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State of Fear

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State of Fear
First edition cover
AuthorMichael Crichton
LanguageEnglish
GenreSci-Fi, Techno-thriller, Dystopian novel
PublisherHarperCollins
Publication date
December 7, 2004
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages640 pp (first edition, hardback), 567 pp without bibliography and appendix
ISBNISBN 0-00-718159-0 (first edition, hardback) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character

State of Fear is a 2004 novel by Michael Crichton published by HarperCollins on December 7, 2004. Like most of his novels it is a techno-thriller, this time concerning eco-terrorists who attempt mass murder to support their views. Unlike his other novels, the book contains many graphs and footnotes, two appendices, and a twenty page bibliography, all combining to give an actual or fictional impression of scientific authority.[1][2][3][4][5]

However, the consensus of many prominent climate scientists is that this use of scientific data is inaccurate and misleading.[6][7][8][9][10]

Overview

According to Crichton, three years were spent studying the themes of the book, and he included a statement of his views on global climate change at the end of the book. He states his belief that the cause, extent, and threat of climate change is largely unknown and unknowable, a view disputed by a majority of scientists.[11] Crichton warns both sides of the global warming debate against the politicization of science. He provides an example of the disastrous combination of pseudo-science and politics, in the early 20th-century idea of eugenics. He finishes by endorsing the management of wilderness and the continuation of research into all aspects of the Earth's environment.

The novel had an initial print run of 1.5 million copies and reached the #1 bestseller position at amazon.com and #2 at the New York Times Best Seller list for one week in January 2005.

Plot summary

The novel takes place in 2004. The title refers to allegations that political, legal, and media elites deliberately induce a state of unreasonable fear in the general population to keep themselves in power. The key issue in the book around which the terrorists create this state of fear is the existence and causes of global warming

The protagonist is an environmentalist lawyer named Peter Evans. Evans is a junior associate at a large Los Angeles law firm that represents many environmentalist clients (although they also have clients in corporate industry). Evans is described as someone who eagerly accepts all conventional wisdom about global warming. He's also described as something of a wimp who has lukewarm relationships with women. Evans' chief client is a billionaire philanthropist (George Morton) who donates large sums to environmentalist causes. Evans' main duties are managing the legal affairs surrounding Morton's contributions to an environmentalist organization, the National Environmental Resource Fund (NERF).

Morton becomes suspicious of NERF and its director, Nicholas Drake, after he discovers that NERF has misused some of the funds he has given the group. Soon after, Morton is visited by two men, John Kenner and Sanjong Thapa, who appear on the surface to be researchers at MIT, but, in fact, are international law enforcement agents on the trail of an eco-terrorist group, the Environmental Liberation Front (ELF) (modelled on the Earth Liberation Front). The ELF is attempting to create "natural" disasters to convince the public of the dangers of global warming. They have no qualms about how many people are killed in these events and they ruthlessly assassinate anyone who gets in their way (their preferred methods being ones few would recognize as murder; the venom of a rare Australian Blue-ringed octopus which causes a form of paralysis most hospitals mistake for a disease and therefore never successfully treat; "lightning attractors" which cause their victims to get fried in electrical storms, also something most mistake for a natural occurrence.) Kenner and Thapa suspect Drake of involvement with the ELF to further his own ends (garnering more donations to NERF from environmentalists so that he can collect a large bonus at the end of the year).

Morton pulls his funding from NERF and has Evans rewrite the contract so that Drake can't access the money except in mediocre amounts. This earns Drake's wrath resulting in strained relations between Evans and the partners at his firm (Drake is a major client of the firm. He accuses Evans of being a spy for corporate industry). Soon thereafter, Morton dies in a car accident under mysterious circumstances. Following Morton's last instructions, Evans teams up with Kenner and Thapa on a globe-spanning trip to thwart various ELF disaster schemes. Also along for the ride is Morton's beautiful assistant, Sarah Jones. Evans is intimidated by Sarah because of her beauty and because she possesses a self-confidence Evans lacks. By the same token, Sarah also finds Evans attractive, but is put off by his lack of bravado.

The group travels to various locations to thwart the ELF's schemes: first, the detonation of several explosives in an Antarctic ice shelf to release an enormous iceberg, then the use of special rockets and filament wire to produce a man-made lightning storm and flood on a crowded national park. During his travels, Evans finds his convictions about global warming challenged by Kenner and Thapa who present him with reams of data suggesting that global warming may not be happening at all, may be insignificant if it is, and may not be caused by human activity. Evans' convictions are further shaken as he observes the ELF trying to manufacture disasters that will kill thousands of people, discovers that Drake is directing these terrorist acts, and narrowly escapes several ELF assassination attempts. He also begins to shed his wimpy demeanor and grows more enamored of Sarah after he saves her life on several occasions.

