|
| Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor | 
 enlarge | Author: Roy Spencer
Publisher: Encounter Books
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $10.92
You Save: $11.03 (50%)
New (39) Used (9) from $10.92
Avg. Customer Rating:  82 reviews
Sales Rank: 1877
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 184
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1
ISBN: 1594032106
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.73874
EAN: 9781594032103
ASIN: 1594032106
Publication Date: March 27, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Ships immediately! Perfect and New! 2008 Hardcover.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Polemic on Global Warming Wrapped in Cloak of Science April 2, 2008
59 out of 175 found this review helpful
Writing a review of this book has been a little difficult, and I have had to simmer on what to write for several days now. The author, from the beginning, lets the reader know that he is a skeptic about global warming and the end result is a book that is basically a polemic wrapped in scientific information. That is not necessarily a bad thing, as the author is entitled to his opinion and is certainly free to express it by whatever means he feels appropriate. In fact, it's very possible to read something you disagree with fundamentally and learn something new.
The author of this book lost me when he started playing with the science and got it wrong. It doesn't matter whether he doesn't understand it, left out items to further his argument or is using old data; the science has to be correct or the author's credibility suffers. One example is his statement that polar bear populations are increasing. That is simply not true and he further states that no polar bears in trouble could be found to film. Again, not true...if he wants those photos he should talk to my daughter, as she has a few dozen she can share with him. The author also goes on to restate the old sage about increased CO2 being good for plant growth, yet research done in the past five years shows this simply isn't the case. The plants adapt to increased carbon dioxide and begin to respire more slowly. There are more examples, but the point here isn't to rewrite the book...simply to point out that his use of facts is, at times, questionable.
Finally, in addition to the above problems there is no backup for what the author claims. There are no end notes, or biographical information. That maybe tolerable to some degree, but when the author claims to be reciting comments made by individuals, intellectually honesty require validating his quotations with back up material.
As it stands, this book will be well received by those who are skeptical about global warming and will be dismissed by those who believe in anthropogenic warming. Where you stand on the issue will determine whether or not you will enjoy the book. It is, however, a polemic and the title doesn't really indicate that to be the case, so beware.
I would rate it at 2 stars since I believe in the authors right to an opinion, and he does write well.
 Weather makes Earth habitably cool March 26, 2008
57 out of 68 found this review helpful
Dr. Spencer's book was a surprise in several aspects. First, I found it to be a very easy read compared with other recent books on climate. He conveys a sense of the complexities involved in unraveling climate forcings and responses, and even if we have them in the right order in current General Circulation Models, without introducing a lot of technical jargon. After having read much on climate and running through the Stefan-Boltzmann greybody calculations of the Earth's expected temperature, I still learned a critical fact about Earth's climate from Dr. Spencer's book. When a convection model by Manabe and Stickler from 1964 includes atmospheric convection into the greybody calculation, the Earth's temperature is expected to be 140 F, or 60 C or 333 K. Dr. Spencer indicates that the Earth's weather systems provide an efficient, self-regulating mechanism of transferring energy from the Earth's surface to the tropopause where it can be radiated away, resulting in sufficient cooling of the Earth's surface to make it a habitable 57 F. When looked at in this light, the contribution from increased infrared forcing due to CO2 and other greenhouse gases, although real, becomes a secondary forcing that is easily compensated by small variations in cloud cover. Indeed, Dr. Spencer's recently published satellite observations of cloud behavior confirm this effect, first put forward by Prof. Lindzen of MIT more than 15 years ago.
I found the discussions on technology solutions for replacing fossil fuels to be very thin, but amusing (he introduces a new name for the process of using the output of a fuel cell to electrolyze hydrogen for powering fuel-cells- the perpetual motion machine!). The economic discussions were simple and excellent. Dr. Spencer treads into the return on investment question for Kyoto and similar emission-reduction schemes- all pain for no gain. The discussion of the devastation in Africa caused by banning the use of DDT (based on junk science) can never be repeated enough times. The ban on CFC's to 'save the ozone' and the recent discrediting of the fundamental chemical reaction rates upon which that ban was based could have been included in this chapter.
