated and how, when they again began to rise in the 1970s scientists such as [[Paul R. Ehrlich|Paul Ehrlich]] began to postulate that the earth, as a result of the [[greenhouse effect]], was heating up—with potentially disastrous consequences. Figures such as the environmental activist [[Maurice Strong]] and scientist [[Bert Bolin]] are then introduced, who would "play a crucial role in what lay ahead" in influencing governmental policy and helping form the scientific basis for global warming.<ref name="Booker-32">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=32}}</ref>

Chapter 2: '''The Road to Rio'''
Enter the IPCC and Dr Hansen 1988—1992.
In this chapter Booker identifies the key year of 1988, which saw the setting up of the IPCC and how "on all sides 'global warming' became the cause of the moment".<ref name="Booker-38">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=38}}</ref> Booker asserts that this was largely in part to an appearance by [[James Hansen]] at the [[United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources|Senate Committee of Natural Resources]] in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]]. Hansen, using graphs and information from computer climate simulations, declared that he was "99 percent certain" that man's contribution to the greenhouse effect was the cause of global warming.<ref name="Booker-41">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=41}}</ref>
In 1990, the IPCC published its [[IPCC First Assessment Report|first assessment report]], which made projections of future temperature rises. The chapter closes with an account of the [[Earth Summit (1992)|Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit]] "organised by Maurice Strong" (Maurice Strong was the Conference Secretary-General; the organisers were the UNCED secretariat [http://www.un.org/geninfo/bp/enviro.html]), where "politicians from 154 countries queued up to sign a '[[United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change|UN Framework Convention on Climate Change']]" that would "commit all the signatory governments to a voluntary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions".<ref name="Booker-53">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=53}}</ref>

Chapter 3: '''The Road to Kyoto'''
Enter Vice-President Gore and IPCC 2.
In this chapter the author asserts the increasing involvement in the [[Global warming controversy|global warming debate]] of the politician [[Al Gore]], and the publication of the [[IPCC Second Assessment Report|second IPCC report]] (SAR) in 1995, which found that the "body of statistical evidence now points to a discernible human influence on the global climate".<ref name="Booker-63">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=63}}</ref> The SAR came in for particular criticism from the [[Frederick Seitz]], who alleged that "more than 15 sections in Chapter 8 of the report – the key chapter setting out the scientific evidence for and against a human influence over climate – were changed or deleted after the scientists charged with examining this question has accepted the supposedly final text".<ref name="Booker-65">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=65}}</ref> The chapter ends with an account of the signing of the 1997 [[Kyoto Protocol]] and the setting of new targets for reduced {{chem|CO|2}} emissions.

===Part Two: The 'consensus' carries all before it: 1998—2007===

Chapter 4: '''The 'Hottest Year Ever'''' Enter the 'Hockey Stick' and IPCC 3: 1998—2007. [[File:hockey stick chart ipcc large.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Figure 1(b) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report]] Booker believes that the [[Medieval Warm Period|medieval warm period]] "contradicted the idea that late twentieth century temperatures had suddenly shot up to a level never known before in history".<ref name="Booker-80">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=80}}</ref> Booker alleges that this problem was dealt with by a 1998 graph by [[Michael E. Mann]], [[Raymond S. Bradley]] and [[Malcolm K. Hughes]], which depicted temperatures "suddenly shooting up in the twentieth century to a level that was quite unprecedented. [[MWP and LIA in IPCC reports|Familiar features such as the Medieval Warm Period and the little ice age]] simply vanished".<ref name="Booker-83">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=83}}</ref> The graph would come to be known as the [[Hockey stick controversy|"hockey stick"]]; Booker writes that it became the "supreme iconic image for all those engaged in the battle to save the world from global warming".<ref name="Booker-84">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=84}}</ref> He then asserts that the IPCC's methods, and in particular the [[IPCC Summary for Policymakers|draft summary]] of its next report, came in for serious criticism from scientists such as [[Richard Lindzen]].<ref name="Booker-88">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=88}}</ref>