In the finale of the story, the group travels to a remote island in the Solomons to stop the ELF's "piece de resistance", a tsunami that will inundate the coastline of California just as Drake is winding up an international press conference on the "catastrophe" of global warming. Along the way they battle man-eating crocodiles and cannibalistic tribesmen (who feast on a prominent environmentalist TV star that Drake sent along to spy on them). The rest of the group are rescued in the nick of time by Morton who resurfaces. It turns out that he faked his own death to throw Drake off the trail so that he could keep watch on the ELF's activities on the island while he waited for Kenner and his team to arrive. The group has a final confrontation with the ELF team on the island during which Evans kills one of the terrorists who had tried to kill both him and Sarah in Antarctica. The rest of the ELF team on the island is killed by the backwash from their own tsunami which Kenner and his team sabotage just enough to prevent it from becoming a fullsize tsunami, rather just a group of large ocean swells. Drake and his cohorts are arrested. Evans and Sarah finally admit their feelings for each other. Evans quits the firm and goes to work for Morton with his new (unnamed) organization, which will practice environmental activism as a business, free from deceit and manipulative paranoia.

Major themes

Crichton's second and, arguably, more important theme has been lost in the discussion of the book's contrarian view of global warming. Late in the novel, a minor character (Professor Norman Hoffman) introduces the ideas that modern governments, media and fund raising organizations use fear to control the opinions of their citizenry and therefore earn votes, ratings and donations respectively. This idea is represented in the novel by the conspiracy to create artificial disasters and fabricate evidence supporting global warming.

According to this fictional viewpoint, the current discussion of global warming is simply the latest in a chain of unscientifically verified threats including diseases caused by silicone breast implants and the threat of cancer from power lines. This is the State of Fear alluded to by the novel's title. The character attributes this effect to the interplay among political actors, attorneys, and the media, all of whom are said to engender fear in the general populace to their own advantage. Crichton juxtaposes the irrational "State of Fear" to a rational cost-benefit analysis. As examples he claims that DDT was effectively banned as an unproven carcinogen yet its replacement caused the deaths of both chemical handlers and millions of third-world people killed by malaria because the replacement was more toxic to humans and less effective against mosquitoes. Another example was the banning of low cost refrigerants such as Freon-12. In that case, the fear was the destruction of the ozone layer but, Crichton claims, the millions who starved due to spoiled food were never accounted for.

Awards

The novel received the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) 2006 Journalism Award. AAPG Communications director Larry Nation told the New York Times, "It is fiction, but it has the absolute ring of truth." The presentation of this award has been criticized as a promotion of the politics of the oil industry and for blurring the lines between fiction and journalism.[12] After some controversy within the organization, AAPG has since renamed the award the "Geosciences in the Media" Award.[13]

Dr. Daniel P. Schrag, Director of the Center for the Environment at Harvard University , called the award "a total embarrassment" that he said "reflects the politics of the oil industry and a lack of professionalism" on the association's part. As for the book, he added, "I think it is unfortunate when somebody who has the audience that Crichton has shows such profound ignorance."[14]

Scientific Criticism

This novel received strong criticism from leading climate scientists,[15][16][17] science journalists[18][19] and environmental groups[20][21] for inaccuracies and misleading information. Sixteen of 18 top U.S. climate scientists interviewed by Knight Ridder, said the author is bending scientific data and distorting research.[22]

Peter Doran, leading author of the Nature paper Doran et al 2002, wrote in the New York Times stating that

"... our results have been misused as “evidence” against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel “State of Fear”[23]

Myles Allen, Head of the Climate Dynamics Group, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, wrote in Nature in 2005:

"Michael Crichton’s latest blockbuster, State of Fear, is also on the theme of global warming and is likely to mislead the unwary. . . Although this is a work of fiction, Crichton’s use of footnotes and appendices is clearly intended to give an impression of scientific authority."[24]

The Union of Concerned Scientists devote a section of their website to clear up some of Crichton’s misconceptions in the book:

"Michael Crichton's latest book State of Fear has characters debating data (complete with graphs and footnotes) and concepts that cast doubt on the validity of global warming evidence. This doubt is echoed in the author's message at the end of the novel and in public interviews. Readers may understandably take away some misconceptions from his book. To clear up these misconceptions, we have selected some representative cases to discuss..." [1]
  1. How was Michael Crichton able to take the same data that climate scientists use and come to the conclusion that global warming isn’t a real threat?
  2. State of Fear uses graphs that don’t show a warming trend. How can specific locations show cooling if global warming is happening?
  3. What is the “urban heat island effect” and is it contributing to warming?
  4. Crichton argues that C02 in the atmosphere is not closely correlated with warming trends. So why is C02 blamed as a greenhouse gas?
  5. Several times Crichton notes that glaciers are expanding not retreating. Is this accurate or only part of the story?
  6. Michael Crichton says we can’t predict the future. Does this preclude our taking steps to reduce heat trapping gas emissions?
  7. Why do we have to act now to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels?

Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeller at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of Scientific American's "Top 50 Research Leaders." wrote an article titled, "Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion,"

"we have some rather misleading and selective recollection regarding Jim Hansen's testimony to congress in 1988 . . . it is claimed that "in the 1970's all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming" However, this is not an accurate statement."[25]

Douglas Hardy, contributor to the IPCC climate assessment reports, says Crichton is distorting his work:

"Crichton is doing what I perceive the denialists always to do, And that is to take things out of context, or take elements of reality and twist them a little bit, or combine them with other elements of reality to support their desired outcome.''[26]

Jeffrey Masters, Chief meteorologist for Weather Underground, writes:

"Crichton presents an error-filled and distorted version of the Global Warming science, favoring views of the handful of contrarians that attack the consensus science of the IPCC."[27]

James Hansen, Head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, elected to the National Academy of Science in 1966, listed as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the Time 100 (2006) list wrote:

He (Michael Crichton) doesn’t seem to have the foggiest notion about the science that he writes about.[28]

Use in politics

Despite it being a work of fiction, the book has found extensive political use by global warming skeptics. For example, United States Senator Jim Inhofe, who once pronounced global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people",[29][30]made State of Fear “required reading” for the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which he chaired from 2003-2007. In September 2005, Inhofe called Crichton to testify before this committee.[31] Inhofe is the "leading abuser of science in the U. S. Senate," according to CBS News.[32] During Crichton's testimony Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton scolded him for views that "muddy the issues around sound science" and Senator Barbara Boxer said, "I think we have to focus on facts, not fiction." [33]

Locations

Many of the events in Crichton's earlier novels have stayed within fairly defined areas. Such locations have varied greatly: a deep-sea habitat (Sphere), a remote island off Costa Rica (Jurassic Park), an industrial complex in the Nevada desert (Prey), or 14th century France for instance (Timeline). In State of Fear the action is global in scope. The following are the book's settings, broken down by act, along with dates first introduced in the year 2004:

Akamai

Terror

Angel

  • Los Angeles, CA
  • Century City, CA

Flash

Snake

Blue

Resolution

Vanutu

Vanutu is a fictional island in the novel. The name bears a striking resemblance to Vanuatu.

Allusions to Rising Sun

The characters of and the student-mentor relationship Peter Evans and John Kenner bear many similarities to that of Peter Smith and John Connor in Michael Crichton's earlier novel Rising Sun; even their names are similar. At one point in the book, one character even confuses John Kenner's name with Connor: "And somebody you are spending time with, a person named Kanner or Connor?"

References

  1. ^ NATURE| VOL 433 |20 JANUARY 2005
  2. ^ Review of Michael Crichton's State of Fear : Weather Underground
  3. ^ Cold, Hard Facts - New York Times
  4. ^ Michael Crichton’s “Scientific Method” James Hansen
  5. ^ Union of Concerned Scientists Crichton's Thriller State of Fear: Separating Fact from Fiction
  6. ^ The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Novel on global warming gets some scientists burned up
  7. ^ Review of Michael Crichton's State of Fear : Weather Underground
  8. ^ Cold, Hard Facts - New York Times
  9. ^ Michael Crichton’s “Scientific Method” James Hansen
  10. ^ IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Climate Change 2007
  11. ^ The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Novel on global warming gets some scientists burned up
  12. ^ Truth? Fiction? Journalism? Award Goes to . . . - New York Times
  13. ^ President 06:2006 EXPLORER
  14. ^ Truth? Fiction? Journalism? Award Goes to . . . - New York Times
  15. ^ Nature.com article
  16. ^ Cold, Hard Facts - New York Times
  17. ^ The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Novel on global warming gets some scientists burned up
  18. ^ Bad Science, Bad Fiction; Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
  19. ^ BBC NEWS, Crichton's conspiracy theory
  20. ^ NRDC: Michael Crichton's State of Fear: They Don't Call It Science Fiction for Nothing
  21. ^ Crichton’s Thriller State of Fear
  22. ^ The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Novel on global warming gets some scientists burned up
  23. ^ Cold, Hard Facts - New York Times
  24. ^ NATURE| VOL 433 |20 JANUARY 2005
  25. ^ RealClimate » Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion
  26. ^ The Boston Globe "Checking Crichton's footnotes" February 6, 2005
  27. ^ Review of Michael Crichton's State of Fear : Weather Underground
  28. ^ Michael Crichton’s “Scientific Method” James Hansen
  29. ^ CBS News - Warmed Over American Prospect: Sen. James Inhofe's Science Abuse
  30. ^ Senator says warming by humans just a hoax
  31. ^ Michael Crichton, Novelist, Becomes Senate Witness - New York Times
  32. ^ CBS News - Warmed Over American Prospect: Sen. James Inhofe's Science Abuse
  33. ^ Michael Crichton, Novelist, Becomes Senate Witness - New York Times
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