State of Fear, Science and the Dismal Science

By popular demand (the President of Merrill Hall no less!) I'm unearthing and posting my comments on "State of Fear" from several months back. I'm sorry I've been AWOL the last while...I've been hit with the double whammy of 1. working in finance where the world is melting down and 2. buying a house and moving. Not done with either just yet...

If it feels like it abruptly ends without much conclusion...well that's why it's been unposted for so long. I also have lots of other thoughts on the topic I wanted to share...will have to wait for another post (I'd also enjoy a serious book on the topic).

1. On the book. Now I know what it feels like to read a "dollar-theater" movie. It really felt to me like Crichton was writing a screenplay for an action film---with the lack of depth, predictable plot and totally unrealistic and unnecessary stunts. Of course, I did read it in about a week, while my book club selection (Men hating church) took me a month to get through. So I guess I have no right to complain.



2. On global warming. I am not a scientist. I therefore rely on an appeal to authority here, and my understanding is that most authorities are in broad agreement that global warming is occuring. I do, however, have several reasons I'm less sure of the details (and therefore the appropriate response) than I would like to be:



a. People are selfish. This includes grant- and publicity-seeking scientists. Incentives certainly play a role here.



b. Sample selection bias. People who believe strongly in global warming or "environmentalism" are much more likely to be passionate enough to devote their life to the study of these issues. Most civil rights attorneys think racism is a big problem; most nutritionists think people should be more careful about what they eat. They certainly have more information on these issues...but you can't ignore that they also are a biased sample.



c. Climate is a complex and unpredictable system. I will here make a comparison that may strike the scientists in the group as unfair. I will compare economics to climate science. Economics, my field of study, is known as the "dismal science." Many people believe this is a commentary on the quality of economic research---in fact the term originated as nothing of the kind. It referred instead to the predictions of economists like Thomas Malthus whose predictions about the future and fate of humanity were rather pessimistic. Malthus observed humanity as a system of production and consumption and used the data available to him to predict the path of that system. He predicted that overpopulation would devastate the human race within a short period of time---that standards of living were doomed to continuously decline. Of course he was wildly wrong. But his methods were sound. He tried to predict something very complicated based on observations on a much smaller (and simpler) scale.



Take a more recent example. Economists nearly all agree that increasing government debt raises interest rates. The relationship between debt and rates is simple and nearly irrefutable in theory---it's just supply and demand. Yet recently Dick Cheney declared he did not believe in this relationship because the data supporting it is so hard to interpret. And unfortunately it's hard to blame him for that conclusion. The economy is a complex system with many variables interacting. To quantify the effect of debt on rates requires a specification of the whole system. It requires controlling for all the other variables which affect interest rates. Economists can experiment with these things on a small scale and can build mathematical models to simulate. But in the real world the relationships are very hard to identify and quantify. Predictions can be and have been very far off. Economics cannot be as precise as science most of the time because economists cannot conduct controlled experiments. We have to infer from the data we observe in the world.



Isn't global climate science similar in this regard? You can know the greenhouse effect is real...you can understand the theory behind it, model it, simulate it, observe it on a small scale...but predicting it in a system as complex as world climate is no small task. Economists also tend to vastly overestimate their ability to forecast. It would not surprise me were global climate models to suffer from the same bias.



A common argument I encounter is that while the extent of global warming (or other environmental problems) may be unknown, why not have clean air and water? This seems to me a useless point. It conveys no information---if I say I'll pay $0 for something you know nothing about its worth to me. The cost is not $0. It may be $0 to much of the developed world, but it most certainly is not to the third world. It is unfair to duck the hard questions here---life (and public policy) is about trade-offs and it doesn't get us anywhere to pretend otherwise.

Stop worrying and learn to love the bomb

Chrichton

Thanks to those who cracked the cover on the State of Fear. I read (skimmed) it on the beach two years ago--definitely summer reading--I personally apologize for putting you through the misery of the novel itself.  When I recommended it I assumed it would involve a good deal of skimming-I assumed most of you would have already known the Dan Browniness of the author.  Hopefully none of you wasted to much time in two dimensional spaces (Third Policeman?), and you don't hate me for the FICTION I recommended.  