Chapter 5: '''The Political Temperature Rises'''
'A far greater threat than terrorism': 2004—5. This chapter begins with an account of how the majority of scientific establishments and periodicals had accepted by this time the fact of global warming. In [[Science (journal)|''Science'']] magazine, [[David King (scientist)|Sir David King]], [[Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government|chief scientific advisor to the British Government]], published an article claiming that climate change represented "a far greater threat than international terrorism".<ref name="Booker-111">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=111}}</ref> King subsequently attended and was rebuffed at a seminar on climate change in Moscow in July 2004 attended by [[Nils-Axel Mörner|Dr Nils-Axel Mörner]] and [[Paul Reiter]] and a group of Russian scientists who were skeptical of man made global warming and the IPCC's methods of presenting data.<ref name="Booker-115">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=115}}</ref> In this chapter, Booker also draws attention to what he sees as the inefficiency of [[wind power]] (a form of [[renewable energy]] that might provide a viable, {{chem|CO|2}} free energy alternative), claiming that the 1,200 [[wind turbine]]s built in the UK as of 2005 were providing less than half the energy of a 1,200 mega[[watt]] [[Coal-fired power station|coal-fired]] or [[Nuclear power|nuclear power station]].<ref name="Booker-121">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=121}}</ref> The chapter also outlines how in 2005 the IPCC came under scrutiny from the [[Economic Affairs Committee (House of Lords)|The House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs]].
Chapter 6: '''Hysteria Reaches its Height'''
Gore and the EU unite to save the planet: 2006—2007. This chapter describes Al Gore's [[Academy Award|Oscar]] winning film ''[[An Inconvenient Truth]]'' and the subsequent questioning of many of the assertions in the film, including [[Retreat of glaciers since 1850|retreating glaciers]], drowning [[polar bear]]s, use of the Hockey Stick graph, the melting of the [[Polar ice cap|ice caps]] and snows of [[Mount Kilimanjaro|Kilimanjaro]] and [[Current sea level rise|rising sea levels]].<ref name="Booker-144-150">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| pp=144-150}}</ref> The controversy included in a [[Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills|court action in the UK]]. The chapter then goes on to examine the findings of the 712 page [[Tony Blair]] commissioned [[Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change]], and the [[European Union|EU]]'s setting a target in 2007 of 20% reduced {{chem|CO|2}} emissions by 2020.<ref name="Booker-159">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=159}}</ref>

===Part Three: The 'consensus' begins to crumble: 2007—2009===

Chapter 7: '''The Temperature Drops'''
IPCC 4, The modellers lose the plot: 2007. This chapter opens with the launch of the [[IPCC Fourth Assessment Report|IPCC's fourth assessment report]] in Paris in 2007, described by the then [[Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs|British Environment Secretary]] as "the final nail in the coffin of the climate change deniers".<ref name="Booker-175">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=175}}</ref> This is followed by an assertion by Booker that the earth had in fact [[surface temperature record|begun to cool]], and how this may have been as a result of [[solar variation]]; however, the results of research into this theory by the scientists Knud Lassen, [[Eigil Friis-Christensen]] and [[Henrik Svensmark]] were dismissed by the IPCC's Bert Bolin as "scientifically extremely naïve and irresponsible".<ref name="Booker-180">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=180}}</ref> The theory was further expounded in the 2007 film [[The Great Global Warming Swindle|''The Great Global Warming Swindle'']],<ref name="Booker-183">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=183}}</ref>. The chapter ends with details of a report published at the end of 2007 by the US Senator [[James Inhofe]], which claimed to list 400 scientists from all over the world "now prepared to express their dissent, sometimes in the strongest terms, from the IPCC's 'consensus' view of global warming".<ref name="Booker-208">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=208}}</ref>

Chapter 8: '''A Tale of Two Planets'''
Fiction versus truth: 2008. In this chapter Booker claims further decreases in world temperatures, unusually cold winters, and how the "story thus enfolding in 2008 was of how the two sides to global warming debate seemed more than ever before to be speaking from two different planets".<ref name="Booker-226">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=226}}</ref> Booker refers to these two sides as the 'consensus' and the 'counter-consensus'. He also describes how in June 2007 the [[International Energy Agency]] announced that the cost of halving {{chem|CO|2}} emissions by 2050 (the US and UK governments were intending 80% cuts<ref name="Booker-255">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=255}}</ref>) would be US$ 45 trillion – equivalent to "two thirds of the world's entire current annual economic output".<ref name="Booker-233">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=233}}</ref>

