Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians, and Misguided Policies That Hurt the Poor

by Roy W. Spencer

Book Overview

The current frenzy over global warming has galvanized the public and cost taxpayers billons of dollars in federal expenditures for climate research. It has spawned Hollywood blockbusters and inspired major political movements. It has given a higher calling to celebrities and built a lucrative industry for scores of eager scientists. In short, ending climate change has become a national crusade. And yet, despite this dominant and sprawling campaign,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594032106
• ISBN13: 9781594032103
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Encounter Books
• Length: 150 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Common sense based on fact, not speculation.

Any person who can think critically and read between the lines will love this book. Spencer's writing is easy to read, understand and sometimes humorous. He explains the countless variables and guesswork in predicting weather patterns. He also follows the money trail and lies told as millions are spent and data is skewed for funding. This is what the media mob won't tell you. From a man with credentials and common sense.

Distrust mathematical models--it's quantification as camouflage

Note: It will interest everyone here to know that a hacker has stolen the emails of some of the worlds "top" climate scientists, and that these emails contain evidence that global warming scientists do in fact make results up to get funding. They "massage" the data to try and hide the fact that the earth is actually getting cooler (not warmer) and try to suppress those who express skepticism. Implicated in all of this is Mann, the creator of the bogus "hockey stick graph." The Wall Street Journal asked Mann for a response, to which he replied he "won't dignify that question with a response." Sounds like guilt to me. And now for the review: Roy Spencer argues that the reason there seems to be a consensus among scientists regarding "global warming theory" is that 1) most scientists don't actually conduct research on the forecasting models the theory is based on, and so, though they are scientists, are not any more knowledgeable than laypersons regarding this particular theory and 2) scientists are human too, and as humans, fall victim to group think. Spencer points out that the mathematical models used to predict future climate are NOT akin to the forecasting methods meteorologists use to forecast next week's weather. Some important points: Sure, we are good at predicting whether it will rain tomorrow or in two days, but the validity of even short-term weather forecasts shrinks to nearly zero when trying to predict 10 days ahead or more. Climatologists using mathematical models to predict future climate, say, 100 years from now are playing a whole other ball game. The somewhat steady temperature of the earth is hypothesized to occur because of a somewhat constant tradeoff between the energy coming in from the sun and the infrared energy the earth bleeds back out into space. Global warming theory posits that the accumulation of greenhouse gasses throws off this balance, so that the earth traps more heat than it releases, thereby raising temperatures in the lower atmosphere. A problem with global warming theory is that it seems to be overly simplistic. First of all, most people going around talking about "greenhouse gasses" seem to believe that most of these "gasses" are caused by car emissions. Not so. The greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor in the atmosphere, cloud cover, methane, CO2 and a few other things. Contrary to popular belief, 90 percent of the greenhouse effect is dependent upon water vapor and cloud cover. Very little of it has anything to do with CO2 emissions. The problem is, mathematical models that project such trends do so by making horribly unrealistic ceteris paribus clauses ("all else being equal" assumptions), when in reality, all else will not be equal in the future. In other words, it is unrealistic to assume that if CO2 keeps increasing that water vapor and cloud cover will remain the same. Global warming advocates assume that as CO2 increases water vapor will either remain the same or increas

Sanity at last....

Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor by Roy Spencer is a breath of fresh wind. Written by a highly qualified NASA scientist, Climate Confusion examines the current evidence about global warming and the debate surrounding it. Well written for a mass audience and expertly researched and documented, Climate Confusion should be read by all sides of the climate debate. One thing that everyone should note is that their is not massive agreement among the scientific community about global warming. Spencers book is but one voice among many that cries out that we are all being fed a bill of goods by the doom and gloom crowd. He is to congratulated on work well done. Peace to all.

A Must Read if you want to understand the furor over climate change

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.

The best popular account of global warming science

The book only has 150 pages but there is a lot to learn here. First, a few words about the author. Roy Spencer is one of the main people behind the technologies and algorithms to measure the global temperatures from the satellites - achievements that have been rewarded by various awards and that may be giving us the most accurate data about the global mean temperature that is available, even more accurate than James Hansen's GISS data, indeed. (But, despite some people's prejudices, Spencer has been funded from pretty much the same government sources as Hansen, except for those USD 250,000 from Heinz Kerry that Spencer sadly didn't receive.) He is also a very witty and comprehensible expositor who has been writing a website with cute parodies. Recently, he co-authored potentially important papers about the regulating role of clouds for the climate and about the uncertainty about the direction of the causal relationships between the clouds and the temperature. In the book, he first introduces some basics of climate science and explains the nature of the scientific consensus. If the passionate reviewers below had seen the book, they would almost certainly appreciate it. Spencer reveals that the mankind almost certainly contributes something to the climate change and the greenhouse effect is nonzero, too. I know he has also patiently explained many of these well-known things to some of the less educated and more "radical" skeptics and his balanced treatment in the book wasn't a surprise for me. He is clearly no biased partisan. However, he quickly turns his attention to a more important question, namely whether the human activity poses a danger for the climate. He explains that there exist no scientific papers that would offer reliable evidence of such a threat and he exposes various political, ideological, profit-driven, and other non-scientific factors that allow the irrational alarm about global warming to thrive and solid science about these questions to be suppressed and neglected. There is clearly no consensus about a dangerous global warming and after reading the book, you will see why. If I were rating the author's opinions about the origin of the species, he would get less than 5 stars but I suppose this is not what readers should be rating here. This review should be about the book which is witty, technically solid - although avoiding equations -, and revealing the true major scientific and social aspects of the whole debate. Such a book from a qualified expert deserves at least 4.8 stars and I recommend it to you wholeheartedly.