Science

I understand that there is science behind the global warming.  Most of it is a little beyond me, but I think that Alvin's request for clear, concise data is reasonable.  Granted, it's a complex issue--I'm sure we'll learn more as time goes by. (This R. Feynman clip is so true about science).  

Global Warming

Alvin, Peter, Glenn, and others--loved the comments.  Elliot and others:  I hope you'll expound on your dis.  While I'm hesitant to spend a lot more time looking into it myself, I would love to hear more as Alvin mentioned, from those on the less heretical side of the spectrum--i.e. those who believe "that the Global Climate Models accurately project the effects of increased greenhouse gases" and that "the costs associated with limiting greenhouse gas emissions are worth the benefits".

Write your Senator

Regardless of what it does to the global temperature, the time to get America off dirty fuel is now.  America is addicted to oil, and we cannot reduce production of oil in the next 10 years without adversely affecting our economy.  Furthermore, we have LOTS of coal, which, as Peter pointed out, is dirtier than oil.  So while the Tesla is way cool, we need NOW to build the systems to make it possible.  Unless we prepare to use more nuclear power, or improve our electricity storage (for wind/solar), we are going to be using oil (we're not running out) and coal.  I know this sounds preachy, but our nation needs to:

1. Develop more nuclear power plants.

2. Improve our infrastructure (mass transit, hydrogen fuel cells).

These can all involve private investment to some degree.

someone, please fix the science

Would this book have read differently if it was part of the book club in January rather than in July? I guess it depends on which hemisphere you're in.

My impressions of the book echo what has already been said, cheese puffs and all. I felt it was predictable and weak as a thriller. I was very frustrated by the plot detours that were used to "educate" the reader on global warming/climate change/population manipulation/etc.

I was hoping someone (especially someone who has finished grad school and plays the "publish or perish" game) would have commented on the proposal at the end of the book that research funding be done differently. I had to write a grant last month as part of a class I was taking. It was such a frustrating ordeal. So when I read Morton's proposition of how he would like things to be run, Crichton had my attention. He said

"We need a new mechanism to fund research. Right now, scientists are in exactly the same position as Renaissance painters, commissioned to make the portrait the patron wants done. And if they are smart, they'll make sure their work subtly flatters the patron. Not overtly. Subtly. This is not a good system for research into those areas of science that affect policy. Even worse, the system works against problem solving. Because if you solve a problem, your funding ends. All that's got to change."

He then offers up a few suggestions to improve the way research is funded and results reported. Coming from clinical medicine, I am still learning the politics of science, but it definitely exists, and there does seem to be room for improvement.

Now, on to the environment. The claims made by the book didn't seem too far fetched, but they did at times contradict other reports about global warming. In a way I felt tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine (or maybe I was beginning to feel the effects of abrupt climate change). The take home message is that science can't prove anything. It even has a hard time disproving something. There always seems to be more than one side to the story, with both sides having data and statistics to support their theories. As has been mentioned in this blog before, recent data shows an upward trend in average global temperature. This may be caused or at least influenced by man. This may be a bad thing. I can't know at this point. But I don't like the effects that air pollution has on health or on the aesthetics of the landscape, these reasons, along with a desire for independence from foreign nations for much of or energy, give me cause to support research into alternative energy.

PS-Have any of you seen the Tesla car? Pretty sweet!

Believing IN Al Gore and Believing Al Gore

Besides Jurassic Park in middle school, this is the only Michael Crichton book I've ever read. After reading it, I've relegated him to my "Dan Brown" list; i.e., authors who write compulsively readable material that has essentially no redemptive value from an artistic perspective. Not to be confused with guilty pleasures (like, in my case for instance, Orson Scott Card), there is nothing pleasurable about the experience. Its the difference between cheesecake and cheesepuffs; in both cases I can't help but eat the food, but only in one do I enjoy it while eating.

