The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism)

Another example of how, as the saying attributed to Benjamin Disraeli goes, there's "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics". Like many things ( or I should say most things ) when one "follows the money" it often leads to the perpetrator. I remember when my children were small and had all those "why" questions they always do. Other than "why is the sky blue" type questions, the answer, as any good detective will tell you, is usually because of money. Make no mistake, "Global Warming" is about two things, politics and money.The liberal scare mongering left would want us all to believe that without more government intervention ( which always translates into higher taxes and costs ) we will never survive the latest world ending tragedy upon us. Or as the author humorously notes, their publications about the end of the world always seem to have an annual renewal card enclosed ! The author develops a great case how the Kyoto Protocol is really about controlling Energy Policy. It was rejected by the US and 155 other countries, representing the majority of the world's economic activity and its population. It is a European treaty with one dozen others of which NONE are in fact currently reducing their emissions. How do the BRIC countries feel, Brazil, Russia, India and China ? They are all for having these major countries sign on. Why ? The cost to meet these impossible standards are of such staggering proportions that they gleefully declare "you, but not us". We would only become even more non-competitive with these countries as we are forced to raise our prices astronomically to adhere to the treaty. If you think you have seen jobs lost to overseas countries recently, just wait. "Cap and Trade" is a direct result of this policy, showing us once again how great sums of capital can be realized by producing nothing. I give credit to the people who dream these schemes up though, enriching themselves greatly while impoverishing others. Hey, just another day in the boardroom. OK I admit it, I'm jealous, I actually have to work and produce to earn a paycheck.And of course, let's not forget, George Bush, who is evil incarnate. He is solely to blame for all the world's problems ( I know this because my liberal friends tell me so, he was even responsible for hurricane Katrina ! ) but none of the positives that may have come about, such as the recent handing over of Iraq's Anbar province to its people, or the successful foiling of terrorists activity within our country's borders. Just a minute while I count up how many attacks since 9/11. Oh, that was easy, it would be NONE. Then we have Nancy Pelosi ( the failed author now ) who is "Trying to save the planet " by refusing to act in the interests of the American people( I thought that was her job )and allow any drilling which would go a long way in helping America become more energy independent. Just as a side note, why haven't any more of those annoying actors and other celebs left the country yet anyway ? They did promise if Bush won a few years back didn't they ? OK, there was Johnny Depp, now living in France. But other than J.D. could it be the simple fact that because it is better here than anywhere else ?Now, how are the statistics used to prejudice facts you may ask. On page 40 the author explains- "A combination of the absurdities occurred when President Bush introduced his 'Clear Skies Initiative'. This set of regulations aimed to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by a projected 73 percent, mercury by 69 percent, and nitrogen oxides by 67 percent. Natural Resources Defense Council and their cohorts decried this policy as an increase in pollution. They charged that Bush's policy would triple mercury emissions and increase sulphur by 50 percent. You see, the greens were advocating even stricter rules promising even larger emission reductions, enabling them to characterize 'Clear Skies' as an 'increase,' if only relative to the plans they had drawn up in their fancy offices".Now I am weak in math but I believe their logic goes something like this - I ( the greenie ) ask for a 60% reduction, and you ( the evil Bush ) want to give me ONLY 40%. Therefore you are giving me an increase of 50% ( add 50% of 40, or 20, to the number 40 and it is now 60 and VOILA - since I wanted 60% and I only got 40%, so you