Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Books

Always Scared to Death?

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With reference to the crisis in financial markets, Sydney-based think tank The Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) held a forum yesterday entitled ‘The End of Capitalism’.   

CIS Research Fellow, Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich, suggested that doom and gloom headlines in magazines such as Time, The Economist and Der Spiegel foretelling the end of capitalism were no different from other irrational scare stories.  Dr Hartwich referred several times to examples of global scares from the book ‘Scared to Death’ by Christopher Booker and Richard North.   

I am not sure that I agree with Dr Hartwich – he went as far as to suggest that with the fear of a depression we wouldn’t be hearing so much about global warming because the media could generally only focus on one major scare at a time.  But I can definitely recommend the Booker and North expose of a long list of media scare stories beginning with the great salmonella scare of 1988-89.

The book is dedicated to “all those scientists and campaigners who, amid the madness of our age of ‘scares’, have kept a sense of proportion and fought for the truth to prevail.”     

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Scared to Death, From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth by Christopher Booker and Richard North, published by Continuum UK, 2007. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scared-Death-Global-Warming-Costing/dp/0826486142

‘The Deniers’, Reviewed by Art Raiche

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DOES society benefit from a fear-driven science-funding policy that threatens the livelihood of scientists with the courage to argue against “orthodox” and established “beyond doubt” views on climate? 

The media drives this fear with increasingly hysterical messages that the earth is getting hotter, that this is being caused by human CO2 emissions and, that without radical social and economic surgery, we will face a myriad of global catastrophes, the like of which have not been seen since the dawn of our history.    We are told that all serious scientists agree with this and that those few who dissent are either charlatans or are funded by the fossil fuel companies.  Other dissenters are regarded on a par with creationists, Holocaust deniers or supporters of tobacco companies.  

But is this true?  Is the science really settled?

To answer this, Lawrence Solomon, the Canadian environmentalist and anti-nuclear campaigner, sought to find well-regarded scientists who disagreed with the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) hysteria promoted by Al Gore and the IPCC. 

[Read more…] about ‘The Deniers’, Reviewed by Art Raiche

A New Book by Geologist Marc Hendrickx

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Dear Jennifer,
I enjoy your work, here’s a new climate change book for your Christmas reading:
We’re not scared anymore Mr Gore.
A climate change parody by geologist Marc Hendrickx.
Synopsis:
Ms Green is surprised when Mr Gore comes to teach the class about the dangers of climate change.
Mr Gore looks at the evidence and the outcomes of man made global warming. It’s scary stuff.
He gets a lot of help on the way from Ms Green but in the end It’s Mr Gore who learns a thing or two about the climate. How fast can you run Mr Gore?
For more information see:
http://littleskepticpress.blogspot.com/2008/11/were-not-scared-anymore-mr-gore.html
Cheers
Marc Hendrickx

Why Campaign Against Hunting Polar Bears?

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THE World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has condemned Nunavut – the most sparsely populated and largest Canadian Territory – for maintaining its polar bear hunt quota threatening that boycotts may follow the decision.

CBC News ran a story last week that Environment Minister, Olayuk Akesuk, has accepted a recommendation from the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board not to change this season’s polar bear quota of 105 polar bears for the Baffin Bay area.  This is despite concerns from government officials about overhunting. Baffin Bay is an area of water and ice between the northern Baffin Island and Greenland. 

Of course much of the English-speaking world would be surprised to learn that polar bears are still hunted.   [Read more…] about Why Campaign Against Hunting Polar Bears?

Michael Crichton Dies Aged Just 66

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MICHAEL Crichton, author of more than a dozen best-selling science fiction adventures including ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘The Andromeda Strain’, and also a well known global warming sceptic, died of cancer in Los Angeles, aged 66, on Tuesday. 

My favourite Crichton-book is ‘State of Fear’, a thriller about a character with a strong handshake known as Kenner.  A Professor of Geoenvironmental Engineering at MIT, Kenner travels the world fighting eco-terrorists including at the Antarctic. Published in 2005 the novel is premised on the idea that global warming is a hoax. 

My favourite Crichton quote is “The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance. We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we’re told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.”

What a terrible loss.

Good Book: The Deniers by Lawrence Solomon

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Hi Jennifer,

 

You may be interested in a book I found titled “The Deniers” by Lawrence Solomon.

Theme is “The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud.  And those who are too fearful to do so.

 

I have found this book to be extremely informative with regarding the real story behind climate change and the agenda of the IPCC.

 

Kind Regards,

Frank