PrintNovember 13, 2010
Climatism
The author of the book Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century's Hottest Topic, Steve Goreham, is a contributor of articles at American Thinker, and according to the dust jacket of his book, he is a business executive who holds an M.S. in electrical engineering and an MBA. One can imagine the immediate response from those who follow Al Gore, the IPCC, and other promulgators of human-induced global warming: "Aha! Yet another person with ties to a right-wing website who is utterly unqualified to write about climate science."
The irony is that the most influential presentations for the Gore/IPCC side, An Inconvenient Truth and Ross Gelbspan's The Heat is On, were written by a politician and an ex-reporter. Such is the larger tragedy of the issue: that the public isn't seemingly aware of this irony. There is hope for a greater understanding of climate science, since more of the public is beginning to notice that the scary scenarios of Gore and Gelbspan are inconveniently failing to come true. When they start asking about the lack of more frequent and intense hurricanes, and why is the Arctic failing to be an ice-free area, they start turning to books like Goreham's.
For those people who either are uninterested bystanders or only mildly fear that humans cause global warming but are also wondering what the opposing side is all about, Climatism! offers a devastating collection of evidence showing how every aspect of the push to rationalize the idea of human-induced global warming and the efforts to cure it is plagued with overwhelming problems. Unlike Gelbspan's or Gore's thin-to-nonexistent end-of-the-book references, the nearly four hundred pages of Climatism! are followed by fifty-plus pages of endnotes with corroborating web site links.
At first, I was concerned that the title and its definition -- "Climatism is the belief that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are destroying the Earth's climate" -- constituted a catchword that might not have any traction, but the further I got into the book, the more it seemed like "Climatists" is a better word to replace "Warmists," since IPCC/Gore followers are quick to say basically every recent climate trend or extreme weather pattern is due to human activity. I would use the term "Climatists" to include those who preceded Al Gore when they declared the Earth was threatened by global cooling.
Goreham, like the rest of us skeptics, faces an incredible uphill battle against the sheer simplicity of the Gore/IPCC side, which essentially says "there is a scientific consensus/don't listen to skeptics because they're corrupt." Climatism! fights back, but it must use the more inherently maddening method of debunking what purportedly supports the Climatists with a mountain of opposing evidence. Goreham uses this evidence to great effect, in parts I & II of the book, to describe the origins and premise of the issue and the people behind it. Although I've read quite a bit about the natural causes side, I now have a much better understanding of cosmic rays and sunspot activity thanks to Goreham's concise descriptions. He also confirmed for me a valuable point about the IPCC's original intent.
Arguably, the book could actually jettison its part-III Renewable Energy "Solutions" and still be a very good and shorter book. I didn't notice that the quote marks were specifically put around the word Solutions, so my first thought was that Goreham would do the politically correct thing and argue that some green energy suggestions are not such bad ideas. Instead, he goes into rather great detail about the manner in which the so-called "solutions" to reduce human-induced CO2 not only are failing to work out well in physical terms, but they are also literally impeding the health and economic welfare of 3rd-world citizens. Yes, this third section does lengthen the book perhaps to the point that it looks intimidating to read, but the section ends up packing quite a punch in exposing how the Climatists push solutions that look less like well-planned ideas and more like agendas in search of proof to validate their existence.
I was quite impressed with Climatism! This is a book most any skeptic should have as a handy reference to counteract Climatists' claims, from alleged fair-and-balanced origins of the IPCC and its questionable science assessments to how green technology will supposedly save the Earth from burning to a crisp.
