WUWT reader Jim asks:
I am the reluctant presenter of Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert to our book group and I am a skeptic. Any advice?
I’ve not read the book, so I could not help him, other than to say that Hurricane Katrina, a class 3 Hurricane has not been repeated and the USA is currently experiencing a record drought of major hurricanes. Note that Sandy was not even a hurricane when it made landfall, having been downgraded to an extratropical cyclone. Here’s the book synopsis:
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change is a 2006 non-fiction book by Elizabeth Kolbert. The book attempts to bring attention to the causes and effects of global climate change. Kolbert travels around the world where climate change is affecting the environment in significant ways. These locations include Alaska, Greenland, the Netherlands, and Iceland. The environmental effects that are apparent consist of rising sea levels, thawing permafrost, diminishing ice shelves, changes in migratory patterns, and increasingly devastating forest fires due to loss of precipitation. She also speaks with many leading scientists about their individual research and findings. Kolbert brings to attention the attempts of large corporations such as Exxon Mobil and General Motors to influence politicians and discrediting scientists. She also writes about America’s reluctance in the global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Leading this resistance, she explains, is the Bush administration which has been opposed to the Kyoto protocol since it was ratified in 2005. Kolbert concludes the book by examining the events surrounding the events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and arguing that governments have the knowledge and technologies to prepare for such disasters but choose to ignore the signs until it is too late.
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“Kolbert brings to attention the attempts of large corporations such as Exxon Mobil and General Motors to influence politicians and discrediting scientists.”
One wishes someone would bring attention to the attempts of large NGOs such as the WWF and Friends of the Earth to influence politicians and discrediting scientists.
A wonderful science fiction romp. A true comedic masterpiece, combining a dose of impending doom with a confluence of unlikely weather and unusual tides. The usual villains are present including those evil masterminds of chaos and destruction, Bush and Cheney, the Pink and The Brain of climatology.
I would advise a presentation along these lines.
“… governments have the knowledge and technologies to prepare for such disasters…”
In the case of Katrina the government certainly should have ensured that the levee system was sound, and could resist the water pressure… but there’s nothing the government can do about the climate.
Hurricanes were mentioned in the OP. Other stuff that jumps out immediately:
“She also writes about America’s reluctance in the global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Leading this resistance, she explains, is the Bush administration which has been opposed to the Kyoto protocol since it was ratified in 2005.”
Well, one think you could point out is that Kyoto has been an abysmal failure, and is admittedly so even by most nations who originally signed. It failed not because the US didn’t ratify it, but because it was a ridiculous form-over-substance pony show in the first place.
“She also speaks with many leading scientists about their individual research and findings. Kolbert brings to attention the attempts of large corporations such as Exxon Mobil and General Motors to influence politicians and discrediting scientists.”
You could also provide a comparison on climate change funding vs. skeptic/denier/realist funding. Should be an eye-opener.
“The environmental effects that are apparent consist of rising sea levels,”
You could show actual sea-level data for the locations she traveled in, as well as other closeby areas. You could point out that trends are positive in some areas; negative in others. You could point out the tiny amount of the positive trends and that most of the anectodal stories about sea level rise in particular locations can’t possibly be based on objective data.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.shtml
From the book synopsis, it looks like there is hardly anything that isn’t flat out wrong or subject to significant dispute. If I were reviewing it, I might focus on the fact that it appears to be a propaganda piece and perhaps should not be taken seriously.
“…reluctant…”
If you know your opponent’s case is unsound but your audience doesn’t, then here is how to present it to them:
1. Present your opponent’s case as well as it can be presented, and let the audience see that you are not reluctant to do so. They now grasp his case well and trust that you have not hidden its best arguments from them.
2. Then carefully demolish his case and bounce the rubble. The audience now sees that even on its best footing your opponent’s case is unsound.
Kolbert tends to overinterpret the data. Obviously, she’s a hard core left-wing green, but she’s no airhead. She’s been writing about climate change for years at the New Yorker, and that’s where this book of hers started. You want a quick look into her mind, check out “Top Ten Signs of a Warming World,” in the 12/17/12 New Yorker. I remember thinking, when reading one of her articles, and I know this is in her book, that she was reading much too much into ice-cores, looking at them like they were some kind of written record. Sorry. I know this isn’t much help.
Kolbert’s background is growing up in the Northeast, training as a journalist, and working for the NY Times. Nothing outside the alarmist echo-chamber is evident, so one approach to evaluating her book is to estimate how reliable her critical abilities are. From this skimpy evidence, it’s not too promising. Does she show any appreciation for complexity and detail? Is her political sense one-sided? Who does she blame and how much verified evidence does she cite? In other words, determine her credibility.
Actually, wasn’t the USA one of the best performing countries for CO2 reduction in the last few years? Mostly due to the conversion to natural gas for power generation, but still.
I think one of the best rebuttals is the weather outside, right now, anywhere in the world. It is different everyday but different in the same way. We are not living inside weird weather, just look around you.
Never mind the weather “porn” on TV. It is usually far away and even the stuff close to home is not unprecedented just ask the locals.
Based on the summary, I don’t believe you can classify the book as “non-fiction”…
She may be well-meaning and altruistic, but consider how much money she is making following this pursuit. If she was preaching skepticism, the first utterance about her from the alarmists would be “She’s in the pocket of Big Oil!” but, as it is, one might assume she’s impoverishing herself trying to save the planet.
1. the US went the longest period in history WITHOUT a hurricane strike. Irene (a marginal storm) was the first to make land fall, 1078 days after Hurricane Ike.