Specific things that struck me as miserable about this book: 1) Narrow scope of cursing. I mean, c'mon, expand your expletive vocabularly beyond the words that start with "f." 2) Strawmen: he was great at setting them up and knocking them down. It was like he wanted us to be impressed with hitting a home run off a tee. With a juiced ball. In a little league park. From somewhere around 2nd base. 3) Two dimensional characters. A few characters actually had fewer. In fact, that lawyer neice of Kenner had no dimension at all, so far as I could tell. I have no idea why she was even introduced to the story. 4) Well, let's not beat a dead horse. Suffice it to say, great literature this is not.

Now, to the policy issue, I did find the book useful in goading me to examine my own feelings about global warming and climate change a bit more. Here's my most cogent thought:

"Believing" in global warming has lots of different levels:
1) Believing that, on average, the temperature on the surface of the earth is currently increasing
2) Believing that the increase is anthropogenic
3) Believing that the primary anthropogenic factor is carbon dioxide/greenhouse gases
4) Believing that the Global Climate Models accurately project the effects of increased greenhouse gases
5) Believing that the costs associated with limiting greenhouse gas emissions are worth the benefits

So where do I find myself?

(1) I feel pretty confident; I don't think a cabal is manipulating the data.

(2) I've become more confident in recent years. I used to doubt this quite a bit. I can't think of any specific thing that won me over to anthropogenic warming rather than a natural trend in the earth's climate cycle, but I'm pretty well won over at this point.

(3) Well, now things get a little dicey for me. I don't know whether Crichton's "urban heat island" effect is a good explanation, or whether there might be other unexplored ideas, but I can tenatively accept this proposition.

(4) Here I'm pretty well completely off the ship. I don't believe that any of the long range forecasts are remotely accurate. As far as I can tell, neither do the climate scientists. The system is far too complex, the variables too intertwined. This is why climate scientists don't issue predictions; they offer projections. It's because they are unable and unwilling to explore the full variable space, so instead they make some pretty curves and call it something else, even though they know people will assume it has some bearing in objective reality. And this is precisely where the hysteria does in fact set in. For more on this, I like the series of blog posts on the blog Prometheus by Roger Pielke, Jr. (a political scientist who often works with his climatologist father) in late 2007/early 2008 in which he attempted to evaluate the quality of major projections that have been made over the last 20 years. I was going to do the same thing, so I appreciated that he already did the leg work. You can see the index of the various attempts at verification/refutation of the predictions here.

(5) And finally, I don't think the massive expenditures of wealth and shackling of industry is worth it, given the complete (to my mind) uncertainty of outcome. I think the idea that any developing country is going to voluntarily limit greenhouse gases is naive in the extreme. I think that most of the proposals are deeply flawed (although if I had to choose one I would hold my nose and pick Carbon taxes. I think "cap and trade" is a recipe for maintaining global inequality).

On the balance, I think clean air and more balanced land use (less slash and burn in developing countries, reforestation in America/Europe) is a better goal for ecological effort than limiting GHG output.

Final thought: the chief scientist for BP did a very engaging lecture on the future of energy at Lincoln Lab recently. He's given similar lectures elsewhere, and here is a youtube link of his presentation (he begins around 8:00 in). There are tons and tons of numbers and charts and stats in this presentation, which (as a stats head) I really like. Koonin confronts the energy question from two sides: 1) global warming and 2) security. There's interesting things throughout, and if you have an hour to burn you could certainly do worse, but the things I found most interesting were how much of our global energy is spent on transportation (20%) vs. electricity (40%) vs. heating (40%). So when we think about conservation, don't just jump to buying a Prius. There are other significant steps that should be taken.

