Hack me some global warming

I think of all the hack writers out there that America seems to love so much, Michael Crichton is my personal favorite. I say “hack writer” with all due respect. If you’ve read any of his books, you know that Crichton is a very intelligent, very well informed and very well researched man. And like the other hacks out there, Crichton simply uses the vehicle of fiction to present new and burgeoning ideas to the public in a way that is more palatable than a science book or lecture. Dan Brown uses the medium to present cult and religious ideas. Vince Flynn uses the medium to present the uncomfortable truth about the CIA and Black Ops. From a purely storytelling point of view, none of these guys are especially good writers. In fact if their stories didn’t incorporate some element of real life intrigue, nobody would even buy their books. Case in point: The DaVinci Code. This wasn’t a popular book because of its gripping narrative. It was popular because people were so intrigued by the new and scandalous ideas he was presenting… so much so that a lot of the public used nothing more than this work of fiction as the basis for arguing that Jesus and Mary Magdelene were married.

But as I said, out of all the hacks and bad storytellers, Crichton is my favorite. Yes, like those other hacks, I read his books more to learn about new ideas in a palatable way. The actual story is something I find myself slogging through as a necessary evil in order to glean the actual information he’s trying to present (the glaring exception to this rule being Jurassic Park, which ruled in every way possible. Even still, he does a better job than those other guys. First of all, there’s rarely a moment of dialogue that sounds contrived. The people speak like normal people, even when they are talking for multiple paragraphs about this scientific study or that misunderstood concept. His characters actually have a bit of depth to them. Even his villains have motivations for what they’re doing and aren’t mere stock characters who are just intrinsically evil. But most of all, I appreciate the fact that Crichton doesn’t feel the need to put in an obligatory but incredibly misplaced and often gratuitous sex scene – something those other hacks do with such uncomfortable, almost squeamish incompetence that you wonder if they’ve ever actually had sex before.

Anyway, that whole lead-up was to say that I just read another Michael Crichton book: State of Fear. This one is Crichton’s chance to express his thoughts on global warming. Like most of his other books, I found myself slogging through all the actual plot and story just to get to the parts where the characters would engage in debates about the science Crichton was presenting. And it doesn’t take you long to realize that Crichton really thinks the whole global warming movement is a bunch of crap. Pretty much every argument a global warming acolyte would throw out there as evidence, Crichton’s characters deftly smack down… with actual references and graphs, complete with footnotes to back it all up. By the time I got to the end of the book, I realized I didn’t actually need to read it. Pretty much all the points made in State of Fear were presented much more succinctly (without petty things like storytelling to get in the way) in a speech I’d read on Crichton’s website.

The basic gist is this: there is absolutely no consistent data indicating that global warming is actually happening. I could summarize several points here, but honestly, the tiny little bit of data I could regurgitate could just as easily be rebutted with rhetoric. Better that you go to his site, click on the speeches page and find the global warming speech yourself. It’s a long read (though certainly not the 500 pages of State of Fear) but it’s quite illuminating and Crichton backs up a lot of what he says with not only science but lessons from history. Besides, I’ve already presented a boatload of my own thoughts on global warming here and here.

One of the things that was in the book that you won’t find in the speech is a rant by an eccentric college professor about the politics of fear in this country – from where the book draws its name. Basically he says that if you look at the American media, the use of words like “catastrophe, crisis, disaster, dire, dreaded, unprecedented” has increased one thousand percent since 1985. In 1985 “catastrophe” was said on the news about as often as the word “budget.” But then the Cold War ended. The big fear of Russia and mutually assured destruction had been lifted, so there was nothing for those in power to use in order to keep the people afraid and in line. So they started making things up to be afraid of. DDT, food additives, foreign diseases, breast implants all became cause for alarm, even though the science was incomplete, and would later even prove to be false. According to this character, global warming is just the next in a long line of things designed to rally the public behind the easiest motivator of all: fear. And in ten years when the science finally catches up to everyone, it will be pushed to the side in favor of something else designed to scare the bejeezus out of us. But in the meantime, how much money will we waste on “solutions” that have no scientific viability; money that could have been used to feed god knows how many people.

Okay, I’m ranting. As I said, I’ve written my own thoughts on global warming before. Bottom line, check out Michael Crichton. His book. His speeches. It’s all good and will make you (gasp) think. He may be a hack, but he's very good at it.