Chapter 9: '''Countdown to Copenhagen'''
Colliding with reality: 2009. In the final chapter, Booker describes the situation in the run up to the [[2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference|climate conference at Copenhagen]]: [[Barack Obama|President Obama]]'s taking the issue of climate change very seriously; the emergence of [[blog]]gers skeptical of climate change such [[Stephen McIntyre]] placing IPCC data under close scrutiny; the BBC reporting that "the severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed";<ref name="Booker-270">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=270}}</ref> the failure of the Caitlin Atlantic Survey to establish that ice at the [[North Pole]] was diminishing; a conference organised by the [[The Heartland Institute|Heartland Institute]] entitled "Global warming: is it really a crisis"; the reluctance of [[BRIC]] countries to reduce their {{chem|CO|2}} emissions frustrating efforts before the Copenhagen conference; and the increasingly astronomic forecast cost to Western economies of [[Low-carbon economy|decarbonising]] their economies.<ref name="Booker-279">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=279}}</ref>

Booker summarises and recaps the book's contents in an epilogue, entitled '''Saving the planet from whom?''', in which he concludes: "it begins to look very possible that the nightmare vision of our planet being doomed" may be imaginary, and that, if so, "it will turn out to be one of the most expensive,<ref>Booker in particular refers to the cost of implementing the UK's [[Climate Change Act 2008|Climate Change Act of 2008]]</ref> destructive, and foolish mistakes the human race has ever made".<ref name="Booker-342">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=342}}</ref>


==Reception==
==Reception==
Line 96: Line 45:
{{refbegin}}
{{refbegin}}
*''Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth'' 2007 book by Christopher Booker and Richard North. ISBN 0826486142
*''Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth'' 2007 book by Christopher Booker and Richard North. ISBN 0826486142
*''The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud - and Those Who are Too Fearful to Do So'' 2008 book by [[Lawrence Solomon]]. ISBN 9780980076318
{{refend}}


==External links==
==External links==

Revision as of 17:01, 14 February 2010

The Real Global Warming Disaster
AuthorChristopher Booker
LanguageEnglish
SubjectClimate/climate change
GenreNon-fiction
PublisherContinuum International Publishing Group
Publication date
17 Oct 2009
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
Pages368 pages
ISBN1441110526

The Real Global Warming Disaster is a 2009 book by Christopher Booker that examines, from the point of view of climate change skepticism, the subject of man made global warming. In the book Booker charts chronologically the history of how scientists came to believe that global warming as a result of carbon dioxide (CO
2) emissions had brought the Earth to what he calls the brink of catastrophe; he interweaves the science of the subject with that of its political consequences to show that, as governments become poised to make radical changes in energy policies, the scientific evidence for global warming is also, in his opinion, becoming increasingly challenged. Booker questions whether global warming is in fact supported by the world's climate scientists, and consistently criticises how the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presents evidence and data, citing in particular its reliance on potentially inaccurate global climate models to make future temperature projections.

The book was described in The Guardian as "the definitive climate sceptics' manual".[1] Before publication, Booker gave a synopsis of the book, both in one of his columns in The Daily Telegraph[2] and in The Daily Mail.[3]

Reception

The book received a mixed reception in the press. The Spectator identified it as one of the best books to take a skeptical stance on the subject of global warming, and that Booker "narrates this story with the journalist's pace and eye for telling detail and the historian's forensic thoroughness which have made him a formidable opponent of humbug".[4] The Mail on Sunday wrote that "anyone seriously interested in this subject owes a great debt to Christopher Booker, who has set down all the arguments for doubt in a single, concise book" and praised Booker for producing what it saw as a "courageous" piece of work.[5]

In The Scotsman, Sir John Lister-Kaye chose The Real Global Warming Disaster as one of his books of 2009, writing that "though barely credible in places" it was an "important, brave book making and explaining many valid points".[6]

The Guardian's review of the book was very critical, and, though expressing admiration at the "skill and energy with which Booker has assembled his polemic", dismissed the central claims made by the author in the book as false.[1]

The Times criticised the book for ignoring entirely the issue of the acidification of the oceans, a subsidiary effect of CO
2 emissions.[7]

See also

Bibliography

  • Booker, Christopher (2009). The Real Global Warming Disaster. Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. ISBN 1441110526.

Notes

  1. ^ a b The Real Global Warming Disaster by Christopher Booker
  2. ^ The real climate change catastrophe
  3. ^ The devastating book which debunks climate change
  4. ^ A wild goose chase
  5. ^ The inconvenient truths Mr Gore and his fanatical friends DIDN'T tell you about climate change
  6. ^ Books of the year: Writers' choice The Scotsman 2009
  7. ^ If climate change doesn’t grab you, meet its evil twin

Further reading

  • Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth 2007 book by Christopher Booker and Richard North. ISBN 0826486142
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