Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor | 
| Author: Roy Spencer
Publisher: Encounter Books
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
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Rating:  88 reviews
Sales Rank: 4114
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 184
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1
ISBN: 1594032106
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.73874
EAN: 9781594032103
ASIN: 1594032106
Publication Date: March 27, 2008
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Product Description
The current frenzy over global warming has galvanized the public and cost taxpayers billons of dollars in federal expenditures for climate research. It has spawned Hollywood blockbusters and inspired major political movements. It has given a higher calling to celebrities and built a lucrative industry for scores of eager scientists. In short, ending climate change has become a national crusade. And yet, despite this dominant and sprawling campaign, the facts behind global warming remain as confounding as ever. In Climate Confusion, distinguished climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer observes that our obsession with global warming has only clouded the issue. Forsaking blindingly technical statistics and doomsday scenarios, Dr. Spencer explains in simple terms how the climate system really works, why man's role in global warming is more myth than science, and how the global warming hype has corrupted Washington and the scientific community. The reasons, Spencer explains, are numerous: biases in governmental funding of scientific research, our misconceptions about science and basic economics, even our religious beliefs and worldviews. From Al Gore to Leonardo DiCaprio, the climate change industry has given a platform to leading figures from all walks of life, as pandering politicians, demagogues and biased scientists forge a self-interested movement whose proposed policy initiatives could ultimately devastate the economies of those developing countries they purport to aid. Climate Confusion is a much needed wake up call for all of us on planet earth. Dr. Spencer's clear-eyed approach, combined with his sharp wit and intellect, brings transparency and levity to the issue of global warming as he takes on wrong-headed attitudes and misguided beliefs that have led to our state of panic. Climate Confusion lifts the shroud of mystery that has hovered here for far too long and offers an end to this frenzy of misinformation in our lives.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 83 more reviews...
 Full of unbelievably absurd straw-man attacks January 6, 2009
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I find it very astonishing that a book that is so full of totally unbelievable straw-man attacks was written by a "scientist". When planning this review I spent around two hours looking over a copy of this book so that I could form a sample of such attacks that I could show to here. When I did this I found the experience truly amazing. I doubt I've seen a worse book (in this particular way) in my whole life!
For example,
--In a chapter titled, "It's economics, stupid" Spencer claims (p. 107) that many people think there is a "constant amount of wealth" in society!! As if anyone could be so incredibly stupid to imagine such a thing!! And, as usual, he gives no quotes, no names, no EVIDENCE whatsoever that anyone on the planet thinks such a monstrously absurd thing.
--on p. 15 he says "...most journalists can't ever bring themselves to report anything in a postive light." He gives no evidence whatsoever in support of this bizzare claim.
--p. 17 says, "A few experts and politicans actually blamed the tsunami on global warming..." (he's refering to the 26-DEC-2004 set of waves that left something like 250,000 people dead. Spencer gives NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that anyone on the planet believed any such thing about that tsunami or any other tsunami.
--p. 9 says, about "the mainstream news media": "They uncritically accept every environmental scare. In their imaginary world, environmental regulations have no downside, and we can have all benefits with no risks."!!! As usual, Spencer gives NO EVIDENCE. No quotes, no names, nothing...and he imagines readers will believe him! It's impossible for me to believe that even one journalist on earth would agree with the views he attributes to "their imaginary world".
--p. 136: This page attributes a desire for "equal outcomes" to "people". Again, Spencer gives no quotes, no names, no nothing, and seems to expect his readers to believe him. I've seen this attribution before, but this is the first time I've seen it explicitly stated (rather than left as innuendo with words to the effect of "I believe in equality of opportunity, but NOT equality of result" spoken firmly with emphasis on the word "NOT", thereby implying that the speaker actually has seen the view expressed somewhere). I invite anyone reading this to search for this view...I'm sure it can't be found anywhere. E.g., in The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx the complaints are all about unequal wealth and other forms of opportunity created by privately possessed items of property that generate income without the owner necessarily having to do any work. This document is, in effect, an argument for a meritocracy based upon how much physical labor people do. Marx's focus is upon profit, interest, and rent as three kinds of such "free money".
--on p. 137 Spencer uses wording that actually implies that "career politicans" have never done anything "economically useful before running for office"! He doesn't give any examples because their are none. I'm sure that everyone who has been elected to public office in the US has done economically productive work of some kind before getting elected.
--on p. 6 Spencer accuses Al Gore of attributing the belief that no warming is happening (human-caused or otherwise) to "global warming deniers". I'm sure Gore hasn't made any such generalization. But if he has, why for heaven's sake didn't Spencer give us a quote as evidence?
--p. 12 absurdly claims that a South Dakota TV weatherman blamed the 2005 hurricanes that hit the US on "the Russian weather control machine"!! Again, no quotes, no names...nothing.
--p. 35 says "Science isn't truth". This is one of many examples of nonsensical wording used by Spencer. "Science" CANNOT be "truth" because it is a PROCESS. Processes are not statements that can be "true" or "false". Who could believe "science is truth"?? How absurd! Why complain about a blieve no one could possibly believe?
--p. 105 emphatically asserts that "There is no such thing as a free lunch", and attributes the contrary view to "many people".
