Chill - Peter Taylor

[Adam1]

I'm being lazy here. Does anyone know of a good review/counter argument to the points made in this book?

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/97 ... ing-Theory



I've spent a couple of minutes flicking through it and I get the feeling that it does some of what Sharon Astyk refers to in her recent article responding to a cornucopian in the Wall Street Journal.

A neighbour has lent me the book and asked what I think of it.

I wish I could be more motivated to critique it but the thought of it just sends me to sleep!

[snow hope]

Can I suggest that you read it with an open mind, rather than looking for counter-arguments when you haven't even read the book?

In the link it says,

"Chill" is a critical survey of the subject by a committed environmentalist and scientist. Based on extensive research, it reveals a disturbing collusion of interests responsible for creating a distorted understanding of changes in global climate. Scientific institutions, basing their work on critically flawed computer simulations and models, have gained influence and funding. In return they have allowed themselves to be directed by the needs of politicians and lobbyists for simple answers, slogans and targets. The resulting policy - a 60 percent reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050 - would have a huge, almost unimaginable, impact upon landscape, community and biodiversity. On the basis of his studies of satellite data, cloud cover, ocean and solar cycles, Peter Taylor concludes that the main driver of recent global warming has been an unprecedented combination of natural events. His investigations indicate that the current threat facing humanity is a period of cooling, as the cycle turns, comparable in severity to the Little Ice Age of 1400-1700 AD."

I haven't read the book, so can't comment further.

[Andy Hunt]

I found this interesting review of the book and also Peter Taylor's autobiography. He sounds like quite a colourful character!

http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/article ... eviews.htm

[Adam1]

Thanks for the link Andy.

I don't have the time or inclination to read the book itself I'm afraid Snow. If I had my own copy of the book, it would almost certainly sit in the backlog pile of stuff I really need to get around to reading.

Being presented with a short loan of this book by my neighbours (who themselves have borrowed it from the library due back 22 Dec) has made me think: what is the purpose of reading this? Am I going to think or act any differently as a result of any of the arguments it puts? Answer: No. Is it going to give me a helpful overview of where we are on climate science or on some of the political, environmental, technical and psychological aspects of what is commonly known as "the climate debate"? Answer: probably not. Is it going to be good use of my time or enjoyable to read? Answer: pretty unlikely.

I've expressed my view on the climate issue here in the past. Here is a synopsis of where I stand now...

The thing about the climate is that it is so immensely complex that my reading to date has just served to underline that I'm unlikely get enough knowledge and enough time to critically appraise it in order to form a truly informed view. My view for what it's worth is that it seems very likely that our energy choices, as well as our choices around agriculture and forestry, have dumped a lot of GHG into the atmosphere in a geological instant and at the same time compromised the systems that have evolved which act as a CO2 buffer. This doesn't seem like wise behaviour for a species who doesn't yet fully understand the implications of its actions and which is so dependent on the climatic status quo for it to prosper.

I'd like to spend more time keeping up with it now. Unfortunately, just like the nuclear power debate, there is so much noise in the information out there and so many emotionally charged but unenlightening exchanges that I just end up thinking that I'm not willing to spend my time trying to disentangle it all.

I feel like asking my neighbours what they are hoping to get from the book? They are people who need to feel optimistic about the future: quite allergic to any sniff of doomerism. I don't really want to have the great doomer debate with them. A few years ago I would have been up for it but these days I just see it as counter-productive.

I hope that doesn't sound disappointingly apathetic.

[RenewableCandy]

Of course you're right. One can only languish in the "information-gathering stage" for so long. Good for you having made up your mind and started to act on it.

[biffvernon]

Can I suggest that you read it with an open mind, rather than looking for counter-arguments when you haven't even read the book?

In the link it says,

"Flat" is a critical survey of the subject by an uncommitted environmentalist and scientist. Based on extensive research, it reveals a disturbing collusion of interests responsible for creating a distorted understanding of changes in global shape. Scientific institutions, basing their work on critically flawed computer simulations and models, have gained influence and funding. In return they have allowed themselves to be directed by the needs of politicians and lobbyists for simple answers, slogans and targets. The resulting policy - a 60 percent reduction of curved lines by 2050 - would have a huge, almost unimaginable, impact upon landscape, community and biodiversity. On the basis of his studies of satellite data, cloud cover, ocean and solar cycles, Peter Taylor concludes that the main driver of recent curvature has been an unprecedented combination of natural events. His investigations indicate that the current threat facing humanity is a period of flattening, as the cycle turns, comparable in severity to the Little Flat Age of 1400-1700 AD."

I haven't read the book, so can't comment further.

[Ludwig]

If you're going to critique a book, you have to read it, no matter how boring it is. Otherwise you're basically saying, "I don't know your arguments, but they're all wrong", which gives your own arguments a credibility rating of zero.

