Thursday, April 12, 2007

State of fear -- Michael Crichton

Global warming is significantly covered by media these days and a large number of people are convinced about the scientific evidence of global warming. After all if Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) consisting of more than 200 scientists have reported significant rise in temperature in future, then a common person is hardly wrong. If one is a skeptic of global warming, then it is only because he does not understand science and media headlines like "Political efforts to water down IPCC report" clearly underscore it.

Michel Crichton digs up a number of scientific papers that illustrate significant skepticism to a phenomena that covers the entire planet called global warming. This 600+ page science fiction has a lawyer with common understanding of global warming and he meets a professor involved in busting international terrorist operations. The lawyer makes several arguments for global warming from the perspective of a common person and the professor replies with concise summaries of scientific papers that cast doubt on such phenomena. Interestingly, both of them work to stop "environmental terrorists" from creating environmental disasters. The purpose of these disasters are to underscore the point of climate control but has the potential to kill a large number of innocent people. The terrorist call themselves flag bearers of greater good whose broader goal is to save the planet.

The novel casts doubt on a large number of commonly understood "truth" on global warming like:
1. Is Antarctica melting?
2. Are glaciers on Mt Kilimanjaro melting due to global warming?
3. Is all environmental disaster ranging from tsunami, melting glaciers, hurricanes all result of a single factor called global warming and a single cause called carbon-di-oxide?

No comments: