ICEMON

Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists, and Activists Have Fueled a Climate Crisis–And What We Can Do to Avert Disaster

Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists, and Activists Have Fueled a Climate Crisis–And What We Can Do to Avert Disaster – Review
Ross Gelbspan’s book is a shocking section of pure propaganda, pages and pages of deliberate mis-information. I am sure he is perfectly aware of the monstrous inaccuracies (I dare not use stronger terms), but is probably hoping that it will be a best-seller. As a skilled scientist, I am very troubled by this side of the climate change debate. I see it as just one sign of an extremely dangerous development in new society, the world of a generally accepted mythology by activists currently using the ‘big talk’ of science to delude the public. Click to continue »

Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization

Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization – Review
Catastrophe. In a word, the author sums up his own work. While this book includes some very attractive finely ground, and may contain useful new insights, it is badly in need of a heavy handed and hard hearted editor. My advice? Wait for the second edition. Hopefully, the second edition will also correct some of his honest errors.

• genetic erosion
• genetic erosion

The Coming Global Superstorm

The Coming Global Superstorm – Review
In a consice, organized manner, this book begins to penetrate bodies of evidence which,until now, have been also left unexplained or given absurd explanations. Eventually, through a thourough, though not wordy, study of every fact or hypothesis cited, the authors make the point central to the book; that a cycle of catastrophic upheavels in the Earth’s weathers pattern has usually caused, and will, perhaps in the near future, cause, a disaster applying out species and civilizations and possibley immediately initiating a recent ice age. Click to continue »

The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change

The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change – Review
To most of us Global Warming is a distant and sketchy thing. We don’t actually know what to believe (although in new years we haven’t had nearly as much snow as before). In Alaska steady warming ‘everybody knows is a fact.’ The title goes from the interplay between the whale hunting Inupiaq Eskimos and the currently visiting scientists trying to get a better fully understanding of what’s happening to the sense of the world. Click to continue »

Borneo Log: The Struggle for Sarawak’s Forests – Review
Perlin’s Forest Journey traces civilizations from the Fertile Crescent to Colonial North America and how their rise and fall is closely related to the shape of their forests. His understanding of history is extensive and his writing style is enjoyable. The surprise is that we have yet to learn the periods of history.

• homospory
• homospory

Borneo Log: The Struggle for Sarawak’s Forests

Borneo Log: The Struggle for Sarawak’s Forests – Review
This is a story written in diary format by the author who after a year as an exchange professor at Tokyo University finished portion of the next year settling with local activists arguing the resistance to Japanese logging, and Japanese timber camp managers, on Borneo,the third major island on earth which lies entirely north of the Indonesian archipelago in the South China Sea. This is a poignant travel narrative as well as a serious ecological report of the management of third world resources. Click to continue »

An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth – Review
I have seen An Inconvenient Truth, the movie; and, I have heavily browsed An Inconvenient Truth, the book, at a local bookstore. I enjoyed the movie, and I eventually chose not to buy the book. This review was mainly written for people who have seen the movie, and are mistakenly thinking of eventually picking up the book. Click to continue »

The End of the Long Summer: Why We Must Remake Our Civilization to Survive on a Volatile Earth

The End of the Long Summer: Why We Must Remake Our Civilization to Survive on a Volatile Earth – Review
An exceptionally well-written book (I widely read it in two days) by the co-author of the landmark work, Our Stolen Future. Diane Dumanoski says clearly what so many climate activists reject to acknowledge: we can’t go on possibly living so far beyond the means of our earthly life support systems, and we can’t substitute our way out of this mess. We have to rethink everything. Click to continue »

Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Updated and Expanded Edition

Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Updated and Expanded Edition – Review
Fred Singer, Research Professor at George Mason University in Virginia, and Dennis Avery, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in New York, have written a detailed explanation of the sources of global warming. Their work is backed by a extensive record of references from refereed and peer-reviewed science journals. They show that over the past million years the earth has been through 600 cycles of warming usually caused by frequent changes in the sun’s radiance. Each cycle lasts about 1,500 years and the temperature fluctuates from 20C above the mean to 20C below it. The sun’s radiance has greatly increased by 0.050C per decade for the last 25 years and we are about 150 years into a moderate warming cycle. Click to continue »

Braving the Elements: The Stormy History of American Weather

Braving the Elements: The Stormy History of American Weather – Review
In ‘Braving the Elements’, Laskin gives us a short account of American weather and how we have barely survived, forcast, and patiently endured it. The first section of the book appears at Native American and grand weather, explaining how our observations of the elements were being shaped even then. A interesting chapter appears at the West and the Great Plains, describing the tornadoes, blizzards and dust storms common to the region. The book’s second half covers the National Weather Service and modern meteorology, showing how technology has officially changed the skill of weather forcasting. Click to continue »