Real final thought: I think the likely future path is an almost immediate (i.e. within five years) move to electric vehicles. Watch out for the Chevy Volt, coming out next year. As a result, we will consume less foreign oil, which will make security types (like me) happy. However, we will consume more coal (the primary source of electricity in the US) which will make the GHG people angry, since for an equivalent amount of energy, coal releases twice as much GHG as oil. But they won't have the same traction with the general populace, because people feel less bad about polluting when it isn't coming out of their own tailpipe.

Weather and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction

Let me start by saying that I love having this forum to discuss interesting topics with intelligent people. I'm glad that there are a wide variety of opinions and ideas. Thanks Peter, for getting this started and organizing it. In reference to your book choice, I'd really enjoy a discussion on the temple, so that would be my first choice. But I'd be happy with any of the three choices.

As for this month's book, I have only read the cover page and the bibliography/appendix thing at the back, but I am very impressed with the title. How our fears shape our public decision making is a very interesting topic.

In my contemplation this morning, I found a surprising number of parallels between global warming and the war in Iraq. Let me explain.

Pollution vs. Saddam Hussein

Saddam was a problem for a number of years. Nobody in the world argued the assertion that Saddam was a bad man, doing lots of bad things. However, this in and of itself was not enough to justify our invasion of Iraq. Not even after he invaded Kuwait. An invasion of Iraq needed to be justified by a bigger fear (see below). Similarly, no one is arguing that pollution is bad.

Global Warming vs. Weapons of Mass Destruction

Saddam alone wasn't worth the sacrifice of American lives and money, but Saddam with WMDs is an unimaginable worst case scenario that justified the cost. Similarly, pollution alone isn't worth the cost of slowing down our economy and the extra burden, but global warming and the unimaginable thought of "Waterworld", "The Day After Tomorrow" or "Wall-E", now that's worth sacrificing for.

Consensus

Not fair, you say. We KNOW there is global warming, but we didn't know if there were WMDs. I agree, we do know there is global warming, but we don't know if it will be catastrophic. That's a key difference. We knew that Saddam had weapons, just not weapons of mass destruction. We knew that Saddam was avoiding UN inspectors and acting like he had WMDs. There was a consensus in the political community that Saddam had WMDs, even among those that didn't go to war with us. Which leads to my next point...

No Coalition

Bush gets ripped to shreds for not forming a broad coalition before going into Iraq. He called it leadership. We are, after all, the only superpower. Now, there's a call for leadership in climate change without the agreement of important contributers, namely China and India.

Going in without the right plan

According to the great vision of hindsight, many have said that we could have avoided many of the problems in Iraq if we had just gone in with the right plan. Well, personally I think that many environmentalists have been going about things the wrong way. From what I've read, biofuels and wind power don't appear to be the solutions they've been touted to be. I think the cap and trade system will be a bureaucratic mess that will have very little impact on our net Carbon emissions.

Al Gore vs. Dick Cheney

Haliburton benefitted nicely from the war in Iraq, and similarly, many of the todays most fervent environmentalists will have "greener" wallets as the global warming movement picks up steam.

How long we'll be there

For some, the problem with Iraq wasn't that we went in, but that we can't get back out. Similarly, if the government bolsters up its payrolls with green collar workers, I imagine it will be tough to let those workers off when the job is over. It's never politically popular to let people go. And the effects of a cap and trade system will linger just as long as our troops stay in Iraq.

The "What if..." factor

Getting out of Iraq is complicated by several fears and hopes, namely the fear of a terrorist breeding ground if we leave and the hope of a democratic Iraq and eventually a democratic Middle East. History may one day see George Bush as a hero and one of our greatest presidents. Stranger things have happened. Interestingly, it's the fear, more than the hope that drives people's opinions. Similarly, the fear of cataclysmic weather is much more motivating than the hope of a pristine environment. The "What If..." factor will ensure that we never leave Iraq and that we will always worry and legislate our effect on the environment.

