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| View Larger Image | The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming
by Patrick J. Michaels
| | List Price: | $10.95 | | Price: | $9.31 | | You Save: | $1.64 (15%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 220269 | | Studio: | Cato Institute | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 224 | | Publication Date: | May 25, 2000 | | Publisher: | Cato Institute |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Climatologist extraordinaire Patrick J. Michaels says it is. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 33 reviews)
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The truth may be inconvenient. 
In the last few months it was announced on the news that there was a consensus of scientists about the reality of human effected climate change and because of this consensus there was a growing imperative for the need to act. Not too long after president Bush announced in his state of the union address some measures which he argued would help in the fight against global warming. More recently there has been much publicity to the breakup of the Arctic Ice cap and speculation about the ability to sail once again through a North West Passage while at the other pole scientists have discovered lakes beneath the artic ice which have a significant effect on that ecosystem. This morning on the weather channel it was noted that yesterday the temperature high in West Caldwell, New Jersey, was the highest since 1947.
For me this last remark is significant as I have yet to hear of any claims that the earth has been steadily warming since 1947 yet the temperature in that year was over 70 degrees F.
What is the relevance of all this to this book you may ask? A good question. Being of English origin it is often said that the talking point is always the weather. Whilst this may not be true, I for one have long found the subject interesting. However, my degrees are in economics, social science and education so I cannot claim any expertise in this area. However, I am somewhat sceptical of many of the claims made about global warming and environmental change mainly due to the reliability of evidence relating to centuries past. I recall the predictions made in the 1990's of the disastrous winds which would cause havoc at the turn of the century yet never happened as well as the claims made for population growth in the 1960's which were proved false. I also believe that there is a lot of money to be made from the scaremongering about global warming by those who argue the most passionately for it. It is also true that even if countries like the US go for smaller more fuel efficient cars, then the wealthy and the powerful in our society will still be able to drive their relative gas guzzlers with impunity.
This book is an asset to the layman trying to make sense about the true nature of climatic change. It shows that the consensus is more of a fabrication than reality because of the vested interests of those who formed the consensus to begin with. The Satanic Gases addresses many areas of concern and shows that the evidence upon which many conclusions are based is flawed or the reasoning is somewhat suspect.
The major deficiency in the book lies in the ability or otherwise of the average reader to assess the quality of the information contained therein. I also consider that a second edition is long overdue which could incorporate more current information.
The book is recommended by a number of eminent persons but that should not be a reason for merely accepting it's premises and arguements. For my own part I feel that it is required of us as active citizens to be sceptical of expensive and huge government programmes and to ask questions of our elected officials to help us truly understand the nature of them.
It is my belief that the jury is still out on this issue and while that does not excuse inaction for the future, it is certainly our duty to ask that these programmes are really based on sound science and unassailable evidence.
March 28, 2007 | |
Very good, and a lot less conservative than most think 
Many times there is the warning through the book: do not criticize global warming advocates simply because some climate models have flaws. Such is petty and nonproductive behavior, and productive thought and research are badly needed. Right now we need to keep improving climate and Earth models for better accuracy and predictablility. Also, the most important idea from this book is to keep asking the questions "how" and "how much," especially the second (p60). These approaches are not conservative, but rather what real scientists strive to do every day. The book title sounds combative, and likely turns off many on the Left, who often seem to prefer hearing bad news only.
The authors claim that hurricane wind speeds actually decreased as ocean temperature rose over the last century. This seems surprising, and bears checking out with other published numbers-based results. The CO2 portion of the book is quite well done, but the small part about toxicity levels can be safely ignored. On the other hand, the chapter "Greening the Planet" is well worth reading a second time. CO2, they remind us, is not a pollutant, but rather a gaseous fertilizer for plant life. It is possible, though, to argue that ANY chemical is a pollutant if present in great enough quantity, if one wishes to split hairs.
The last chapter, as with just about all climate change books, is not particularly strong. Most last-chapters are hand wringers, but Satanic Gases is at least not one of them. The authors advocate swapping the existing biased federal funding of research and development for private funding, and this is a forward thought. A minor observation: for some reason, critics keep badmouthing the authors' statement about ozone breaking down to the hydroxyl radical. Clearly, this criticism is mean-spirited, as technical people must know very well that the hydroxyl radical is tangled in the intermediate steps of the chemical change, although the authors did make a bad choice of prepositions. Their high school English teachers would be tsk-tsk'ing!
