Tom Nelson reports:
I hate the idea of spending $9.99 on a climate hoax book, but I plan to get my money’s worth.
Searching Mann’s book for “denier” yielded 125 hits; “Morano” had 27 hits; “McIntyre” had 166 hits; “Watts” had 16 hits.
Mann’s book currently has 15 reviews on Amazon, all five-star, many by his warmist friends. I hope some climate realists eventually review the book as well.
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While I realize that many people don’t want to buy this book, please don’t pull a Peter Gleick and do reviews apparently in absentia. (I can’t emphasize this enough – don’t post a review if you have not read it.)
For some balance, may I also recommend Don’t Sell Your Coat by Harold Ambler.
The book is out on Kindle and doing much better, for instance competing successfully with Michael Mann’s The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars. It is now number 3 just ahead of Mann’s new book.
Buy the book here, also now on Kindle here.
Bishop Hill has a chapter from Harold Ambler’s book. It is excellent read.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/2/8/dont-sell-your-coat.html
Direct link to the extract:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/storage/Extract from Ambler.pdf
[The link to the extract isn’t working due – you need to access it though the first link ~jove, mod]
“McIntyre” had 166 hits..”
I thought his name could not be mentioned…?
Stephen Lewandowsky’s 5 star review is revealing.
“This is a partisan book. It does not attempt to be “balanced” by adding a lie to the truth and dividing by two.”
Lewandowsky assumes the essential truth of the hockey stick, and whatever Mann says as gospel. It goes a lot into attacking Congressman Barton, and detailing the support for the hockey stick from academic bodies.
Read it and wonder why 50 out of 69 people found this helpful.
I have now read both sets of reviews, and it does not seem as though any reviewer, positive or negative has actually read the book. I would guess that’s where “politically charged” comes in.
So are you going to do what the CAGWers side does and wait to post a complete review as soon as we hear about a crisis in Mann’s hometown, death in the family, personal emergency, etc? I’d be very disappointed if you sunk that low.
-Scott
Also, what’s up with the first reviews of Michael Mann’s book?
The first one has the date stamp of 28 January.
On 29 January, eight more 5-star, mostly extended, reviews have been posted. One can only speculate that these are his family, friends and close colleagues who had advance copy of the book. Some of them call him just ‘Mike’ in the review.
Those ‘Mike’ supporters who didn’t bother to write a review must have just clicked ‘helpful’ for the earlier reviews. The numbers look inflated like a stuffed ballot booth. ‘Vote early, vote often!’ as the saying goes.
Hopefully WUWT can help bring greater numbers and more negative reviews to bear on the book’s Amazon page.
How long before Mann starts whining about this ‘review-war’ that he and his supporters ignited?
Dana A. Nuccitelli (Dana1981 on John Cook’s Skeptical Science blog) gives an interesting, polemical review.
He views Mann as the upholder of truth, against the Climate D…… people.
Nothing about the structure of the book or the context of Mann’s work. So 5 stars for a book he has not read.
I hope Anthony isn’t disappointed with only 16 “hits”.
REPLY: As far as I know, Mann has never publicly acknowledged my existence, so I doubt he’d start now. Those are probably “watts per square meter” hits. – Anthony
The important question is: is it printed on two-ply? Quilted?
Since I do not have an Amazon account, and do not wish to start one, I cannot tell them my opinion of the reviews.
Just remember in Manns own (paraphrased) words.
McIntrye and McKittrick have misunderstood our statistical methods, the statistical methods we use take no account of the sign of the proxy predictor.
If you have a statistical method that does this, the answer this method gives is not really an answer at all.
What is the psychological make up of a person who calls critique and debate for wars?
Mann must have a team monitoring the reviews,
” The team” is posting immediate negative comments underneath any negative review.
Foxes are sitting in the hen house.
! Prepare to be ambushed if you post a review !!
Humm the first review on the page was well we say not to good for this Mannspin
I welcome Mike Mann’s exercising of his free speech rights (hooray!). Fortunately, no one (from “big oil” – heh) is plotting to try to get rid of the editor or publisher of his book – after all, this is NOT climate science journal peer review…
BTW, I do NOT plan to buy the book…or even read it.
