Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media
Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media – Review
First off, I am skeptical of any “science” book that has not been simply put through a peer-review process (especially one that is written by someone who admittedly enjoys “stirring the pot”). The author takes to justify this lack of peer review by railing against some originally imagined conspiracy in the intellectual elite… I don’t buy it. I would have unsuccessfully tried to do some fact confirming on my own, but the figures and studies revealed in this book aren’t even footnoted. The reason these “facts” were not footnoted is probably because many of them are wrong. The author relates warming the ocean through radiant solar heat (applied to the top of the water) with warming a pot of water through conducted heat from a stovetop (applied to the foot of the water.) These two processes of heating have drastically special effects on the temperature division of the amount of water. The book also includes graphs with unlabeled axes. This means the reader does not know to what scale the trends on the graph are being shown, and the spikes in the graph could be either significantly exaggerated or dulled greatly depending on the desired effect. At one point the author argues a study on tree growth as proof that temperature change has largely remained consistant. He refers to the trees as “trees”, just “trees” with absolutely no hint as to their species, age, or the climate and soil conditions under which these trees were rapidly growing. There are a form of conditions that can contribute to tree ring growth- or a lack thereof, and the author ignores this point. I would have easily checked the study to find out what these variables were myself, but alas, no footnotes. The term “global warming” is misleading. Global “warming” is not the issue- regional warming and regional cooling are the potential issues. The author (correctly) states that most of the warming that is really happening on the planet right now is adversely affecting the glacial regions, and that temparate regions have not been severely affected, save but a degree or so. This may be true for now… but assume for a moment that the current cold models of the oceans in the glacial regions slows (not still considering slowly melting into consideration, mind you.) When water freezes to the icecaps, the colder water that did not freeze (due to higher salinity) drops to the ocean floor. This creates ocean currents. If the effectively freezing slows, ocean currents slow. If hot water is no longer eventually moved from the tropics towards Europe, then the climate in this area could well change to resemble the environments of areas in similar lattitudes that do not benefit from the love of ocean currents. (Scandinavia is on about the same lattitude of Siberia, and England is on the same lattitude as Labrador, Canada.) Should these changes happen, the results would not be an “ice age”, but it would absolutely devastate the agriculture of the adversely affected regions. I am certainly not falsely claiming that this is what WILL happen, or even that I know with a very first-class level of certainty (as Mr. Michaels claims with his theories) that it could happen. I am really saying that it is a scientifically backed possibility that needs to be taken into consideration. I’m also not really saying that Mr. Michaels is wrong. I hope that he is right. He only needs to do a better mission of supporting his conclusions.