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Pflichtlektüre für Leute, die sich eine eigene Meinung zur "Klimakatastrophe" erlauben

Gregor Groß

Reviewed in Germany on 26 January 2009

Ich finde, das sollte jeder lesen. Sehr gute Argumentation durch Nigel Lawson, der eine Reihe von Ungereimtheiten in der Argumentation des IPCC und des Stern Reviews aufzeigt.

Das heisst nicht, dass ich den Planeten untergehen sehen will. Aber sich auf CO2 zu konzentrieren scheint nach der Lektüre dieses Buches aus vielen Gründen wenig sinnvoll.

5 people found this helpful

Endlich mal wieder mit den Füssen auf den Boden

Longueville Jacques

Reviewed in Germany on 7 June 2013

Der Autor hat es sich nicht leicht gemacht, er hat die IPCC Berichte akribisch durchgearbeitet.
Mit nüchterner Analyse und gutem Menschenverstand widerlegt er das Katastrophenbild.
Er behauptet keineswegs, dass kein Klimawechsel kommen kann. Aber die Ursachen, der Anteil des Menschen, und vor allem der Handlungsbedarf werden sehr kritisch gewertet. Manches wird allerdings etwas zu oft wiederholt und betont.
Allen, die sich nüchtern an den Klimawechsel interessieren, möchte ich dieses Buch empfehlen.

One person found this helpful

Christopher Hay

Bedauerlich

Reviewed in Germany on 2 April 2009

Ein bedauerliches Buch. Wie Noam Chomsky sagte: "Every three words I have to have a footnote with big documentation explaining it ... if you're on the other side [on the side of the people that own society] you can just pay attention to style, because it doesn't matter what you say."

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Cade73

Required reading for Copenhagen

Reviewed in Canada on 18 December 2009

This is a lucid and appealing book that casts another nail in the coffin of the fraud known as Global Warming aka Climate Change. It should be read by every attendee at the debacle in Copenhagen, including hot air specialist Al Gore.

3 people found this helpful

Emc2

Great common sense critic of Global Warming, and a smart discussion on the most cost-effective way to address the consequences

Reviewed in the United States on 25 January 2009

This is a short and well-written book, provocative and full of smart and no nonsense arguments. Lawson provides end notes for each chapter and all bibliographical sources are properly referenced. The book's aim is to examine each of the dimensions of the consensus view of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), including the science, the economics, the politics, and the ethical aspects. He is concerned with the uncertainties of long-term forecasting and the lack of a real cost-effectiveness analysis in the policies recommended and advocated by the majority view on climate change, particularly by the radical change in lifestyle that will have to take place in the developed countries, and the unnecessary burden that will be put on the poor in the developing world. Lawson questions the fundamentals of AGW orthodoxy just armed with common sense, his political experience, and some very clever back-of-the-envelope calculations.

Lawson opens the book arguing that although he agrees that there is a real warming trend, he is skeptical of the validity of predictions made with global climate simulation models, and more importantly, he questions if indeed the sole cause of this warming is man-made greenhouses and how big the contribution of CO2 is. Lawson also raises several issues regarding the IPCC process, its findings and policy recommendations, and throughout the book he strongly criticizes the The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review , which he considers "at the extreme end of the alarmist camp".

He might not be right in all the issues, but certainly he will at least let you wonder about some of them. Besides the reasonable critic of the economics, I found particularly robust his argument regarding the lack of falsifiability of climate simulation models and their predictions, which means that these complex models do not meet one of the most basic criteria required for any theory to be considered within the domain of science (for more on falsifiability read Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Routledge Classics) ). He sarcastically notes the fact that all models have failed so far to predict that there has been no further warming between 2001 and 2007. And by the way, this trend continued during 2008, ending with one the coolest boreal winters in recent decades (just Google to verify by yourself). Personally I do not think this recent short trend means that AGW is not real but more likely just part of the normal blips within long term climate patterns, in this case regarding the effects of the normal sunspot cycles and La Niña, as Lawson later in the book explains. However, it is a good example of the risks of advocating a cause with incomplete science, oversimplifications and by obstructing any real scientific debate.

After making his case in Chapter 1 about why he thinks "the science of global warming is far from settle", Lawson proceeds as any respectable economist would do, and assumes a prudent position "to err on the side of caution". Therefore, for the rest of the book he works under the assumption that the AGW theory is correct as reported by the IPPC's 2007 Report (see Climate Change 2007 - The Physical Science Basis: Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (Climate Change 2007) - a PDF version is available for free through the web) .

