I read this book, a dissent to the CO2-Global warming link, after reading Global Warming: The Complete Briefing. I was expecting a book that was filleI read this book, a dissent to the CO2-Global warming link, after reading Global Warming: The Complete Briefing. I was expecting a book that was filled with non-scientific arguments and personal attacks. I got something completely different: A tightly written book with a narrative that flows naturally and is extremely well referenced. On that front, I am deeply satisfied. There was a lot to learn in this book, most importantly: don't trust graphs and cut-off points without asking WHY a graph is cut-off at that point (Why are arctic ice sheet videos cut off at Sept 2007? (That was the year with the largest ice melt) Why is the cut-off point 1930 for extreme weather events? (1928 was a very bad year with a huge amount of storms) Why is 1979 the starting point for temperature records? (That's when we started taking satellite measurements)
On the other hand, this book was tiring to read because of the unending back-and-forth between the IPCC and it's scientific critics: The flow remained surprisingly similar every single time: IPCC puts out something alarmist, the critics find an issue and ask the IPCC why they let it happen, the IPCC then fixes the issue and says that the "effects of the mistake were minor and don't affect the over-all conclusions", the critics disagree, IPCC disregards the critics as illiterate amateurs who don't know what they are talking about.
Here are my top 3 take-aways:
Global warming is a "settled, not up-for-debate anymore" issue. The skeptical scientists found a space to voice their concerns on one side of the political spectrum, this in turn has lead to the issue becoming tainted: being a skeptic is equivalent to being a denier of reality and a believer in conspiracy theories. It is now a foregone conclusion that human beings are emitting greenhouse gases, that is in-turn warming the globe beyond any historic levels. No amount of cooling or lack of data will disprove this thesis or cause it's proponents to rethink their position. As the Newsroom memorably told us, "There's only a position on this, as much as there is a position on whether water boils at 100 degrees C". When the climate does not follow IPCC's models, that's because there's a temporary lull. When it does, the IPCC is right. The house always wins.
The world's governments are sold on this issue, nothing will change that because there is a structural advantage to doing things. Democracy is about "action". Politicians get voters to vote for them by showing them what they did, and telling them what they will DO: Elections are seldom won by people who advocate for inaction. In this sense, it is nearly impossible to advocate for inaction, which is why politicians who are advocating for inaction instead start advocating for regression. Regression is universally reviled (and rightly so) and is not a strategy that will lead to winning elections in the long term, even though some incredible short term gains can be made as shown by some countries in the recent past. Hence, we will see very few politicians advocating for inaction with respect to this issue. The remaining large economy to commit to emissions targets in February 2021 is India, and all signs point to the government committing to something in the next few years.
The IPCC is a flawed unscientific, political institution; but it will continue to retain it's prestige and governments will enact policies based on it's recommendations. They know exactly what the media wants to show their viewers: alarmist findings. They know exactly what the public can never hope to comprehend: computer models. They know exactly what journalists will never look into at any level of detail: press releases. Their statements will be reported as-is, and this will allow them to control the agenda.
Booker captures all of this in an amazing paragraph towards the end of the book:
The true believers in global warming similarly exhibited a moralistic fanaticism, justified by the transcendent importance of their cause. The basic narrative by which they lived was one familiar from the history of religious sects down the ages, the conviction that the end of the world was nigh, thanks to the wickedness of mankind and could only be saved if humanity acknowledged its sins and went through a profound change of behavior.
P.S. As a UN institution, I am deeply skeptical of the IPCC. The UN is a toothless institution that has spent a whole lot of time and money passing aspirational resolutions which are blown out of the water by sovereign countries and their local political pressures. Veep and Yes Minister have scathing critiques of the UN and I mostly agree with them. As a result of reading this book, I have become pretty skeptical of the IPCC and it's handling of the "science": the IPCC chairman, Pachauri, is not a climate scientist; there are activists who write the massive reports that IPCC produces; the summary of these reports comes out before the report itself.
Booker points to how every single large scale climate event since the European heat wave of 2003 has been attributed to global warming. This was a pretty good parallel to the days that I was reading this book in when an avalanche in Uttarakhand, India killed several 100 people and a freak weather storm in the US affected Texas' power grid. Both of these were low-probability, high-impact events which could have been prevented through man-made measures that are in place in other geographies: monitoring of glaciers and avalanches and early-warning systems in Uttarakhand and a robust power-grid with natural gas lines that were appropriately weatherized for extreme temperatures in Texas. The media, true to form, was quick to attribute them to climate change....more
A really good book that goes over all the science behind Climate change and points out the "consensus" that people are always talking about. This bookA really good book that goes over all the science behind Climate change and points out the "consensus" that people are always talking about. This book underscores the complexity of all topics by assigning a probability to each assertion that can be made: Is global warming happening? Are greenhouse gases the primary cause of global warming? Was the past decade 2000-2010 the hottest decade in the past 1400 years? Will global warming, if it is happening, lead to rising sea levels? and so on ... Each question is answered in detail with an extremely helpful summary of the scientific methods allowed. Houghton does not side step any question at any point in time: He points out the uncertainties without flinching and makes an effort to ensure that the reader gets a full picture.
My conclusion from reading this book (if I was forced to reduce it to a single line), confidence levels are my own and will change in the future as I gain more evidence about what's going on and read more points of view:
- Global warming might be happening (medium confidence); - The root cause of global warming might be the greenhouse gases that have been emitted due to human activity (medium-high confidence); - Humanity, writ large, should take action against global warming; - The action will vary a LOT depending on the growth of a given country (countries that have not grown should burn more coal to lift themselves out of poverty, while countries that are comfortable should spend more on solar / wind / nuclear and reduce their emissions)
Most of this nuance is lost in the activism that is going on lately related to this topic. My sincere hope is that everyone reads this book and disregards most of what activists are saying on this subject.
Houghton keeps a tight handle on the subject in the first half of the book. As the book starts to talk about things that can be done and policy proposals, the author starts to lose that control and the book starts meandering. Nevertheless, it is a really good starter book on Climate change, the science behind it and the philosophical reason that we should act now DESPITE not knowing anything with high confidence.
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