have given me an increase of 50%, not a decrease. This is ENRON type math at the very best. Apparently the facts don't matter when dealing with these people.Statistical Example #2- the greens would have you believe that based on weather station reporting that the earth's mean temperature is warming. The definition of mean will play no factor in their number. Why ? Because they fail to include the fact that reporting weather stations that were once included were in very cold areas of Russia. As the country began falling apart economically, they took those stations offline, thereby removing those LOW numbers that used to be included, thereby leading to higher overall numbers. Using my weak math skills again, I believe it's like this. I have a series of 20 numbers - 10 are 10 and 10 are 6. The average is 100+60 = 160, now divided by 20 = 8. I introduce the new weather readings( excuse me, numbers ) and have the following after taking the lower reporting stations offline ( sorry, I mean lower numbers out ). I now have the following set of numbers - 10 are still 10 but now only 6 are now 6. This gives me a total of 100+36 = 136. Divide 136 by 16 and the number is 8.5. Oh my word, the temperature of the earth has risen - based on my ( faulty ) SCIENTIFIC METHOD by .5 degrees or statistically by 6.25%. The result is a catastrophic scenario and a huge problem as my "statistical research" just "proved"( actually, it's only a problem for those interested in keeping the "scientific method" scientific however ).By the way, the above mentioned 6.25% is an example of how one uses statistics to "prove the point", or as more intelligent, unemotional, nothing financially to gain people may say - "Lie".Follow the money. Many of the people pushing this agenda also have much to gain financially as new regulations are put into effect. Just look into how much Al Gore has at stake as these regulations become legally mandatory. In case you were not aware, Al Gore has joined Silicon Valley's Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Venture capital firm. As luck would have it, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers specializes in alternative energy investments. So Al is in a position to greatly profit by the efforts to offset the disasters that are attributed to Global Warming.The author also discusses that while there are some glaciers receding there are also other glaciers increasing. For some reason we never hear about that but instead get pictures of a polar bear "stranded" on a block of ice floating in the middle of nowhere. Great picture, and really was worth a thousand words but sorry, I was under the impression that polar bears could somehow swim ? ( They can by the way, regardless of what others may try and tell you ). Besides, I have it on good authority that particular bear was simply tired and took a rest by hitching a ride to his next stop. And those great pictures showing the large slabs of ice falling off the icebergs, more "proof" the planet is heating up - or not. The scientific term is "calving" and the author explains how it happens because the iceberg has actually gotten to large to maintain its size so these pieces breaking off happen as a normal course of events and are in no way related to "Global Warming".If they can keep us in fear, we can be told to turn to them ( government ) for more intervention and regulation to help solve the problems. After all, we all know it worked out so well with their handling of social security and the national debt.Finally, one of the things the green machine really hates is for someone who decides to learn about this subject to bring up the fact that wasn't it just recently they were predicting we were going to perish from a new ICE AGE ? Or as stated by Nigel Calder in International Wildlife, June of 1975, " The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind". And there was Paul Ehrlich who stated in his 1968 book, "The Population Bomb" that " the battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now". Where did they hide all those bodies anyway ? Oh, I forgot, we are facing a population explosion as well as increased obesity epidemics. But don't ever let the facts get in the way of a good story.EXAMPLE - please read the few RECENT short articles below regarding global warming at links below. The Science strongly disputes what the Eco's would have you believe[...]

