Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

For those of you whose understanding of climate change or global warming comes from the main stream media (New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, CBS-TV, et al) this book is a must read, that is if you subscribed to the "chicken little" thesis that the sky is falling, or in the case of climate change that we will be unable to live on planet earth because rising global temperatures will destroy civilization. The sub-title of Meltdown reads "the Predictable Distortion of global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media" and in this he admirably succeeds in documenting and proving. The book is a compendium of headlines and stories found in the media mentioned as well as in a number of scientific journals, mainly Science and Nature. He also addresses some of the more outlandish stories, press releases, and declarations by organizations such as Greenpeace and the World Wild Life federation. Dr. Michaels provide chapter and verse, 12 of them, documenting the egregious errors and in some case patently false information foisted on the public at large by all of these organizations. That said the main stream media comes in for the most criticism. His method is really quite simple. He looks at the data gathered in the real world and uses it to confirm or rebut the hypothesis that anthropogenic warming is causing glaciers to shrink and retreat, is the root cause of rising sea levels that are about to inundate the island of Tuvalu in the Pacific Ocean or that malaria is making a come back due to warming trends or a plethora of other disasters just over the horizon. Though he doesn't explicitly say so, the book amply illustrates the incompetence, ignorance, and lack of skepticism by the science writers, as well as their employers, in the main stream media. They come across as cheerleaders with a bull horn instead of skeptical fact reporting and investigative individuals they claim to be. For example, in an USA Today article on the effect of warming sea temperature, the text tells us an increase of 10 degrees will cause a volume increase of .1%. The accompanying graphic shows a 100% increase that are in fact 1000 times more than the actual effect. Or more blatantly, the New York Times in its August 19, 2000 edition reported on Page 1 that "The North Pole is Melting". This story was based on an eyewitness report of a professor of oceanography on a Russian cruise ship in arctic region that had sited open water. According to the Times, "it had been 50 million years since the pole was awash in water". That the Times failed to exercise due diligence is obvious since as Dr. Michaels points out that public domain information available with just a few "mouse clicks" would save them from printing a retraction, of sorts, on Page 3 of Section D three days later. In fact open seawater is not unusual at this time of year and in fact a common occurrence. Space and time will not allow me to discuss the problems Dr. Michaels found with peer reviewed papers found in supposedly scientific journals, but suffice it to say it certainly should make one question any article from now on that was "peer reviewed". Though not footnoted, the book provides references to all scientific articles sited as well as specific dates and editions for all news articles and scientific journals. So if one is inclined to "fact check" this book they have a great starting point. Because science is numbers related, there are a substantial number of charts, graphs, and data summaries that allow the reader to easily follow the great deal of data provided. Ironically many of them come from publications and individuals and who are the targets of his book. Even if this book does not change your mind it ought to give one pause about most any article published in the mainstream press, and for that matter "peer reviewed" scientific journals that purports to prove that climate change is about to destroy the human race or life as we have know it.