The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming

by Robert C Balling JR., Patrick J. Michaels, Robert C. Balling, et al.

Book Overview

Climatologist extraordinaire Patrick J. Michaels says it is.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1882577922
• ISBN13: 9781882577927
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Cato Institute
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Human Caused?

The Satanic Gases is a book that should be read by every none believer in global warming and by every global warming Kool-Aid drinker. The book shows that yes the earth has gotten warmer over the last hundred years. It also shows how people use every abnormal weather occurrence is blamed by global warming including El Niño which has happened for the past 5,000 years. Also how we blame blizzards, floods, draughts, warm temperatures cold temperatures, and anything that's not average. This book is not an easy read and should be given time to read and digest. The book is well thought out and shows how only one side is ever presented, Especailly the coverage it gets during a hurricane or other natural disaster. It also shows how over the last 50 years hurricanes have decreased and tornados also. It also documents that CO2 levels were higher when the dinosaurs were alive and during the ice age. It also documents how temperatures have changed since the beginning of the world. Finally he shows the exaggerations of politicians such as Al Gore who make ridicules statements that aren't always backed by science. Also the effects of treaties and protocols would have to prevent global warming and the economic effects they would have. Over all this is a great book on this topic.

Timely book

Throughout history the vision of apocalyptic crisis continues to attract the multitude.As good as this book is about the science of "global warming", the part I liked the best talks about the social mechanisms and political incentives that continually imagine and inflate crisis far beyond their true import. The subject has been well treated before in the classic: "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles MacKay and in Julian Simon's: "The Ultimate Resource"Remember the Luddites, Malthus, or the club of Rome (which predicted mass starvation for the 1980's), "global cooling", and innumerable other crises. Unsophisticated crackpots schedule the end of the world within their lifetimes, so their folly is revealed on that day.It takes real "sophistication" and political motivation (what better example than the UN) to select a menace so difficult to disprove and so far in the future, that we can finally punish those evil greedy capitalists.Meanwhile, Popocatapetl just erupted in Mexico and spewed forth probably more pollutants in one day than all of humanity can manage in 6 months.

An Evolving Mainstream?

At the outset, I have been a global-warming-as-disaster agnostic. But I have followed the arguments for years and try to read everything that comes out, and I try (but maybe fail) to not "prejudge" if I know something about the authors etc...I also look at reviews with I hope an open mind.That brings me to The Satanic Gases. The argument is really very simple: The planet warms, partially from human beings, but humans themselves cannot stop what they are doing and in fact have been adapting to this all along. But extreme scenarios get play from a political process that only funds our most lurid problems and a media that exists to sell media (surprise!). In fact, though, future warming is likely to be near the low end of the range, unless almost all scientific models are wrong to the core. This argument is made in very convincing fashion in this book.What amazes me is that it seems you either agree with these guys, citing the obvious plethora of facts and figures in the book, or you disagree and attack personally. This itself bumps my review of this book up one star. But, more important--and I hope I am not wrong here--it's beginning to look more and more like Michaels and Balling were in fact the correct prophets about the ultimate (non)-resolution of this issue. They have been screaming this from every available mountaintop (some supplied by industry, others from their University positions--major institutions like ASU and Virginia don't hand out Full Professor from cracker jack boxes) for years now. I give this book 4.5 stars (rounded to 5)as a result. More evidence: A few months ago Nova/Frontline had a global warming show in which the entire second hour was devoted (without credit) to precisely Michaels' and Balling's proposition: you can't stop it, and you can't even slow it much, so why try? The July Atlantic Monthly is even more telling. A huge piece by Daniel Sarewitz and Roger Pielke concludes 1)The science will never adequately support policy, and 2) We can't do much about it anyway, and 3) We have adapted if we have enough money, so maybe we ought to help poor countries with infrastructure. Pielke was a Democratic staffer for the late (of Southern California) congressman Brown's Science committee. Hey, those are the same arguments Michaels and Balling make in Satanic Gases, only based upon mountains of data.It's rare to see (what I used to think) were caterwauling naysayers turn out right, but I am very close to moving off the agnostic fence as a result of The Satanic Gases. It probably doesn't hurt that the book is very well written--I have seen in local papers several Op-Eds by Michaels and he is a very hot, entertaining writer for a scientist, almost like the "Anti-Sagan".

Facts not Rhetoric

The cleverly titled "Satanic Gases" is a remarkably interesting book. Those of us who follow the greenhouse issue have been peppered with hot rhetoric and ad hominem attacks on the motives and the credibility of the authors. For example, see Ross Gelbspan's book, which makes the preposterous argument that these two authors have somehow convinced the entire nation that global warming isn't a threat, while the 2,500 scientists can't counter them. But what comes out of The Satanic Gases is far different than boilerplate rhetoric--from either side. It is very highly referenced (so much for the argument that the critics don't publish), comes with the endorsment of the past presdients of the National Academy of Science, the American Physical Society, the past director of the U.S. Geological Survey, and the past director of the Board of Agriculture of the National Research Council. The argument made has considerable internal consistency--read it for yourself and compare it to others and you may come to the same conclusion. But, moreover, Michaels and Balling provide a neat explanation as to WHY the issue has been overemphasized that breaks new intellectual ground and seems difficult to refute. In addition, the book is surprisingly evenhanded (considering the opposing rhetoric) taking on misconsceptions about this issue whether they are from the right or the left. That's what makes this book different, and is why you should read it. I've read Stevens and Gelbspan and Gore's new edition (Satanic Gases is currently outselling all of them) and they just aren't as interesting, amusing, factual, or intellectually challenging. This book is a sleeper that is going to have a lot of staying power.