Christopher Horner's book is one of the best commentaries on the politicized nature of science to come out this decade. The book tackles the so called scientific "consensus" on global warming from just about every conceivable angle. He brings up a variety of little known (or at least rarely reported) facts that should give anyone pause before swallowing the all the claims routinely offered as evidence of manmade global warming. Readers will learn, for example, that concurrent with the rise in global mean surface temperature during the 1990s (the "hottest decade on record") there was a dramatic drop in the number of surface reporting stations, especially in Arctic regions of the former Soviet Union. Not surprisingly, when you eliminate a significant number of lower temperatures from the set of global reported temperatures, you obtain a higher mean. Readers will also learn about the fraudulent nature of the now infamous "hockey stick," a graph created by Michael Mann, which purported to show that after 900 years of steady temperatures, the last 100 years have witnessed a dramatic rise in temperature resulting in a graph shaped like a hockey stick. This graph, first published in the journal Nature, and then republished in numerous UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) press releases, was one of the most popular and convincing pieces of evidence ever marshalled in favor of global warming. Of course, in producing a graph showing no climate change for 900 years, Mann had to completely ignore the well established medieval warm period from 1000 to 1300AD and the subsequent "Little Ice Age" which lasted into the mid 1800s and from which we have just recently emerged. But Horner presents some little known and truly damning evidence when he notes that Mann's methodology was designed to produce such a graph regardless of the evidence. Indeed, even when fed random numbers, Mann's algorithms produce hockey sticks.Despite these stunning indictments of some of the more popular claims for global warming, this book is not primarily a review of the scientific evidence. Horner is far more concerned with motives and the psychology of those who embrace global warming than he is with the arguments used to advance it. In some cases, these motives are fairly obvious. Despite the mantra that "Big Energy" opposes the "scientific consensus" about global warming, the fact is that some companies, like Enron (formerly) and Dupont (at present), lobby for the passage of legislation similar to the Kyoto treaty because they stand to profit from it. Cap-and-trade policies for limiting carbon dioxide emisions can substantially increase the bottom line for many companies, even as they increase costs for customers with no discernable benefit for the environment or the economy. Similarly, journalists and major news outlets sell more by reporting sensationalist headlines than by carefully examining the evidence for such claims. This is one reason Mann's "hockey stick" went unchallenged for as long as it did. It was a nice visual for news consumers. But the bulk of this book is an analysis of ideologues and true believers: people who are so passionate about their cause that they will brook no dissent; people like history teacher Naomi Oreskes. Ms. Oreskes claimed she did an analysis of all 928 articles on climate change and found none that disputed the claim of manmade global warming. The fact that she cherry picked her 928 articles from a total of over 11,000 did (eventually) receive some coverage. Readers of this book will further learn how she intentionally distorted the findings of the limited articles she bothered to peruse. For the record, only 13 of those articles actually defended manmade climate change. This says much about the so called consensus, but even more about the tactics and mentality of those who believe in environmental Armageddon. This is the actual focus of Horner's book.In some respects, this focus is a little disappointing. I for one would like to see more of the (actual) data about global warming, or at least more evidence as to why we should be skeptical of some, or all, of the claims made by the alarmists. You will not find in this book, for example, the study, also published in Nature, which purported to link grape harvests in Southern France to temperature increases. That study was thoroughly vetted (though not by Nature, which refused to publish a rebuttal). Similarly, you would never know from reading this book that some groves of ancient bristlecone pines, which grow at their upper elevation limits of their range in the White Mountains of California, are an excellent proxy for measuring long term local, if not global, warming. Visitors to the Patriarch Grove can see thousands of years of climate history before their very eyes. In times of warming, the pines move up the hillside above the grove, but die back in times of cooling. Thousand year old stumps show the limits of the grove in times of previous warming, while the edge of the present grove shows where these long lived pines retreated during the period of the Little Ice Age. Today, young bristlecone pines are again beginning to colonize the hills above the Patriarch Grove. Evidence for climate change? Yes. Evidence for the claim that this is the warmest period in world history? Hardly. But this is precisely the sort of evidence I would like to see more of in a comprehensive book on global warming. The real climate picture is far more complex than the wildly exaggerated claims of Al Gore, and easy as it is to refute those claims, it would be nice to find out more of the actual research on the topic. This book simply does not do that.Nonetheless, I cannot fault Christopher Horner too much for devoting more space to satirizing (and sometimes savaging) the various global warming alarmists than to actual climate research. The very behavior of global warming advocates almost demands such treatment. They, after all, are the ones who claim there is a consensus and argue