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The Real Global Warming Disaster

Cover of the book
Author	Christopher Booker
Language	English
Subject	Climate/climate change
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Continuum International Publishing Group
Publication date	17 Oct 2009
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	368 pages
ISBN	1441110526
Preceded by	Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth

The Real Global Warming Disaster (Is The Obsession With 'Climate Change' Turning Out To Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder In History?) is a 2009 book by English journalist and author Christopher Booker that purports to chronologically describe, from a standpoint of environmental scepticism, how scientists and politicians came to believe that anthropogenic global warming – as a result of carbon dioxide (CO
₂) emissions – poses a terrible threat to the Earth. Booker interweaves the science of the subject with its political consequences to contend that, as governments become poised to make radical changes in energy policies, the scientific evidence for global warming is becoming increasingly challenged. Booker also postulates that global warming is not supported by a significant number of 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 what he sees as potentially inaccurate global climate models to make temperature projections. Booker surmises at the end of the book that "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, destructive, and foolish mistakes the human race has ever made".

Much of the book, including its central claim, was dismissed as "bunk" by science writer Philip Ball, but the book was praised by several columnists. The conservationist Sir John Lister-Kaye was dubious about the credibility of some of the claims in the book, but described it as "important and brave, and making and explaining many valid points". The book opens with a misquotation commonly used by sceptics, which Booker subsequently acknowledged and promised to correct in future editions.

Background

Shortly before the book's publication, Booker wrote in The Sunday Telegraph that the motivation behind it lay in a consideration of "the supposed menace of global warming – and the political response to it". In the book's introduction, Booker also describes how The Real Global Warming Disaster became for him a necessary continuation of a brief analysis he had made of the anthropogenic global warming issue in his previous book, Scared to Death, and followed a similar theme he had explored there, i.e., that of the media overstating the danger of an issue facing the public, and governments overreacting to the issue by passing legislation entailing considerable economic cost.

Synopsis

The book consists of three parts and an epilogue.

Part One: Forging the 'consensus': 1972—1997

Drawing from Fred Singer and Dennis Avery's Unstoppable Global Warming, Booker presents a graph showing changes in temperature and carbon dioxide concentration over the last 11,000 years. With rising carbon dioxide concentrations the 1970s, scientists such as Paul Ehrlich began to postulate that the earth, as a result of the greenhouse effect, may have been heating up or cooling down, either of which could have potentially disastrous consequences. Figures such as the environmental activist Maurice Strong and scientist Bert Bolin are then introduced, who would allegedly "play a crucial role in what lay ahead" in influencing governmental policy and helping form the scientific basis for global warming. Booker then identifies 1988 as being a key year in which the IPCC was set up and James Hansen appeared at the Senate Committee of Natural Resources in Washington, where he stated that he was "99 percent certain" that man's contribution to the greenhouse effect was the cause of global warming. According to Booker, "on all sides 'global warming' became the cause of the moment" after Hansen's appearance. Booker then describes how:

• in 1990, the IPCC published its first assessment report which made projections of future temperature rises;
• at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit "politicians from 154 countries queued up to sign a 'UN Framework Convention on Climate Change'" that would "commit all the signatory governments to a voluntary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions";
• the second IPCC report (SAR) in 1995 found that the "body of statistical evidence now points to a discernible human influence on the global climate".

Booker writes that the SAR was criticised by 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". Part one ends with an account of the signing of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the setting of new targets for reduced CO
₂ emissions.

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

Booker begins part two by asserting that the medieval warm period "contradicted the idea that late twentieth century temperatures had suddenly shot up to a level never known before in history", and that this problem was dealt with by a 1999 graph (see figure, right) depicting temperatures "suddenly shooting up in the twentieth century to a level that was quite unprecedented. Familiar features such as the Medieval Warm Period and the little ice age simply vanished". Booker asserts that the the graph became the "supreme iconic image for all those engaged in the battle to save the world from global warming". He then asserts that the IPCC's methods, and in particular the draft summary of its next report, came in for serious criticism from scientists such as Richard Lindzen.

Booker then examines Davis Guggenheim's Oscar winning film An Inconvenient Truth and the subsequent questioning of many of its assertions, including retreating glaciers, drowning polar bears, use of the "hockey stick" graph, the melting of the ice caps and snows of Kilimanjaro and rising sea levels.