February 23, 2007 | |
Excellent book
Although a few years old, the author's points are still totally pertinent to the ongoing debate on global warming. I appreciated his review of a wide range of articles across the ten or twelve scientific areas that comprise the focus of climate change. I found his general contention compelling - that some people - and the ICPP in particular - are overstating the degree of change likely due to human-induced greenhouse emissions. When you start looking at the details of the debate, such as the specifics of the GCMs (general circulation models), what their limitations actually are, and what the datasets show for the various temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, storm frequencies and strengths (hurricane and tornado), and the trends that are claimed to appear, you find a great deal of noise. That is probably the single thing that would cool people's attitudes if they bothered to actually find out what the research indicates. There just aren't the striking, clear-cut changes that lead to certainty in decision making with human activity as the primary cause of all the problems, both predicted and speculated. It does indicate that there are some changes, but in other areas there is no discernable change - and in general, there is nothing like for example, Al Gore indicates. The conclusion one will likely come to after a close reading of the literature is that the strong proponents of human-induced climate change are taking some substantial leaps of faith. In fact, I strongly recommend interested people first read Gore's book "Inconvenient Truth" and then read Michaels' book(s). That makes the situation quite clear. Gore comes off as somebody completely certain of his view, never mentioning alternative interpretations or any of the limitations that exist in the methods, measures, analyses, or literature. Michaels comes off as an interested scientist who is a bit frustrated at Gore's blinders and adamant assertions, and is deeply interested in the details of the science. For understanding the actual data and our situation on the world, the latter is better.
In Gore's case, he asserts it is a fact that massive changes will take place, but Michaels shows quite convincingly, that these assertions are not supported by the data. In my own following of the literature for the last 25 years (coming out of my own research in solar physics, ionospheric physics, and solar-terrestrial paleoclimatology, and also psychology), I think it is safe to say that most of the particular things Gore says have been suggested in some form in some place in the literature, but the problem comes because he pulls them altogether into an oveall assertion of one gigantic and horrific "fact". In doing this, he ignores all limitations in measurement, and all problems of interpretation. To me, he illustrates why a politician should never think he is a scientist - because his political views structure the data, his entire logic is political and so the integrity of the science isn't important, what is important is his use of it for his political purposes. As a personal opinion, it seems to me Gore's entire approach is messianic, which is the opposite of what science should be. Reading this book and Michaels' other books will be greatly informative for anybody who wants to take the time to understand the basis for climate change, and whether or to what degree it is related to human activity. It isn't a simple thing, even though Gore asserts it is. It has become profoundly politically biased, which is a really awful result for the science, because it makes doing and interpreting science into a mindfield of other people's agendas. To me, this is the worst legacy of Gore's posturing. He certainly can say whatever he wants, but he has melded an ostensibly scientific veneer to his own highly biased political beliefs, and then asserted they are received facts about the world and that everybody else should shut up. However, in contrast Michaels does a good job of showing how scientists actually come to their conclusions.
I should add that Michaels takes the reasonable position that we are affecting the climate, that increasing the CO2, methane and other greenhouse gas concentrations does have an effect, but he systematically evaluates the degree of that effect so readers will have a better chance to understand the difficulty of making huge generalizations. Again, reading Gore's book and then Michaels' books will underscore the difference.
In sum: Michaels suggests the changes are not likely catastrophic; that is an extreme interpretation, but there are some effects and it is likely that we can and will live by minimal adaptation. Michaels seems exceptionally even-handed, and I fail to see anywhere in his book the kind of stridency that global-warming proponents claim. I think they do the so-called "skeptics" and the science a huge disservice by their blanket assertions that if somebody somewhere sometime ever was a paid consultant of industry or associated with some convervative cause, then he is impossibly biased and everything he says is discredited. That simply isn't true. It is a political statement, a rhetorical position that allows you to dismiss everybody who disagrees with one side. That isn't a good idea for understanding something complex because the answers do not ever all come from one side. This probably is an infiltration of the scientific debate by a politica agenda, which is extremely unfortunate for everybody. I prefer to take ideas on their merits regardless of their source. Even a conniving consultant can be correct, and also, even a politician who wants to be modern eco-Messiah can be correct. So a blanket dismissal means you'll never know whether they are, or whether they both are wrong for entirely different reasons. This is what disturbs me most of all in this entire situation. Science lives in the questions we ask, and if one side shuts down the question-asking, then the science and our understanding suffers. Gore asserts that proponents are motivated in a "pure" way by helping mankind, which I don't doubt. But helping mankind also involves getting government funding, here to the tune of $29 billion dollars over the past 20 years. So there is indeed economic incentive on both sides. However, in neither case does it flatly negate the science that results. Sometimes people who are the most motivated are the best at finding good answers, good questions or factual limitations, so it makes no sense to me to shut them down no matter what "side" they are on.
I find it terrible that people can read Ross Gelbspan's book (e.g., the heat is on) and suddenly feel completely righteous in pronouncing Richard Lindzen of MIT as "discredited". Since when does reading a book by a political activist allow you to render judgment on a professional, Ph.D. scientist from one of the best universities in the world, and who has devoted his entire life to understanding climate change? I have found that the people who do this know almost nothing of the actual science. It appears they are looking for a basis on which to turn their own beliefs into cudgels. That doesn't help understand what is or may be, going on. I mention it because several friends of mine did just that.
