I'm not gonna lie: this book makes me really mad, and I'm upset that so many deniers of global warming probably got started by reading this bestseller. I haven't gotten very far yet, but I knew the graphs starting on p. 107 were coming the moment I learned what this book was about. "There must have been another factor." -- uh, has Crichton never heard of aerosols? Or is he just hoping his audience is too young or too old to remember that whole debacle?
The tone of this book as a dramatic page-thriller starts on page 5. I'm not kidding: who's going to put down a book after they learn on the FIRST PAGE about some sexy half-Vietnamese model that is definitely going to be getting it on with the introductory character? The book BEGINS as a romance novel! I rolled my eyes when I realized what Crichton was doing, but... sex sells, and it's a very effective hook into a book that claims to be sort of about global warming. Sex? Danger? Global catastrophe? Science sure is interesting to the layman all of a sudden!
In response to Alex's post: I'm not jealous of Crichton's gift of prose, I'm pissed at him because he's using it to convince the public that global warming is a sham! In his message on p. 715 he starts out innocently enough with "Atmospheric CO2 is increasing, and human activity is the probable cause" but quickly discredits all burgeoning science everywhere with the bombshell "An informed guess is just a guess." This is tantamount to claiming the theory of evolution is just a theory and nothing more. It's a stupid thing to say, no matter how you feel about science (whether its effects are good, bad, or both) -- both because whoever says it broadcasts their confusion of the terms "random guess" and "hypothesis," and because nothing anyone does is completely insulated from the rest of the world unless you live in a cave deep underground.
He could just be trying to make a quick buck by writing a book about a controversial topic and expecting (correctly) that the controversy over the book itself will ensure massive sales... but his motive has to be more sinister than pure greed. "Everybody has an agenda. Except me." Bullshit! Actually I think he describes his work rather eloquently himself: "There is no difference in outcomes between greed and incompetence." Not that he's an incompetent writer, but he's no analyst of the merit of science -- as we've learned so far in class, no science is completely free of bias, but Crichton's oozes out from between his carefully chosen passages.
On P. 535 Crichton makes a telling comparison between opposing the death penalty, and opposing global warming as a threat. We're supposed to think at this point that it is equally right and noble to oppose both of these odious things, but I don't think this really works out the way he meant it to. He equates criminals against other humans, to criminals against the environment, which works; but then he equates opposing the death penalty (a human sentencing of a criminal against humanity) to opposing the threat of global warming (presumably the planet's response to human climate interference). We can stop directly someone who's trying to impose the death penalty; we can't stop directly the fear of impending planet-wide repercussions that are resultant of human activity. Humans enjoy freaking out, especially if what they perceive as impending doom has no ready-made band-aid solution prepared for liberal application. It's only indirectly through acting in some way to stop what we perceive as impending doom that a vague threat can be really opposed.
This is what the whole "go green" movement seems to be about -- making people feel less agitated about their consumerism destroying the world, by pretending their action has some meaningful impact. You can now buy cheap recycled plastic sacks at the grocer's for a couple bucks that you can reuse in lieu of having the bagboy pack your groceries in paper or plastic. Seems like a sensible plan, but most people'll probably use it once, bring home, and promptly forget about it until the next time they are in the checkout line... at which time they'll feel uncomfortable about their waste and buy another sack! Genius.
Crichton comes at us again with his claim that climate science is just one big black-box on p. 236 when Kenner says "... if you don't understand something, you can't approximate it. You're really just guessing." The question input to the left of the box is "What is the climate going to be like tomorrow?" The question goes through the box full of wind patterns, warming and cooling air, fluid dynamics (none of which anyone apparently knows anything about) ... and to the right of the blackbox is output a model of climate. Yes, if you have no understanding whatsoever of a phenomenon, you can't do any better than making a guess about it -- but if you know ANYthing about it greater than nothing, your hypothesis is by definition more informed than a blind guess.
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Certainly knowing anything is better then knowing nothing, oh wait he also said there was certainly too much certainty in the world. I have to say i'm kinda lost after this book. He does such a great job at just tearing everything apart and making me resent environmental extremists as much as i do corporate polluters. Which is a nice turn of the coin, but honestly i'd feel better if WWF was this well funded.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a good point about the go green movement, how it's just about making consumerism and the capitalist system more palatable and pseudo-democratic. So i wonder how you challenge something like a conscious consumer.
I don't think Crichton is taking a "random guess" as much as he's picking the coolest/most catastrophic guess and making that a possibility. You're right humans love freaking out--that's why this book sells. He can find the bad ass-ness in a 3rd grade science fair project. It's definitely not his prose, it's his bullshitting methods that are outstanding and flawless.
ReplyDeleteSo when anit-global warming kids are ranting and calling everything conspiracies (and you know it's cuz of State of Fear) just stop and enjoy yourself a little laugh. I think both sides have plenty of merit, but if Crichton is your inspiraton/starting point/leader, whatever, you just know their just trying to make life exciting. That doesn't make me that upset, no more upset than watching my roommates getting hard off of physics problems.
Good question Charles -- in regards to conscious consumerism I don't really see any sort of problem. I have to side with Friedman: in a pure capitalist system (which we don't have, but nonetheless) every time you spend money, you're essentially voting with your dollars. If you're going to give a merchant money, which is essentially what you're doing when you buy their goods, you'd better be sure they're the kind of person whose actions you don't mind funding. I don't buy new things very often anymore (just went to Goodwill this past weekend and got some stuff, actually), and I've altogether stopped buying drinks that come in plastic bottles, but I know I'm far from completely conscious.
ReplyDeleteTo be as close to 100% perfect at being conscious about what you consume, you'd also better be sure you don't mind funding the actions of people to whom your merchant gives money. This is why George Morton withdrew his millions of dollars of support for NERF (pew pew!) -- despite their professed good intentions to save the earth from anthropogenic global warming, George didn't like what NERF was doing with that money.
I wouldn't call out a consumer if they were actually living the life they thought they were, which is tough to do -- just the consumers who are told (and believe it) they can make the world a better place if they do one quick, easy, small task. If we do end up having to fix the world or be completely fucked, the solution is not going to be quick or easy.
For example today on the bus I saw an ad "Making a difference is as easy as a walk in the park!" The ad was trying to influence people to sign up for a walk-a-thon. This is just a business's clever way of asking for more money; YOU may MAKE A DIFFERENCE in the world... by giving us money so that we can make that difference for you. I don't remember what the ad was for, but suffice it to say not every problem can be fixed through throwing a bunch of money its way, which is often the quick and easy solution applied to every problem we US Americans face.
Alex you watch your roommates get hard off of physics problems!? Don't worry, I don't take (that breed of) conspiracy theorists nor their self-righteous freakouts seriously. However as a major in one of the hard sciences I am a little bit of what Latour calls a "Science Warrior" and I can't help but seethe when Doctor Crichton in his arrogance suggests that climate "science" is actually (gasp!) completely unmethodical, thereby not a science at all.
ReplyDeleteI worded my original post incorrectly -- I meant when individuals such as deniers of evolution claim something is "oooonly" a theory, they're garbling the line between a purely random, uninformed, thoughtless *guess*, and a scientific theory (i used the word hypothesis in place of theory). I realize in our class we have blurred if not erased completely the line between scientific fact and cultural acceptance of some alleged datum, but even if global warming turns out not to exist climate scientists still went about measuring what they thought was GW in a scientific way. IF (a huge if, a miles-high if) there are ecoterrorists altering the climate, those poor scientists are just neglecting to account for a variable in their interpretations.