State of Fear is brilliant

[J. J.]

First of all, Michael Crichton is an excellent novelist, and I've read a number of his books.  State of Fear is not one of his best works, but it is still good.  He is a novelist, and State of Fear is not intended to be a text book.

Second, the WU criticizes what a character in his book says.  That is fiction and it isn't claimed as being anything else.

Crichton also includes a nonfiction appendix at the end, where does offer his opinions.  Some of his opinions are, that "part of the observed surface will ultimately be attributable to human activity (paperback p. 626)."  He also notes that there has been no real study of "wilderness (p. 628)," and that we don't have good modeling of climate changes (p. 626).

Some of observations (and I will not call the opinions) is that the level of CO2 is increasing, and that temperatures have rising since c. 1850, since the cooling period known as the "Little Ice Age."  How much is natural and how much man-made is the question.

He then goes to talk about more systematic and more non partisan funded research on climate change issues (pp. 628-9).  The particular problem here is that 99% of the scientific community are not certain of the amount of increase in global temperature is being caused by human activity in general or by CO2 in particular.

Look at these two examples.  First, the world got go warmer in the between AD 800-1400, to a point where it was warmer (1300's) than any time until the 20th Century.  Second, global temperature dropped between 1400-1850.  The only thing we can say about this is that it was not due to industrialization; there was none.  There was some other cause and we do not know the mechanisms that caused either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warm_period

[J. J.]

So you believe a science fiction writer over a meteorologist, along with about 99% of the scientific community.

Mmmmmmmmmkayyyyyyyy...

*shakes head* I'm sorry man, but my respect for you has just plummeted.

He's a science hater, he doesn't believe in evolution.

In Crichton's case, it is exceptionally hard to call someone who says, "We need more people working in the field, in the actual environment, and fewer people behind computer screens (p. 628 of the paperback)." and then goes on to call for a "nonpartisan, blinded funding mechanism to conduct research to determine appropriate policy (p. 629)," as being a "science hater."  Those are his personal views in the "Author's Message" section.

That said, State of Fear is a work of fiction.  It may mirror the society, to an extent, but it is still a work of fiction.  It is a good book, however, to read and then ask questions. (So is the Da Vinci Code, for that matter.)

For example, I would have stated that sea level rising at a much greater than it is, had it not been for the fiction part of the book.  That prompted me to look some stuff up, but I didn't believe it because State of Fear says it.

[J. J.]

Here is an example of something that should be considered.  The first chart is the deperature and CO2 levels for the last about 18,000 years.



The second is sea level increases:
   

CO2 was increasing from 18,000 BP until about 13,500; then it stopped until 11,500.  What happened?  Both sea level and temperature began to rise prior to CO2 level rising (for about 1000 years).  Then all three jumped.

Then what happened?  Sea level rose, temperature fluctuated, but stayed in the same range, and CO2 decreased.  Then temperatures peaked, to 2 degrees C above the baseline, just before 8,000 BP.  CO2 levels dropped slightly, sea level continued to increase.

I'm sorry, but this isn't exactly a strong correlation.  There has to be some mechanism(s) that we don't understand.

[J. J.]

If you read michael crichton's author note, he says that he believes that global warming exists and that it is mainly a human problem. Also, more than half of his cites say that global warming exists and that it is a himan problem. So i dont really see whay people say this is a book that once you read, you cant believe in global warming because of all of its "facts".

This is what he said, specifically:

"I suspect that part of the observed surface warming will ultimately be attributed to human activity.  I suspect that the principal human effect will come from land use, and that the atmospheric component will be minor  (p. 626)."

Now, that's a lot different than the claims being made so frequently about global warming, like CO2 being the "main" greenhouse gas.  He does not even believe it's atmospheric.