Michaels also adds other issues that seem immediately important to the debate but are ignored in almost all other treatments, for example, that humans are rather drastically changing the landscape by farming, by logging, by regrowing forests, creating reservoirs, and that these affect the amount of incident energy absorbed or reflected, and likely alter the overall energy balance. If you wish to understand the overall debate, this is an excellent source of information and questions.
Doug Ammons
February 20, 2007 | |
Six years on, this book looks better and better
This past winter (2006) was the coldest ever measured in Antarctica (and, generally, throughout the Southern Hemisphere). I have always thought that Pat Michaels was too hasty is conceding that the globe has warmed half a degree or so in the past century. It may not have warmed at all. In any event, the review I wrote in 2000 understates the problems with the warmers,.
Just hours after I finished "The Satanic Gases" in 2000, the Associated Press reported on an alarming assessment of climate change done for Congress, which predicts the bad things that will happen if the world heats up by 5 to 10 degrees over the next century.
But not to worry. It's another hoax.
How so? Well, the agency in charge of panicking the world about climate change, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is predicting a global temperature rise between 1990 and 2100 of just 3 degrees.
And besides, it rates the uncertainty of its own estimate as between 1 and 3.5 degrees.
Put another way, the lowest estimate used for the report to Congress is 50 percent worse than the highest estimate made by the body that claims to represent the consensus view of the world's scientists.
What's a body to do? Climatologist Pat Michaels has been a reliable guide on this issue. Now, in "The Satanic Gases," he and Robert Balling bring up to date the questions Michaels published in "Sound and Fury" in 1992.
In "Satanic Gases," they maintain Michaels' earlier position, which is that 1) the general circulation models used to predict climate change are unreliable; 2) that warming will be less than the IPCC predicts; and 3) what warming does happen will be mostly at night and during the winter, and the effects will be good for everybody.
They now are able to defend those views in greater detail than eight years ago. The $10 billion spent on climate research since then has at least bought a deeper understanding of how Earth's climate behaves.
But, they argue, following the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, we are in a "paradigm shift," in which evidence is piling up against the orthodox view, causing orthodox scientists to create ever more baroque explanations to defend the old order.
Eventually, according to Kuhn, the walls are breached and the new, simpler, more persuasive explanation is accepted. (But, Kuhn says, it usually requires that the orthodox die off; few change their minds.)
Kuhn's theory relies heavily on the history of cosmographic and physical science in a bygone age, when the heterodox risked burning at the stake by the Holy Inquisition.
In that respect, we are better off. The lifestyles of the young and heterodox may blight their academic careers, but at least they are not murdered.
In fact, say Michaels and Balling, in the modern system of peer-reviewed research publications, even heterodox reports get published.
To get past the orthodox reviewers, these studies must be exceptionally compelling.
Michaels and Balling claim that hundreds of such studies have now been done, though they are swamped by the tens of thousands of orthodox ones.
No layman could possibly sort out the mess. So the question is, who has a good record as a guide?
Michaels does. In the kind of backhanded compliments that are so common in the global warming debate, the panicmongers have repeatedly made "corrections" to their models in the direction where Michaels (and a few others) pointed. They just don't give him credit.
Instead, he has been internationally vilified by a number of governments' environment ministers.
Nevertheless, in the late '80s, Michaels asserted that the predictions of the climate models were too high. By 1995, enough time had passed and enough real temperatures were available that it was embarrassingly clear than Michaels was right.
The models looked ridiculous. To save the appearances, the IPCC decided that the cooling effects of sulfate aerosols (which are abundantly created by the same processes that enhance global warming) must be cranked into the models.
In "Satanic Gases," Michaels and Balling demolish the validity of the sulfate adjustment, but whether they are correct about that or not, the underlying fact is beyond dispute: The panicmongers were wrong, and their wrong conclusions were the underpinning of the Kyoto Treaty on climate control.
Michaels and Balling do not dispute that human activity is having an effect on climate, nor that the world is getting warmer. But, they say, we do not have to rely on models to tell us what will happen. "Since we have been enhancing the greenhouse effect for more than 100 years, nature has already given us the answer," they write.
That answer, they contend, is not just a greenhouse world but a greener world, with better weather (fewer storms, and not more as the panicmongers have predicted), bigger crops and fewer weather-related deaths.
November 27, 2006 | |
Finally scientists speak
A must read for anyone with any functioning gray cells.
Finally some scientists speak out on the subject. Before this book, all I had to judge from was questionable logic from the media. At least now I have some "balance" on the problem.
The authors explore questions that someone merely influenced by talking heads and politicians would never consider. Is mankind the cause of global warming or are we just part of the process? What "are" greenhouse gases? Exactly how much of them do we actually contribute? What is Earth's history and tolerance to them? AND MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: Is global warming a bad thing?
Their explanation of the flaws in the "Peer Review" process is worth the read alone.
Caution: If you voted for algore, and believe everything he says, this book will be wasted on you - don't bother - go read Earth in the balance again (what a waste of ink). But if you have the ability to consider counter positions, it may be worth the risk.
December 21, 2005 | |
SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
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