An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming |  | Author: Nigel Lawson
Publisher: Overlook TP
Category: Book
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Media: Paperback
Pages: 160
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Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 4.7 x 0.5
ISBN: 159020252X
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.73874
EAN: 9781590202524
ASIN: 159020252X
Publication Date: December 29, 2009
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Product Description
"Clear, analytical and compelling." -The Economist
In this well-informed and hard-hitting response to the scaremongering of the climate alarmists, Nigel Lawson, former Secretary of State for Energy under Margaret Thatcher, argues that it is time for us to take a cool look at global warming. Lawson carefully and succinctly examines all aspects of the global warming issue: the science, the economics, the politics, and the ethics. He concludes that the conventional wisdom on the subject is suspect on a number of grounds, that global warming is not the devastating threat to the planet it is widely alleged to be, and that the remedy that is currently being proposed, which is in any event politically unattainable, would be worse that the threat it is supposed to avert. Argued with logic, common sense, and even wit, and thoroughly sourced and referenced, Lawson has written a long overdue corrective to the barrage of spin and hype to which the politicians and media have been subjecting the public on this important issue.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
 A Ph.D in Global Warming June 28, 2008
Ted Baiamonte (New York, NY)
49 out of 56 found this review helpful
This book is an extremely rational look at global warming that ultimately asks the reader, although not explicitly, to consider why human-kind still has a pronounced, if not suicidal, collectivist, and socialistic instinct when in all of human history only freedom has produced salutatory results. As the world socialistically unites around global warming here is the heart of Nigel Lawson's thoroughly footnoted and brilliant argument. It should encourage you to read the book, and then go on to read more about this incredible issue that so threatens the capacity for reason which we have so painstakingly developed over the centuries.
1) "The 21st century standstill [ 8 years of temperature decline], which has occurred at a time when global CO2 emissions have been rising faster than ever, is something that the conventional wisdom, and the computer models on which it relies, completely failed to predict." (page 6)
2) "They [The Hadley Centre] now forecast that, after an unpredicted, almost decade-long lull global warming will resume in 2009 or thereabouts". ( page 7)
3) "For the United States, only three of the last twelve years emerge as among the warmest since records began; and the warmest year of all was 1934." (page 9)
4) "two thirds of the Green house effect.... is water vapor....Rather a long way behind is carbon dioxide the second most important greenhouse gas." (Page 10)
5) "....the science of clouds, which is clearly critical (not the least because water vapor [the major component], as we have seen, is far and away the most important contributor to greenhouse gases is one of the least understood aspects of climate science." (page 12)
6) ...the mediaeval warm period, a benign time when temperatures were probably at least as high, if not higher than they are today ....during the Roman period, it was probably even warmer....vineyards existed as far north as Northeastern England." [where they do not exist today] (page 16)
7) "........the Greenland ice sheet appears to be melting, while at its centre, the ice is thickening. ...all to easy for Al Gore to cherry-pick local phenomena which best illustrate their [his] predetermined alarmist global narrative". ( page 19)
8) " .....making a total increase of some 1.3 F [a prediction that is hardly alarming] over the [entire] 20th century as a whole. (page 10).
9) "...is it really plausible that there is an ideal average world temperature, which by some small departures in either direction would spell disaster? The average annual temperature is...41 degrees F in Helsinki... in Singapore.... 81 degrees F. Man can successfully live with that [ a 40 degree F difference]."
10) ".....polar bears, which have been around for millennia, during which there is ample evidence that polar temperatures have varied considerably" (page 30).
11) "Sea levels have, in fact been rising very gradually for as long as records exist, and there is little sign of any acceleration so far. .....may have been less in second half of 20th century than first." (page 31)
12) "to assess the cost of climate change [assuming climate change] in the absence of adaptation is about as sensible as assessing the risk of catching pneumonia in London on the assumption that we all go out and about in the cold and the rain in our bathing costumes. Yet to a considerable extent that is just what the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change) does." (page 39)
13) "The Dutch managed [sea level rise] even with the technology of the 16th century."( page 42)
14) Seven out of 10 [of the worst hurricanes] occurred before 1975." (Page 50)
15) "...the overwhelming land-borne mass of polar ice [that could effect sea levels] ..is over Antarctica, not Greenland in the North....where the ice sheet is growing" (page 51).