that we are past debate. They are the ones who try to silence scholars like Dr. Edward Wegman, mathematician, who has modestly suggested adding statisticians to the review boards of academic journals to prevent wildly misleading presentations of the data, and hurricane expert Christopher Landsea who had the temerity to note the 2005 hurricane season was not the result of global warming. (Neither was the almost non-existent 2006 season.) They are the ones, in short, who would like to abandon actual science, involving such standards as debate, access to data, and replicable experiments in favor of a politically imposed "consensus." Surely such (non) scholars as Al Gore, Oreskes, James Hansen, and Michael Mann deserve to be mocked by Horner. They are, as he says, watermelons: green on the outside by red on the inside. They hate capitalism and the wealth it brings and couch their attacks on it in terms of science.But the problem Horner is writing about also deserves more serious attention. Why is it that "science" now demands consensus? What do self professed scientists hope to gain by making their wild doomsday prophecies? I've personally come to believe that "science" is really more of a religion than a methodology to enhance our understanding of the natural world. Like many other evangelical faiths "science" hopes to convert others by offering sacred texts that can only be properly interpreted the ordained priesthood. This explains the criticism, often levelled against those who disagree with a particular scientific consensus, that they are not "scientists" and therefore cannot hope to understand, much less comment on, claims made by the self appointed guardians of the new faith. (As if one needed more than a sixth grade mathematics background to know, for example, that removing multiple low outliers from your data set will raise any mean, even that of "average global surface temperature.") And like other faiths, science proposes various end-of-the-world scenarios from which the faithful can only be saved if they will abandon their sinful ways (in particular, their SUVs) and accept the discipline of their new priesthood. All this is far removed from the traditional caution that used to be commonplace among scientists. Of course, there are still many people, including many amateurs, engaged in serious scientific research who make careful, nuanced, and limited claims about data that they have laboriously gathered and considered from multiple angles. But the new religion of science has little use for such people. They can continue to publish in obscure journals, but their careers are over should they publicly express hesitation, much less outright dissent, from the popular claims of the day. This dramatic change in the nature of science is a fascinating story in and of itself. Hopefully Christopher Horner can be persuaded to pursue it further in another book.

A very witty and fact filled piece of work. I have read various books on this topic (With my favourite being The Real Global Warming Disaster, by Christopher Booker).Booker's book is very long and more complex than this piece. However, if anybody has doubts over man made climate change, I thoroughly recommend this book as a starter.Although it has over 300 pages, it really doesn't take long for you to read. (Infact, the "Politically Incorrect Guide's" are very straight forward and easy to read)A very good book, and one that should be on the school curriculum, instead of all the junk, hysterical, fictional science the mainstream are shoving down our throats

great book. Everyone needs ro read the book to get the trutrh

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Il faut être habitué à l'américain pour lire ce livre fort bien documenté. Le fond est superbe la forme difficile.

Before you buy this book, you need to ask yourself just one questions: do you feel fed up with "elites" and their politically correct dogma in general, but particularly in relation to global warming/climate change? If yes, then you will enjoy this book which like most of the others in the series delights in breaking elitist taboos. Do not let the funny cover fool you though: this book is a lot more than just a juvenile rasp at the establishment. Instead, it is a surprisingly detailed analytical critique of the media portayal of global warming, and how the actual truth is very different.The chapters are well organised, and dotted with little boxes containing interesting quotes and even suggested further reading in an "index prohibitus" for those anxious for more taboo. The writing style is a curious mixture of serious deep discussion, peppered with witty asides and light hearted joking, especially when alarmist quotes from the past are highlighted. There is also an extremely revealing analysis of how the EU is attempting to use international treaties like Kyoto to try and peg leg the economies of its rivals such as India, China and especially the USA, which is something I had never considered before. In addition, the author also reveals how energy corporations often support renewable energy under the camouflage of corporate social responsibility when in actual fact many of these corporations own vast shares in these new technologies, and are thus motivated by simple greed.The book does have its weaknesses though. There is one chapter for instance that seems to do little more than show rainfall and temperature graphs, and this is hard to get excited about (I skim read this part). Another problem with the book is its surprising length, at over 300 pages long, and is thus slightly longer than your average airport novel. Finally, the author shows that the green hysteria is a myth aimed at increasing taxes and government control, but doesn't then go on to tell us what we can do about it. Thus it is long on diagnosis, short on cure.All in all, the book is written in a highly accessible style, and grapples with an important topic in an objective and highly original way. This book is strongly recommended.