[biffvernon]

So if somebody wrote a book, debunking the spherical Earth theory, explaining why it was really flat, one would not be justified in saying "That's rubbish" unless one had actually read the whole book, rather than just the publisher's blurb?

When a thesis is manifestly wrong, knowing the arguments presented makes little difference.

[Ludwig]

So if somebody wrote a book, debunking the spherical Earth theory, explaining why it was really flat, one would not be justified in saying "That's rubbish" unless one had actually read the whole book, rather than just the publisher's blurb?

When a thesis is manifestly wrong, knowing the arguments presented makes little difference.

But the OP wants specific counter-arguments against arguments he hasn't studied. His aim, I assume, is to be able to persuade people who've read the book why it's wrong. He's not going to succeed in that aim by saying, "The book you've read is so stupid I just know it's wrong without reading it." That may be the case, but it won't win anybody round.

[emordnilap]

snow, the blurb you quoted stinks of the 'conspiracy' of scientists; that alone is enough to put me off the book and its author. Although I haven't a closed mind on the subject of climate change - conclusions have often been awry when predicting the future - I wonder if I should read it to find out if the author agrees that pumping 30 or more billion tons extra of CO2 and worse gases into the atmosphere annually is a Good Thing and will only have positive effects.

[biffvernon]

Don't waste your time. Tell them it's rubbish because you know. They either respect you and will believe you or they don't and you'll never change their minds whatever you do.

[snow hope]

snow, the blurb you quoted stinks of the 'conspiracy' of scientists; that alone is enough to put me off the book and its author. Although I haven't a closed mind on the subject of climate change - conclusions have often been awry when predicting the future - I wonder if I should read it to find out if the author agrees that pumping 30 or more billion tons extra of CO2 and worse gases into the atmosphere annually is a Good Thing and will only have positive effects.

em, if you are put off the book, that is fair enough. But asking the question you do, is a bit like asking, if the author agrees that pumping centuries of sewerage into the oceans from developed countries around the world is a Good Thing and will only have postive effects.

Hmmm.

Anyway, I am not planning to read the book at the moment. I was just trying to be helpful and point out what somebody thought of the book. Ho-hum.

[Blue Peter]

In the link it says,

In return they have allowed themselves to be directed by the needs of politicians and lobbyists for simple answers, slogans and targets.

I find this argument advanced by the anti-climate change people very odd, since I can't really see the politicians doing much about climate change at all. Climate change is most unwelcome because it goes against what they really want to do: grow the economy so that people can feel richer and richer and so elect the current crew again and again (see 1997 - 2007 as an example). Because politicians have scientists telling them that it is a serious problem, they make a few gestures in the direction of easing green house gases, but they don't seem to have done anything in any seriousness, and certainly they don't seem to be using it as an excuse to carry out some nefarious plan.

Am I missing something?


Peter.

[emordnilap]

snow, the blurb you quoted stinks of the 'conspiracy' of scientists; that alone is enough to put me off the book and its author. Although I haven't a closed mind on the subject of climate change - conclusions have often been awry when predicting the future - I wonder if I should read it to find out if the author agrees that pumping 30 or more billion tons extra of CO2 and worse gases into the atmosphere annually is a Good Thing and will only have positive effects.

em, if you are put off the book, that is fair enough. But asking the question you do, is a bit like asking, if the author agrees that pumping centuries of sewerage into the oceans from developed countries around the world is a Good Thing and will only have postive effects.

Not a bit. A lot.

[kenneal - lagger]

I don't think we should bother with arguments about whether Climate Change is, or is not, a fact. It's wasting time and effort. I approach the argument this way.

1 Climate Change/Global Warming requires us to reduce our use of fossil fuels to reduce the amount of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere.

2 Climate cooling requires us to make our homes warmer more affordably.

3 The imminence of Peak Fuels means we should be reducing our use of fuels.

4 The rise of China, with its 10% growth rate, means that it will double its use of all materials in the next seven years. Given that the cost of all materials, including oil and coal, were rising at a rapid, unaffordable rate before the recession means that we should try to reduce our use of all materials, especially fuels, as soon as possible. Because, if we don't we will cause another price spike which will be followed by another recession.

5 China is going around the world buying up as many resources as it can using its $3 trillion bank balance in order to keep the Chinese people in the manner to which they would like to be accustomed, i.e. the manner to which we aspire and, at the moment, attain. As we live in a finite world with limited resources this is not possible, so someone without a huge current account surplus, us, is going to have to do without in the future.

The answer to all these problems is that we should be insulating our houses as much as we can, while we can, and growing as much of our food as we can because in the future we are going to have to make do with far less of everything that we now have, especially fuel and food.

Trivial arguments about the efficacy of CC/GW are, as I said earlier, a waste of time and effort - fiddling while Rome, or in our case, scarce fuel, burns.