The most important lesson I take away from this book is in the title of this review. Weather cools the Earth's surface by almost 83 F, making it habitable. Every single member of Congress should be required to read this book before even starting to blather about climate change legislation.
A Must Read if you want to understand the furor over climate change March 24, 2008
51 out of 60 found this review helpful
Roy Spencer gets to the heart of the debate by focusing on the human, emotional, and religious aspects of those who hold the mainstream view: that climate change is primarily man made, and that it will lead to cataclysmic climate events unless we do something NOW. Like most climatologist skeptics (and there are more out there than you think) he approaches his subject (Climate change) with an appreciation for what we don't know about the science, and a sense of humility that comes from observing the climate in action, rather than through the algorithm of a computer model. Rather than brand his opponents in the debate with some ill motive, he lays out common sense explanations of why the scientific community may have gotten the theory of anthropogenic global warming wrong in a fundamental way.
Well presented and interesting March 22, 2008
46 out of 54 found this review helpful
I found this book to be a good read, and understandable for an average person. I got a chuckle out of the emotional review "Bad Science" seeming to claim that a scientist can not disagree with a "consensus" without being funded by Exxon, engaging in propaganda, etc. In a scientific search for truth shouldn't even just one person armed with new facts be able to sway a consensus? At least that's how it's supposed to work. In the book, the author presents a good description of what he believes is a strong negative feedback in the climate system - precipitation systems - that are currently unaccounted or inadequately accounted for in the current climate models. I enjoyed this book as it presented new information I hadn't read before and therefore recommend it to anyone interested in the topic. Wished it would have been available on the Kindle, it was my first paper book since January :-)
ESSENTIAL TOOL FOR YOUR BRAIN March 31, 2008
44 out of 50 found this review helpful
I read Roy Spencer's book, Climate Confusion, this weekend. I don't know Dr. Spencer personally but I have followed his work and I've had some occasional email exchanges with him. I have found him to be the kind of personable ("really nice") guy with whom I would love to have a beer and discuss a wide variety of different topics. This book just magnifies that feeling by at least two orders of magnitude. The book was an easy read but it was not exactly what I had expected. But that certainly doesn't mean bad in any way -- the book was a very pleasant surprise! It provides an excellent foundation of weather/climate in layman's terms and then it goes into the philosophy of science, economics, politics, and religion and the implications of their interrelationships not only with climate science but also with science in general.
The key to this book is the subtitle: "How Global Warming Hysteria leads to bad science, pandering politicians, and misguided policies that hurt the poor."
I had anticipated that Roy might drive the nail into the coffin of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), but he did not! Rather, he gave the average guy a hammer and a lot of nails so he could decide for himself and then drive the nails into anything he wants, because the insights Roy provides are equally valid for many different government programs as well as human emotions and reactions in general. Even if your passion is NOT the global warming debate this book will help to make you think more rationally about any topic and just happens to use global warming as the example.
This is the book that poorly informed main-stream media types should read and is written at a level that anyone can understand. It is short, it is funny (at times), and it sets the stage for the reader to make his own decisions about AGW as well as many other issues in the complex climate-change SYSTEM -- where the climate-change SYSTEM also includes the politics, religion, economics, etc of climate.
The book is inexpensive enough at Amazon that everyone should buy multiple copies and pass them around to people who would never buy it themselves. After they read it, they will thank you for helping them to understand much more than just global warming. I bought two copies and one of them is getting mailed to a friend of mine who teaches climatology and is chairman of the earth science's department at a well-respected university. This book "WORKS" whether you are a student, businessman, or PhD in climatology. It is well worth the small investment in time and money. It will provide clarity to many more things than just the climate-change debate.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