2. It has been 2668 days since a major hurricane struck the US, and counting. The last was Wilma, in 2005, at a Cat 3.
3. Arctic ice is down, but Antarctic ice is up over the satellite record. It is currently very close a near record high at ice minimum. It set a new record last year for ice maximum.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
4. Forest fires are down since the 1950s. the 5 largest were pre-1910.
http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_histSigFires.html
5. In the US, precipitation is up slightly over the last 120 years.
http://climvis.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/cag3/hr-display3.pl
6. There are no trends in either US droughts or floods, if damage is normalized. Even the IPCC agrees.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02626667.2011.621895
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srex/SREX_Full_Report.pdf
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/full/nature11575.html
7. Sea levels are rising at the about the same rate they have for the last 150 years. There has been no acceleration in rate of rise. In fact, there has been a slight decrease in the rate of rise in the last decade.
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00141.1
8. Globally, cyclones are down in number and total energy in the satellite record.
http://policlimate.com/tropical/index.html
9. In the US severe tornadoes, F3-5, are down.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/tornado/clim/EF3-EF5.png
10. 2013 was a record year for LACK of tornadoes.
11. I am still waiting for my Exxon check. Patiently.
Join another book group, but good luck.Most just serve to promote leftist junk. They are little more then a mechanism to maintain enslavement to group think. I doubt a proper debunking of this trash, no matter how good, will effect anyone else in the group other then to make them hate you because you are insensitive and uncaring and hate the earrrth. The facilitators of the group will be there to insure that this is so.
Ask the author to watch this?
To embellish on Jim Ryan’s suggestion.
Summarize what you think are Kolbert’s 5 or 6 strongest points as a comment here.
Sift through the replies looking for the sharpest of wit and keenest of aim.
Don’t know exactly what you are presenting. The book, specific refutation, or the current state of climate research and debate? There is a fairly extensive (current to mid 2012) summary on the latter in the Climate chapter of The Arts of Truth. It includes a summary of sea level rise and extreme weather which might be of some help to you. Would be a quick read.
Regards
1. Present your opponent’s case as well as it can be presented, and let the audience see that you are not reluctant to do so. They now grasp his case well and trust that you have not hidden its best arguments from them.
2. Then carefully demolish his case and bounce the rubble. The audience now sees that even on its best footing your opponent’s case is unsound.
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best advice.
You could point out that this is essentially a political book, and that science just does not proceed by making assertions without any attempt to disprove them.
Then you could say ” I’m sorry, but the politics presented here are not my politics. For what it’s worth, I could point to a hundred examples similar to the ones in this book which indicate the opposite of what this book says. But this is a book group, and we’re not here to discuss science….”
Then move off into a discussion of propaganda and satire, mentioning Jonathan Swift, Leni Riefenstahl, wartime and religious propaganda, and show how a one-sided discussion is nearly always wrong. Mention Julian Simon if you can.
The Wiki has quite a good article on propaganda. Of course, they should know. There would be few better people to learn the techniques from….
She mentions Iceland.
You might want to comment that glaciers in Iceland had reached their maximum extent since the Ice Age during the 19thC, which was the coldest period for 10000 years. Temperatures today in Iceland are in fact perfectly normal from a historical context.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/little-ice-age-was-the-coldest-period-for-10000-years/
More recently, from 1964 to the early 1970’s Iceland experienced what they call “The Sea Ice Years”, when sea ice surrounded their north coast all year round. Temperatures were much lower than the 1940’s.
As a result fishing and agriculture collapsed, their currency massively devalued and there was mass unemployment. There are no Icelanders who wish to return to those halcyon days, just to satisfy a few greenies’ wish to see glaciers back where they used to be.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/ghcn-temperature-adjustments-in-icelanda-closer-look-at-stykkisholmurpart-ii/
Les Johnson
“10. 2013 was a record year for LACK of tornadoes. ”
I think you mean 2012. The 2013 tornado season hasn’t even started yet. 🙂
As to Katrina, that hurricane was a weak Cat 1 when it passed the Keys. It had traveled
across the Atlantic at a latitude which warmists had claimed warming had occurred and were producing stronger hurricanes. Yet it was only when the storm entered the Gulf and began closely tracking one of the warm currents that circulate between the Gulf and the Caribbean that the storm “blew up” and became a killer. At that point it was not far from landfall, thus only an
abbreviated time for warnings. Global warming played no part whatsoever in the strengthening
of Katrina. You might gather data and maps to show exactly how and when and why Katrina became the hurricane that struck New Orleans. And exactly what “technology” and “knowledge” is she referring to when she claims damages could have been avoided?
I have not read the book but something to include and point out is that none of the environmental changes mentioned are unprecedented. They’ve happened before. The only thing unprecedented is that now some are claiming these natural events are somehow Man’s fault and that, given enough power and money, they can change and/or control them.
What made Katrina memorable wasn’t that it was a particularly strong hurricane compared to others but that it hit a major city built below sea level and the political hay people tried to make of its aftermath.
Show her this, pat her twice on the tusch, and leave in a manner which is dignified, not smug.
http://www.clipular.com/c?1272633=uxyQDogrVLwqXRm229v3kq9OCds
Presumably your book group is there to discuss the book and the way it is written (actually I typed “wrotten” by mistake there – perhaps I should have left it in!).
I assume you are there to discuss the literary merits or otherwise of the book and that you are concerned about the “politics” of your fellow book lovers and the long-term issues that may arise from the discussion?
If so, just discuss whether you found the writing style interesting and if so why. With regard to the CAGW issue – the old adage is don’t discuss religion or money with friends especially if you wish to keep them.