First he goes on to discus the practical consequences of the predicted warming over the next hundred years, based on the IPCC scenarios and policy recommendations. Next he analyzes the importance of adaptation, what Lawson claims is the IPPC's most serious flaw regarding the impact of global warming, as there is a "systematic underestimation of the benefits of adaptation" and "the most cost-effective way of addressing the likely consequences" as opposed to reducing CO2 emissions. He also is critical of the Stern Review and the Kyoto Protocol and the practical difficulties of reaching a global agreement. Then he discusses the different technologies and market alternatives being implemented and available to reduce emissions, closing with his own proposal to impose a carbon tax across the board, but implemented simultaneously with a reduction of other taxes to compensate for the extra revenues and avoiding any additional burden on the taxpayer. The book closes with a discussion about the discount rates used by the IPCC and the Stern Review in their economic analysis, with a more detailed discussion on the latter. The book ends with a warning about the dangers of the environmental movement, calling it "the new religion of eco-fundamentalism" and claiming that "we appear to have entered a new age of unreason."

I highly recommended this book for those with a genuine interest in the AGW controversy, and particularly in the aspects regarding the economics of mitigation and/or adaptation that will be necessary and that is being debated right now.

PS (2009): For a bold and politically incorrect critic of the reliability of climate science and modeling, as well as a proposal of more affordable mitigation solutions read Chapter 5 of SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

9 people found this helpful

Simon Loveday

Just what it says on the tin

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 September 2008

This is a wonderful book. As the title suggests, it is cool, reasonable, and patient, looking carefully at all the evidence and coming to conclusions which it is hard to disagree with.

Like other reviewers, I find it hard to take excerpts from the book because I would have to quote the whole thing! However, perhaps I may try to help anyone who is wondering whether to read it. One way to look at the global warming/climate change debate is to ask oneself three questions.

First, is the world getting warmer?
Second, is human activity, and specifically CO2, a major cause?
And third, does it matter? Will there be harmful consequences? And if so, what should we do about them?

Much of the angry debate between believers and sceptics rages round the first two points. Lawson surveys the evidence on both, and comes to a conclusion. But what makes this book so powerful is its focus on the third question: whether a warmer world is one that will harm people, animals, plants, and our descendants. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) argues that it will. Lawson disagrees. He takes us through the IPCC scenarios, and their range of predictions relating to five potential impacts of a warmer world: on water, ecosystems, food, coasts, and health. In each case he demonstrates, with evidence, that a warmer world will either be neutral or even beneficial. What makes this evidence particularly persuasive is that much of it is drawn from the IPCC's own 4th report (2007)!.

It would be wrong to think of this book as complacent, a kind of 'I'm all right, Jack, pull up the ladder'. As Lawson points out, the single major cause of ill-health and death in the world is poverty, and if we take the standpoint of human welfare, the surest way to benefit humans is to lift them out of poverty. Lawson sees many serious problems facing the world, and many things that urgently need putting right. The view of this compelling and convincing book is that global warming isn't one of them.

74 people found this helpful

浪花のドラマー

気候変動を冷静に分析

Reviewed in Japan on 20 July 2008

著者はジャーナリストの経験の後、英国サッチャー政権で財務、エネルギー政策にわった方。本書は気候変動問題について冷静に考え直してみるうえできわめて有益である。将来の世代のために地球を守ることが必要、ゆえに地球温暖化にストップをかけるべき、それにはCap & Tradeだというステレオタイプの論調とは全く異なる。ゆえに、著者曰くなかなか出版を引き受けてくれる会社が欧州にはなかったそうである。

著者の主張は信頼性の高いデータや論文に基づくものであり、引用先も巻末にまとめられている。著者主張で印象に残ったもの；
■人類の産業革命以後の活動により二酸化炭素の排出増と地球温暖化の相関関係は科学的に十分実証されていない。
■温暖化には食料増産効果がある。寒冷地域では食料増産のベネフィットがあり、温暖な地域ではデメリットがある。
■スターンレポートが用いている将来価値を現在価値に換算するディスカウントレート2%は低すぎる。低すぎるレートを使用することで、温暖化に対して直ぐにアクションを起こすことを煽っているが、100-200年先の子孫のためになすべきことと、自分の子供、孫のためになすべきことを政治が公正に評価すべき。
■Cap&Tradeは政府の介入による計画経済であり、効果は望めない。炭素税を消費者負担型でかけ、市民が生活を低炭素型に変えていかねば排出は減らない。炭素税の税収は国民に還元することが炭素税の前提条件。

英語の原書で読んだが、日本語での出版が期待される。

4 people found this helpful

cartoisb

Essential reading for anyone who truly cares to understand the climate change issue

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 October 2019