16) "the Gulf Stream [ the ocean conveyer of warm water that Al Gore says may freeze England if interrupted by warming]...is largely a surface current, and thus a wind driven phenomena..[not related to warming]." (page 52)
17) "China's....annual increase [in emission will] .... far exceed the UK's total annual emissions." [China will] increase its power-generating capacity each year by roughly the equivalent of Britain's total capacity." (page 55)
18) "On the one hand you [the world] increase the production in China, and on the other you criticize China on the emission reduction issue, so it is unfair."......"targets should be in terms not of greenhouse gas production but in terms of gas consumption." (page 56)
19) "It was calculated at the time that if every signatory ratified Kyoto and subsequently met its emission target, [none of the signatories actually did meet their targets] the world's temperature by 2100 would be 0.1C/0.2F less than would otherwise be the case - a trivial amount". ( Page 59)
20) "According to the Hadley Center, only by a reduction of about 70% [nearly impossible] in [global] carbon dioxide emissions would we be able to stabilize its concentration in the atmosphere," ( page 65)
21) "...indeed in 2007 China suspended its production of ethanol for this reason..[ higher food costs, consumes more energy than produces, uses land and rain forests]. ( page 68)
22) "....cap and trade is arbitrary and distortionary covering some admissions and not others....anti competitive, since permits are issued to existing emitters, and not new entrants...scores badly on transparency.. lends itself to lobbying, corruption and abuse." ( page 74)
23) "...India and China have made billions by building factories whose primary purpose is to produce greenhouse gases, so that carbon traders in the rich world will pay to clean them up." ( page 76).
24 ".. [A largely gov't and bureaucracy free carbon tax such as an increase in the gasoline tax, not cap and trade] ..is the only practical means of discovering how expensive carbon needs to be in order to stimulate the changed behavior necessary to stabilize emissions...if that is the objective."
25) ..." saviors of the planet [climate warriors] are, in practice, the enemies of poverty reduction in the developing world. [due to the tremendous costs] (Page 106)
26) "With the collapse of Marxism, those who dislike capitalism..and the United States... have been obliged to find a new creed. For many of them, green is the new red." ( page 101)
27) "In primitive societies it was customary for extreme weather events to be explained as punishment from the gods for the sins of the people," ( page 102)
26) "Capitalist rationality does not do away with sub-or super-rational impulses. It merely makes them get out of hand by removing the restraint of sacred or semi-sacred tradition." (Page 104). also printed to TheIntellectual Republican, www.thedumbdemocrat.blogspot.com, Ted Baiamonte
Best I've read June 23, 2008
W. T. Gross (Long Beach, CA)
24 out of 28 found this review helpful
I've read a lot about Global Warming and the human contributions thereto. This is the best treatment on the subject that I've seen. It combines a reasonable review of the science involved, including attribution, and the politics being spent by governments world wide. The author is uniquely qualified to challenge the now popularly held opinions.
Cogent and illuminating August 4, 2008
Reader from Central Virginia (Charlottesville, Virginia United States)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Nigel Lawson has long had a reputation as a razor sharp intellect. In this book he does not disappoint, offering up a succinct yet thorough analysis of the economics, science and politics of climate change. Lawson draws on his experience as Great Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer and Energy Secretary to produce a careful examination of the dangers we face and the options available to us. Lawson's discussion of the costs of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions is particularly valuable, as is his summary of the ethical issues raised by discounting future costs and benefits. Highly recommended.
Great common sense critic of Global Warming, and a smart discussion on the most cost-effective way to address the consequences January 25, 2009
Emc2 (Tropical Utopia)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a short and well-written book, provocative and full of smart and no nonsense arguments. Lawson provides end notes for each chapter and all bibliographical sources are properly referenced. The book's aim is to examine each of the dimensions of the consensus view of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), including the science, the economics, the politics, and the ethical aspects. He is concerned with the uncertainties of long-term forecasting and the lack of a real cost-effectiveness analysis in the policies recommended and advocated by the majority view on climate change, particularly by the radical change in lifestyle that will have to take place in the developed countries, and the unnecessary burden that will be put on the poor in the developing world. Lawson questions the fundamentals of AGW orthodoxy just armed with common sense, his political experience, and some very clever back-of-the-envelope calculations.
