The Inquisition of Climate Science
Inquisition of Climate Science
1st Edition
Published on 29. October 2015
272 pages
978-0-231-52784-2 (ISBN)
Description
Modern science is under the greatest and most successful attack in recent history. An industry of denial, abetted by news media and "info-tainment" broadcasters more interested in selling controversy than presenting facts, has duped half the American public into rejecting the facts of climate science-an overwhelming body of rigorously vetted scientific evidence showing that human-caused, carbon-based emissions are linked to warming the Earth. The industry of climate science denial is succeeding: public acceptance has declined even as the scientific evidence for global warming has increased. It is vital that the public understand how anti-science ideologues, pseudo-scientists, and non-scientists have bamboozled them. We cannot afford to get global warming wrong-yet we are, thanks to deniers and their methods.
The Inquisition of Climate Science is the first book to comprehensively take on the climate science denial movement and the deniers themselves, exposing their lack of credentials, their extensive industry funding, and their failure to provide any alternative theory to explain the observed evidence of warming. In this book, readers meet the most prominent deniers while dissecting their credentials, arguments, and lack of objectivity. James Lawrence Powell shows that the deniers use a wide variety of deceptive rhetorical techniques, many stretching back to ancient Greece. Carefully researched, fully referenced, and compellingly written, his book clearly reveals that the evidence of global warming is real and that an industry of denial has deceived the American public, putting them and their grandchildren at risk.
The Inquisition of Climate Science is the first book to comprehensively take on the climate science denial movement and the deniers themselves, exposing their lack of credentials, their extensive industry funding, and their failure to provide any alternative theory to explain the observed evidence of warming. In this book, readers meet the most prominent deniers while dissecting their credentials, arguments, and lack of objectivity. James Lawrence Powell shows that the deniers use a wide variety of deceptive rhetorical techniques, many stretching back to ancient Greece. Carefully researched, fully referenced, and compellingly written, his book clearly reveals that the evidence of global warming is real and that an industry of denial has deceived the American public, putting them and their grandchildren at risk.
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The Inquisition of Climate Science
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The Inquisition of Climate Science
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Columbia University Press
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Person
James Lawrence Powell was born and raised in Kentucky and graduated from Berea College. He received his Ph.D. in Geochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has had a distinguished career as a college teacher, college president, museum director, and author of books on earth science for general audiences. He serves as executive director of the National Physical Science Consortium, a partnership among government agencies and laboratories, industry, and higher education dedicated to increasing the number of American citizens with graduate degrees in the physical sciences and related engineering fields, emphasizing recruitment of a diverse applicant pool that includes women and minorities. He has taught at Oberlin College and has served as its acting president. He has also been president of Franklin and Marshall College, Reed College, the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. Both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush appointed Powell to the National Science Board.
Content
Preface
Introduction
Not Skeptics, by Deniers
1. Science and Potemkin Science
Never a Crisis
A Political Movement
A Cheap Tuxedo
Better Than Scientists
2. Adventures in Denierland
Urban Myth?
Cave Junction
3. The Evidence for Consensus
Spam Filter
Newton's Second Law
Polling Scientists
An Extremely Pernicious Development
4. Discovery of Global Warming
One of the Oldest Theories
A Large-Scale Geophysical Experiment
5. The Greenhouse Effect: From Curiosity to Threat
Models Predict Warming
Globetrotters
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
6. Global Warming: All You Really Need to Know in One Chart
7. Tobacco Tactics: The Scientist-Deniers
All of Those People Are Wrong
With All Due Respect, by Dr. Michaels
The $45 Million Man
If Science Doesn't Have Integrity
Blue Marble
Nuke Vietnam?
Foot Soldier
8. Fear of State: The Nonscientists
Aren't You Embarrassed, by Mr. Will?
Once Again
The Lomborg Deception
Bed-Wetting, by Messianic
9. Toxic Tanks
Harry and Louise
Tale from the Crypt
Please Don't Poop in My Salad
Embarrassing General Marshall
Push Down on the Accelerator
10. An Industry to Trust
Most Profitable Company in History
An Industry That Cannot Afford Denial
11. Balance as Bias: How the Media Missed "The Story of the Century"
The Prestige Press
Plumes of Smoke from China
Carbongate
End of Objectivity?
Systemic Failure
12. Science Under Attack
It's the Sun, by Ozone
Testosterone
Watts Up with That?
Slap Shot
The Medieval Warm Period
Do Climate Models Work?
Did Global Warming End in 1998?
Chicken or Egg?
GRACE
Tropospheric Cooling?
13. Greatest Hoax in History?
Who's to Blame? Liberals, by of Course
To Command Spring
Funding Research
Traitors
14. Climategate: Much Ado About Nothing
One Million Words
Innocent of All Charges
Gates and More Gates
15. Anatomy of Denial
To Roll Back Industrial Society
16. Escalating Tactics
Monkey Trials
Old Virginia Home
17. Earning Trust
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
Introduction
Not Skeptics, by Deniers
1. Science and Potemkin Science
Never a Crisis
A Political Movement
A Cheap Tuxedo
Better Than Scientists
2. Adventures in Denierland
Urban Myth?
Cave Junction
3. The Evidence for Consensus
Spam Filter
Newton's Second Law
Polling Scientists
An Extremely Pernicious Development
4. Discovery of Global Warming
One of the Oldest Theories
A Large-Scale Geophysical Experiment
5. The Greenhouse Effect: From Curiosity to Threat
Models Predict Warming
Globetrotters
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
6. Global Warming: All You Really Need to Know in One Chart
7. Tobacco Tactics: The Scientist-Deniers
All of Those People Are Wrong
With All Due Respect, by Dr. Michaels
The $45 Million Man
If Science Doesn't Have Integrity
Blue Marble
Nuke Vietnam?
Foot Soldier
8. Fear of State: The Nonscientists
Aren't You Embarrassed, by Mr. Will?
Once Again
The Lomborg Deception
Bed-Wetting, by Messianic
9. Toxic Tanks
Harry and Louise
Tale from the Crypt
Please Don't Poop in My Salad
Embarrassing General Marshall
Push Down on the Accelerator
10. An Industry to Trust
Most Profitable Company in History
An Industry That Cannot Afford Denial
11. Balance as Bias: How the Media Missed "The Story of the Century"
The Prestige Press
Plumes of Smoke from China
Carbongate
End of Objectivity?
Systemic Failure
12. Science Under Attack
It's the Sun, by Ozone
Testosterone
Watts Up with That?
Slap Shot
The Medieval Warm Period
Do Climate Models Work?
Did Global Warming End in 1998?
Chicken or Egg?
GRACE
Tropospheric Cooling?
13. Greatest Hoax in History?
Who's to Blame? Liberals, by of Course
To Command Spring
Funding Research
Traitors
14. Climategate: Much Ado About Nothing
One Million Words
Innocent of All Charges
Gates and More Gates
15. Anatomy of Denial
To Roll Back Industrial Society
16. Escalating Tactics
Monkey Trials
Old Virginia Home
17. Earning Trust
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
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