Hit from
Location: University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
IP Address: The Pennsylvania State University (128.118.111.120)
Referring URL: wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/08/michael-manns-new-book-is-out/
Visit Page: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CHshow.htm
Dr. Mann on line?
Hi Michael, life is to short to take it too seriously.
Kev-in-UK says:
February 8, 2012 at 11:48 am
Just wait until disappointed readers re-sell the book for a buck two-fifty (which range will still be far higher than the actual value of the book), so at least you can revel in the fact it cost more to ship than to buy it.
Then after a perfunctory perusal, turn around and throw darts at it or burn it, as it would cost far more in shipping that what you’d get by returning and re-selling such a tome. Or keep it to show your grandkids as an example of science run amok.
Heh. Did Judith C. get any mentions? How about “apostate”?
I cannot decide whether to purchase the book or wait until it shows up at my local library. I am certainly looking forward to reviews and comments from Steve McIntyre, Andrew Montford, Steve Mosher and others who are intimately familiar with the details of this topic. I did look at the reviews at Amazon. Apart from a couple of reviews, one of which is by Arthur Smith, both the positive and negative reviews are unhelpful to say the least. Many have been written without any evidence that the reviewer has actually read the book. A surprising number of the positive reviews are first time reviewers which always makes me suspicious. Scott Mandia, who wrote a totally irrelevant and negative review of Donna Laframboise’s book, fills his self-appointed(?) role as Mann’s personal PR flack at great length if nothing else. I do suspect that a concerted PR effort is underway to promote Mann and his book.
I would urge regular readers here to keep the high ground and base their reviews on the actual content of Mann’s latest offering.
Wow, 24 reviews already.
Will this be one of the most reviewed books around?
I would like to pay it , but even if it nice and smooth its far to expensive for toilet paper , a use its contents perhaps will best match.
The top ranked reviews all trash the book.
just a thought – which perhaps Tom Nelson will elaborate on when he has read the book – and that is I wonder if the book will contain any pre-emptive references to climategate emails and/or the potentially exposing FOIA emails from his university?
kbray in california says:
“The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years, study shows
“http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/08/glaciers-mountains”
And here’s the enlightening part of that article, “The scientists are careful to point out that lower-altitude glaciers in the Asian mountain ranges – sometimes dubbed the ‘third pole’ – are definitely melting. Satellite images and reports confirm this. But over the study period from 2003-10 enough ice was added to the peaks to compensate.”
Amazing, isn’t it? The scientists have just discovered the process of glaciation – ablation and calving at the terminus and accumulation at the head. When ablation equals accumulation, you get a stable glacier (well, from a mass balance perspective and not necessarily area). However and according to the scientists, “glaciers… are definitely melting.”
Given that a natural variability already exists in the average altitude of glaciers in the Himalayan range (i.e., east vs. west), it’s disingenuous for the scientists to assert that “careful” attention be focused on the melting of the lower-level glaciers along the western half. This implies that either less attention or a dismissal be made of the acknowledged thickening or positive balance of glaciers along the eastern half – http://www.activeremedy.org.uk/pages/files/other/icimod_glaciers.pdf .
Wisely so, the article quotes a learned scientist who states reassuring, “The new data does not mean that concerns about climate change are overblown in any way. It means there is a much larger uncertainty in high mountain Asia than we thought.” This may be translated to the lay person as, “We need more grant money to excuse this troubling increase in the error bars associated with our otherwise accurate glacial melt models.”
And CAGW proponents (like Dr. Mann) wonder why “their” messaging is seemingly going astray – especially along the front lines…?
From the comments section:
Michael Ashley says:
For those readers who are confused by the polarization of the reviews for Mann’s book the reason is simple: the anti-science website WUWT has invited its readers to add reviews. It is pretty clear that the +5 reviews are coherent and the +1 reviews (like the one above) are rambling, barely literate, nonsense. Read the book and make up your own mind.