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

Booker begins part three by quoting the then British Environment Secretary's stating that the IPCC's fourth assessment report was "another nail in the coffin of the climate change deniers". Booker then contrasts this assertion with what he sees as evidence emerging to the contrary: that the earth had in fact begun to cool, possibly as a result of solar variation, and that CO
₂ may thus not be the only driver of climate change. However, the results of research into this theory by the scientists Knud Lassen, Eigil Friis-Christensen and Henrik Svensmark were dismissed by Bert Bolin as "scientifically extremely naïve and irresponsible". Booker then alleges that a 'consensus' and 'counter-consensus' had begun to form, and gives details of a 2007 report by the US Senator James Inhofe that claimed to list 400 scientists "now prepared to express their dissent, sometimes in the strongest terms, from the IPCC's 'consensus' view of global warming". Booker then quotes the June 2007 International Energy Agency announcement that the cost of halving CO
₂ emissions by 2050 (the US and UK governments were intending 80% cuts) would be US$ 45 trillion – equivalent to "two thirds of the world's entire current annual economic output".

Booker ends the book by describing events in the lead up to the climate conference at Copenhagen:

• President Obama's taking the issue of climate change very seriously;
• the emergence of bloggers such as Stephen McIntyre and Anthony Watts 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";
• the failure of the Caitlin Atlantic Survey to establish that ice at the North Pole was diminishing;
• a conference organised by the Heartland Institute entitled "Global warming: is it really a crisis";
• the reluctance of BRIC countries to reduce their CO
  ₂ emissions, frustrating efforts before the Copenhagen conference; and
• the increasingly astronomic forecast cost to Western economies of decarbonising their economies.

Reception

The book received a mixed reception by press reviewers.

In The Spectator, Rodney Leach wrote that "the shelf of sceptical books keeps filling and Booker's belongs there with the best", remarking 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". Columnist James Delingpole described the book as a "classic which any even vaguely intelligent person who wants to know what's really going on needs to read".

In The Mail on Sunday, Peter Hitchens 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 he saw as a "courageous" piece of work.

Writing in The Herald, Brian Morton was largely sympathetic to the position taken by Booker in the book: "The question isn't whether climate is changing, but what is to blame. A crippling tithe of international political effort and social action is directed to the assumption that we are", and "the climate change debate – or enforced consensus – concerns the way science is done and perceived. As Booker says, "consensus" is not a term in science but in politics".

A very positive review by Henry Kelly in The Irish Times, which referred to the book as "meticulously researched, provocative and challenging", was subsequently heavily criticised by Irish environmental campaigner and climatechange.ie website founder John Gibbons, who claimed that the decision by The Irish Times to allow Kelly to review The Real Global Warming Disaster was part of a recent trend of "the media giving too much coverage to 'anti-science' climate change deniers and failing to convey the gravity of the threat, making readers and viewers apathetic".

A review in The Observer by Philip Ball, former editor of Nature, was very critical, describing it as "the definitive climate sceptics' manual" in that it makes an uncritical presentation of "just about every criticism ever made of the majority scientific view" on global warming. Though expressing "a queer kind of admiration for the skill and energy with which Booker has assembled his polemic", Ball dismissed the central claims made by the author in the book as "bunk". Ball also criticised Booker's tactic of introducing climate sceptics "with a little eulogy to their credentials, while their opponents receive only a perfunctory, if not disparaging, preamble" and described as absurd Booker's implication that the entire scientific consensus on global warming rests on the "hockey stick" graph. In The Sunday Times, guest reviewer Charles Clover, former environment editor of The Daily Telegraph, criticised the book for ignoring entirely the issue of the acidification of the oceans, a subsidiary effect of CO
₂ emissions.

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

Wrongly attributed Houghton quotation

On the front page of the book, Booker quotes John T. Houghton as saying "Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen", attributing the quote to Houghton's 1994 book Global Warming, The Complete Briefing. This has also been quoted by other anthropogenic climate change sceptics, including Benny Peiser, Lord Monckton and Roger Helmer. However, the quote does not appear in any edition of Houghton's book, Houghton denies saying it, and has in fact stated that he believes the opposite. In his column in The Daily Telegraph, Booker said he was "misled by the internet" and promised to correct the error in subsequent editions of The Real Global Warming Disaster.

See also

• Climate change consensus
• Global warming
• Global warming controversy
• Global warming conspiracy theory
• Scientific opinion on climate change
• The Hockey Stick Illusion
• The Deniers
• The Great Global Warming Swindle

Bibliography

• Booker, Christopher (2009). The Real Global Warming Disaster. Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. ISBN 1441110526. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Notes

1. Booker in particular refers to the cost of implementing the UK's Climate Change Act of 2008
2. Booker 2009, p. 342
3. ^ Philip Ball (November 15, 2009). "The Real Global Warming Disaster by Christopher Booker". The Observer. Retrieved February 4, 2010. But much, including the central claim, is bunk. Booker's position would require that you accept something like the following: 1) Most of the world's climate scientists, for reasons unspecified, decided to create a myth about human-induced global warming and have managed to twist endless measurements and computer models to fit their case, without the rest of the scientific community noticing. George W Bush and certain oil companies have, however, seen through the deception. 2) Most of the world's climate scientists are incompetent and have grossly misinterpreted their data and models, yet their faulty conclusions are not, as you might imagine, a random chaos of assertions, but all point in the same direction.
4. ^ John Lister-Kaye (December 5, 2009). "Books of the year: Writers' choice". The Scotsman. Retrieved February 5, 2010.
5. ^ Steve Connor (February 10, 2010). "Fabricated quote used to discredit climate scientist". The Independent. Retrieved February 10, 2010. The quotation has since become the iconic smoking gun of the climate sceptic community. The words are the very first to appear in the "manual" of climate denialism written by the journalist and arch-sceptic Christopher Booker. They get more than a 100,000 hits on Google, and are wheeled out almost every time a climate sceptic has a point to make {{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) Cite error: The named reference "independent" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
6. ^ Christopher Booker (February 20, 2010). "What the weatherman never said". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved February 21, 2010.
7. ^ Christopher Booker (December 2, 2009). "The real climate change catastrophe". The Sunday Telegraph. Retrieved February 5, 2010.
8. Booker 2009, p. 4
9. Booker 2009, p. 21
10. Booker 2009, p. 32
11. Booker 2009, p. 41
12. Booker 2009, p. 38
13. Booker 2009, p. 53
14. Booker 2009, p. 63
15. Booker 2009, p. 65
16. Booker 2009, p. 80
17. Booker 2009, p. 83
18. Booker 2009, p. 84
19. Booker 2009, p. 88
20. Booker 2009, pp. 144–150
21. Booker 2009, p. 173
22. Booker 2009, p. 180
23. Booker 2009, p. 208
24. Booker 2009, p. 255
25. Booker 2009, p. 233
26. Booker 2009, p. 270
27. Booker 2009, p. 279
28. Rodney Leach (November 4, 2009). "A wild goose chase". The Spectator. Retrieved February 2, 2010.
29. James Delingpole (October 28, 2009). "You Know It Makes Sense". The Spectator. Retrieved April 5, 2010.
30. Peter Hitchens (November 30, 2009). "The inconvenient truths Mr Gore and his fanatical friends DIDN'T tell you about climate change". The Mail on Sunday. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
31. Brian Morton (November 3, 2009). "Is a climate-change sceptic more like a flat-earther or a Holocaust denier, merely out of touch or mendacious and evil?". The Herald. Retrieved April 3, 2010.
32. Henry Kelly (November 19, 2009). "Myths of global warming skilfully debunked". The Irish Times . Retrieved April 12, 2010.
33. Gabrielle Monaghan (April 4, 2010). "A little warming under the collar". The Times . Retrieved April 12, 2010.
34. Charles Clover (December 13, 2009). "If climate change doesn't grab you, meet its evil twin". The Sunday Times. Retrieved February 5, 2010.

Further reading

• Booker, Christopher; North, Richard (2007). Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth. Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. ISBN 0826486142.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Montford, Andrew (2010). The Hockey Stick Illusion; Climategate and the Corruption of Science. Stacey International. p. 482. ISBN 1906768358.

External links

Booker's synopsis of the book in The Daily Mail

• 2009 books
• Environmental non-fiction books
• Environmental skepticism
• Climate change books