My Conclusion

There are intelligent people that support the war in Iraq, and there are more intelligent people that support drastic government intervention to reduce our impact on the environment. I respect both groups, even though often they are either of vastly different political persuasions or they voted for McCain. I don't know the correctness of either cause. There will always be that "What if..." factor. However, I have stopped believing the argument that there are people smarter than me that have a lot more information than I do, and that I should just trust them. (Note: I have no doubt that there are people smarter than me and with more experience, but I now require a higher level of evidence from them. If they're so smart, they should be able to explain it to me and not just require me to trust them. (Note: That means if they want me to trust a computer model's output for 10 years down the road, they should start by predicting one year down the road.))

I know it's becoming a bit cliche to blame Bush, but I like to blame him for making me more cynical. I got sucked into the justification for the war in Iraq, thinking that he had access to information that I didn't, and when I felt deceived later, I tried to learn from my mistakes. After the dot.com bubble, you've got to recognize the signs of a housing bubble. While I think that a big government-backed environmental movement is inevitable, I still have a faint hope that they will go in with a good plan.

In the meantime, I will try to do my part to help the environment. We recycle, and while I don't bike to work like Paul, I do work from home 2 days a week. And if the government wants to save the environment, they can ask me to work from home every day.

State of Fear Thoughts

I picked this book because I thought it would spawn some constructive thinking regarding global warming. As an aside, while I was flattered by so much prelude to an average novel which has already faded into relative obscurity, (is that because of the heretics, or because the religion of global warming has caught on? more on this in a sec.), I resisted the temptation to make serious comments back because (1) I thought you'd enjoy the novel more if I didn't talk it up or put it down (I think this would be a good rule), (2) I didn't want to express an opinion if I were to be burned at the carbon emissions stake, and (3) I wanted some more time to think about it. Obviously, there are some strong opinions (and facts!) involved in our group, and I don't mean to offend. Here goes:

About the Novel:
I didn't think the plot was very good, the characters were either too flat or too convincible, and I was almost bored at the “exciting conclusion”. That being said, I had read the book before I picked it, and I still picked it, because I like Chrichton's research—he looks into something, then takes a wild leap. For example, while cloning may be a reality, dinosaurs are still extinct—the same thought could apply to this book. The bibliography at the end was unparalleled for fiction and though the appendix had some weak sauce charts, I liked it as well.

About Global Warming:

I believe in global warming, the same way I believe in gravity or relativity. I don't think anyone would argue with these beliefs. I even believe, presumptive as it is, that humans can have an impact on the global temperature to some degree. I believe there may be other factors. These are all relatively scientific statements that somehow we've become comfortable with as “beliefs,” when they're really just facts. I enjoyed the article about environmentalism as religion to which Alvin pointed us, and I would refer you to it if you haven't read it.

I haven't done any personal research, and I've only read a little about it, but I can accept the fact that if you put CO2 in the air, energy will get trapped, and the global temperature on the whole has risen recently. I also enjoyed the website Karl pointed out, and would refer you to it as well. I don't feel particularly educated in this area, but having scratched the surface, I don't feel that I have the time I believe I would need to research to get to that point.

However, I think that there are present and practical reasons to “Go Green”--speculation has driven the cost of oil higher and higher. I like clean air and water, too. Personally, I ride my bike to work, live in a state with one of the higher percentages of renewable resources, and am studying to become a USGreenBuildingCouncil LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional.

The consumption of may change in 30 years, but the US is to coal as Saudia Arabia is to oil, and I don't foresee us getting rid of coal for a while. In my opinion we need now to establish Nuclear power, with electric and/or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. We need to do this now, because the infrastructure will take time.

Off my soap box—some questions:

Did you hate it how Evans is slowly convinced about the “falsities of global warming”? I think Chrichton does this a lot in his books, and it bugged a little in this book.

Is environmentalism a religion? Do most people understand global warming? Can we? Can we change the climate? Can we reverse our warming trend? Should we?

I consider myself a conservationalist, in that I think we should keep what we've got, clean up after ourselves and not destroy the beauty of the earth. What should I be doing to save the earth?

Is there anything good about buying carbon credits, or is it pure bunk?