--p. 122 says "Some critics even suggested that President Bush's 'weak' plan [for reducing mercury pollution] was evidence of some stealth conspiracy to hurt the nation's children."!!! Oh how incredibly absurd! How could ANYONE have expressed such a comically absurd suspicion? I don't believe it for a second. Why, again, doesn't Spencer provide readers with a quote, or at least, a name?
--p. 9 has what I regard as the most comically false statement in the whole book. He says, "I will explain, in simple terms, why so many scientists believe that manmade global warming is a dangerous threat...". This is at least %90 FALSE. E.g., in books I've read by "Alarmists" the main fears are about CO2's indirect effects on what METHANE does. "Methane" isn't even in the index!!! Nor doe he mention anything about the fears that the oceans will become so acidic from excess carbonic acid that they will change from a carbon "sink" to a "source". Nor does he say anything about the fear that there is at least a %1 change that earth will become totally ice free, and sea levels will rise an incredible 220 feet!
 Mostly political propaganda January 6, 2009
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Climate Confusion" is not really about the science or the data on climate change. It does not seem to add much but more confusion to the debate. I gave it a two star rating because it seems to be worth reading to get a slightly different political slant, but it raised my scepticism level to an all time high.
If you like loud political debate, this book does present the more "conservative" view.
If you are looking for scientific clarity on what is really happening to the climate, this book is not the best place to look. The author does not point to references that have scientific validity. The author does make claims and more claims. But, unsupported claims are, just, noise.
Beware December 17, 2008
4 out of 16 found this review helpful
There is a reason one of the tags on this book is "junk science". Junk science is psuedoscience, or somebody's spin made to look like science, which is exactly what this is. Save your money.
 Light & Breezy With Much Good But Not Scholarly December 11, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an interesting and enjoyable book to read on a "Hot" issue but do not expect a scholarly treatise that presents fact after scientific fact to support the author's points. Rather is an introduction to the subject from the viewpoint of an interested layman (which the author is not -- he's a climatologist). That being said, author Spencer does hit the main, non-technical points, and skewers the elitist environmentalists who have adopted an absolutely rasict approach to solving the world's environmental problems as they see them by turning to the public (everyone other than themselves) to sacrifice economically and let the 3rd world's poor die off as rapidly as possible (after all, we need to reduce the world's population.) And he does it with humor.
An aside to remember when listening to politicians bloviate on global warming: If every politician had to pay the US Treasury $10,000 every time they told a lie, we'd have the national debt paid off in a year.
So what does this book add? Well, environmentalism has become a new type of religion, pagan in orientation, in which Mother Earth is the all-powerful God (as ably assisted by her disciples, the environmental elite.) Insects and animals are more important than humans, and we had better watch our step lest we tread on an endangered Furbish lousewart.
The impact of mankind's industrial revolution is probably miniscule compared to the father God, the Sun, and probably this is all much ado about nothing. Wait twenty years and the Earth will be in a cooling phase regardless of what we release into the atmosphere in the way of greenhouse gases. That's the nice thing about the whole argument -- we'll find out shortly (geologically speaking) who is correct. And if he is wrong, will Al Gore return all the money he has made terrifying people plus all donations?
The author explains how the climate system works -- more or less since there is much we don't know -- and treats forecasts beyond the very short term as meaningless. Perhaps the Farmer's Almanac can tell us what will happed July 4th, 2030, but the model used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can't predict two weeks out. There are too many clouds and other factors about which we know next to nothing.
Instead, the global warming catastrophic scenerio is a political theory with a huge bureaucracy and academic community depending on it for their well-being (including the author.) To be scientific, a theory must be provable, or at least be subject to possibly being disproved and pass those tests. Unforunately for the GW cult, literally all of the details in their theories have been or probably soon will be disproven. Can we say like Roseanne Roseannadanna, "Oops, never mind?" This assumption that global warming is manmade (and I will assume the earth has been warming one degree per century for the last three centuries as the best scientific evidence now indicates) has NOT been proven, and likely never will be.
The author points out in classical fashion the huge human catastrophy brought about by Rachel Carson's propaganda in "Silent Spring" that caused DDT to be banned. Tens of millions of people in Africa and the 3rd World have died from malaria as a result, but apparently these are just necessary losses among the unfortunate. The environmental elite and their fellow traveler politicians should come and work on my cattle ranch picking off deer ticks and worry about getting Lyme disease. That should change their attitude. Many a few tens of thousands of deaths in the US will bring back DDT or Diazinon, but several thousand per year so far hasn't caught their attention.
So read this book as a starter, then become informed from the dozens of good books presenting the science of the situation. That's why I gave this book only three stars -- it is a teaser without much scientific meat for the reader to hang his hat upon. But it is going in the correct direction, and it does ask the right questions and pose the situation in an understandable light. For that I thank Dr. Spencer.
Amazing arrogance December 6, 2008
6 out of 14 found this review helpful
I expected a book that would discuss the latest thinking on global warming which is that global warming is more a natural than a man made process. What I got was Roy Spencer's personal views of everything from politics, narrow-minded science and philosophy. His book is nothing more than an opportunity to get up on his soap box. Save your money.
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