Lawson opens the book arguing that although he agrees that there is a real warming trend, he is skeptical of the validity of predictions made with global climate simulation models, and more importantly, he questions if indeed the sole cause of this warming is man-made greenhouses and how big the contribution of CO2 is. Lawson also raises several issues regarding the IPCC process, its findings and policy recommendations, and throughout the book he strongly criticizes the The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, which he considers "at the extreme end of the alarmist camp".
He might not be right in all the issues, but certainly he will at least let you wonder about some of them. Besides the reasonable critic of the economics, I found particularly robust his argument regarding the lack of falsifiability of climate simulation models and their predictions, which means that these complex models do not meet one of the most basic criteria required for any theory to be considered within the domain of science (for more on falsifiability read Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Routledge Classics)). He sarcastically notes the fact that all models have failed so far to predict that there has been no further warming between 2001 and 2007. And by the way, this trend continued during 2008, ending with one the coolest boreal winters in recent decades (just Google to verify by yourself). Personally I do not think this recent short trend means that AGW is not real but more likely just part of the normal blips within long term climate patterns, in this case regarding the effects of the normal sunspot cycles and La Niña, as Lawson later in the book explains. However, it is a good example of the risks of advocating a cause with incomplete science, oversimplifications and by obstructing any real scientific debate.
After making his case in Chapter 1 about why he thinks "the science of global warming is far from settle", Lawson proceeds as any respectable economist would do, and assumes a prudent position "to err on the side of caution". Therefore, for the rest of the book he works under the assumption that the AGW theory is correct as reported by the IPPC's 2007 Report (see Climate Change 2007 - The Physical Science Basis: Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (Climate Change 2007) - a PDF version is available for free through the web) .
First he goes on to discus the practical consequences of the predicted warming over the next hundred years, based on the IPCC scenarios and policy recommendations. Next he analyzes the importance of adaptation, what Lawson claims is the IPPC's most serious flaw regarding the impact of global warming, as there is a "systematic underestimation of the benefits of adaptation" and "the most cost-effective way of addressing the likely consequences" as opposed to reducing CO2 emissions. He also is critical of the Stern Review and the Kyoto Protocol and the practical difficulties of reaching a global agreement. Then he discusses the different technologies and market alternatives being implemented and available to reduce emissions, closing with his own proposal to impose a carbon tax across the board, but implemented simultaneously with a reduction of other taxes to compensate for the extra revenues and avoiding any additional burden on the taxpayer. The book closes with a discussion about the discount rates used by the IPCC and the Stern Review in their economic analysis, with a more detailed discussion on the latter. The book ends with a warning about the dangers of the environmental movement, calling it "the new religion of eco-fundamentalism" and claiming that "we appear to have entered a new age of unreason."
I highly recommended this book for those with a genuine interest in the AGW controversy, and particularly in the aspects regarding the economics of mitigation and/or adaptation that will be necessary and that is being debated right now.
PS (2009): For a bold and politically incorrect critic of the reliability of climate science and modeling, as well as a proposal of more affordable mitigation solutions read Chapter 5 of SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
Best book I've read on global warming November 3, 2008
Edward Durney (San Francisco)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Global warming is like politics and religion. We like to share our own views. We do not like to hear views from the other side. We're right. They're wrong. Enough said. No one listens to the other. It's a dialogue of the deaf.
That is because, as a rule, our views on global warming center on emotion, not on reason. This book comes close to breaking that rule. Not that Nigel Lawson doesn't make his own view clear. He does. But he uses reason more than emotion. The book focuses more on supporting his view, less on attacking the views of others. That "appeal to reason" (the title of his book) is refreshing.
And Lawson is very bright. His analysis is sharp, and his research impeccable. Having read a lot on global warming, I knew a lot before this book. I know more now. That, as much as anything, makes me recommend the book.
Be forewarned, though. Lawson speaks with far from a disinterested, pure voice. He gets in his digs on the views of others. His comments on the Stern Review are particularly stern. Better if he had stuck to presenting his own views, and not attacked the views of others.
Still, Lawson's appeal to reason makes a lot of good points, mostly in a logical rather than emotional way. Regardless of your views on global warming, give this book a read.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
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