Peter's Bric-a-brac

State of Fear: Paul, it's been a month since our last book club. I don't know if you've been thinking about what you want to post in re Michael Crichton's polemic, but I'd certainly be interested in your thoughts. I have my own, but I'll wait until you've opened things.

Constitutional Law: I really enjoyed Christopher's post regarding the Constitution and how it should be interpreted. Based largely on the bad taste in my mouth after the MA SSM decision, which had no basis in law IMO, I spent some time as a strict originalist. But, thinking about the historical role of judges I feel that the sort of originalism propounded by Justice Scalia is a bit farther than I'm willing to go; judges should be (I feel) the wise men of society who can balance the letter and the spirit of the law. That said, I feel law has become troublingly politicized, particularly due to the balkanization of the US Supreme Court and several high profile legislative battles over Federal Circuit appointees.

Same Sex Marriage: Living in MA, having gone to the only gay wedding to which I've been invited (after much inner conflict), I find that my personal acquaintance with the practice has not significantly impacted my feelings about it as far as I can tell.

I believe marriage is a social construct; that its only meaning is what we as a society imbue it with. As such, I do not accept that "equal marriage" is an inherent right. The question I see the point revolving on is whether we as a society want to weaken the construct sufficiently to allow for same sex couples. Historically there have been far less strict interpretations of what "marriage" means; globally there are very different interpretations on what "marriage" means. I'm not too worked up over the possibility of a definitional change. Although individually I oppose it and vote that way, if society chooses to accept it I'm not going to go about wringing my hands.

I do get worked up, however, with any arguments in favor of SSM that assert a "right to marry" or that focus on logistical (i.e. inheritance, hospital visitation, etc.), rather than definitional aspects of marriage. I'm leary of the assertion of "rights" beyond a basic few, and don't see historical or popular support for the assertion of this particular "right." Since the question, to me, is not one of "rights," the procedure calls for legislative deliberation and popular votes to determine the central question of whether homosexual relationships belong to the marriage construct, with all the social acceptance that membership entails. If society does not believe that, then the government has no place dictating an different position.

I feel that the push to legalize SSM through judicial rather than legislative methods is largely an effort to use the power of government as a method to force a change in the social construct, rather than the more appropriate process of legislating to reconcile the government with what the construct has become. I see this particularly in MA where the legal battle became essentially a public relations method for recognition of the validity of same-sex relationships. It was an anti-populist attempt to compel change in the hearts and minds of the populace, which I see as a poor legal precedent.

I disagree both with the MA and CA SSM decisions; in both cases the courts recognized a right that I don't believe exists, i.e. the "right to marry." Precedence appeals to the end of miscegnation (which, IIRC, were part of the written decisions in both state cases) I think are faulty; you could equally well (to my mind) say the refutation of it as a right is established by minimum age laws, cousin (or sibling) laws, or polyandry laws. I don't know if that makes sense, but my point is simply that using an example of expansion (interracial marriage) to assert a right to marry while ignoring examples of contractions (close-relative marriage) is either disingenuous or illogical.

My Political Philosophy: I generally see myself as a classic conservative in the vein of Edmund Burke. This is neither the conservatism of the current Republican Party, nor the individual rights conservatism that Jesse has propounded. It has more to do with an ideological resistance to change, which in my case is coupled with a distrust of pure reason as a basis for policy. I generally believe that policies already in place are wise, and am pessimistic that changes in policy will lead to intended benefits nor that they will avoid unintended negative consequences. I see an inspiration for this in Burke's principles in supporting the American revolution but rejecting the French revolution. In general, I identify more with the "liberal" wing of the Republican party, and view Bush pere as a better president than either Ronald Reagan or Bush fils.

When asked, rather than Republican or Democrat, I usually identify myself as Communitarian. Like Libertarians, Communitarians find themselves on both sides of the two-party split. But instead of a focus on individual rights and liberties (as in Libertarianism), Communitarianism focuses more on our responsibility to our communities. A result of this is that I feel that political decisions should devolve to the most local community capable of addressing the issue adequately. I am a strong proponent of the "representative" part of our representative democracy (I was recently quite disappointed by the MA legislature's decision to award our Electoral votes for PotUS to the winner of the National popular vote in an attempt to make a populist end run around the Electoral College). I think the changes in the federal government enacted by FDR and LBJ were more bad than good, and that we'd be better off pushing most of the responsibilities the federal government assumed over the past 75 years back down to the states and localities, particularly the social safety net (i.e. health care, social security, unemployment, etc.) I feel that administering it at a political level so far removed from community oversight is a recipe for corruption and inefficiency. Ideally I don't think the federal government should do much other than maintain interstate trade (mostly the interstate highway system) and work out foreign relations (including Defense, which has come to mean Offense, which is a whole different issue). Pretty much all other functions should devolve to at least the states if not the localities.

More Merrill Alums: If anyone has contact with other friends from our Helaman Halls days, please feel free to invite them to the symposium. I didn't spend a lot of time tracking down loose ends, but I'd certainly like to see more voices added to our mix. Furthermore, I'd be open to a discussion of extending membership to spouses or other friends who would like to participate.

Books Past, Present and Future

Greetings from IL. I'm currently visiting my parents in the Land of Lincoln. Ryan, if you want to get together for lunch on Monday. I'll be driving through Champaign on my way back to MD, though you may want to read this post before you decide if you're busy or not. I've been very intrigued by the comments here, and I've been wanting to post for a while. It's funny how hard it can be to find time for something when you're on vacation.

Books past:
Yesterday my wife was trying to decide between two pairs of shoes, and she finally decided on the less expensive pair because she simply couldn't justify spending $90 (pre-discount) on a pair of shoes, even if she only gets new shoes once every 3 years. This is why I love her. I, however, felt that I wasn't being a very good provider if my wife didn't feel like she could get the slightly more comfortable shoes, so I convinced her to get the more expensive ones. While I felt like a good provider, I was later haunted by the ghosts of Paul Farmer.

Books present:

I finally got the Men Hate Church book through inter-library loan. I skimmed most of it. As has been said previously, the topic is interesting even if the book isn’t. I have enjoyed the discussion so far, and I agree with pretty much everything that has been said. Like Jesse, I think our church does a better job of involving, retaining men then most Christian churches, but the Pew research data doesn't seem to back that up. It's kind of like how temple marriages are better in theory, but ultimately, there is almost as high a divorce rate in the church as out of it.

On a tangential note, I was called to the Young Men's Organization about a year ago, and I was very surprised because I didn't think they called people with my personality type to Young Men's. It's typically the more popular, manly men. For example, we had an activity this year where we built potato cannons. The majority of the YM's leaders and youth were very excited about this activity. It's very manly/cool to shoot things, start them on fire, etc. However, I was not at all interested in such things as a youth, and I have not acquired these tastes as I've grown older. I guess, according to this book, I've become too "feminized" for the YM's program. Now, I realize there is still a way for me to be helpful in YM, as not every youth is into guns, archery, and fire, but we are certainly not in the majority.

Books future:
I'm surprised by how much commentary there has been about this book by people that haven't read it. I haven't read it either, but I have read most of the bibliography that Paul referred to. (I was at a Polka concert in our library, and I saw the book on the shelf next to me and read it while I listened. It's not that long, and it's better documented than Al (I should have been President.) Gore's documentary.) I think everyone can/should at least read the bibliography.) I thought it was funny that the anti-Crichton faction chose to call his book "Heresy" because Crichton has an interesting article about environmentalism as a religion.

I don't want to spoil the bibliography but for those of you have never read it, let me clarify a few things for you. (Hopefully, I won't misrepresent anything because I actually haven't read it for a year.) But from what I remember, Crichton doesn't deny that global warming is happening, and he doesn't claim that carbon dioxide has nothing to do with it. He thinks carbon dioxide has less to do with it then other things, such as the way we use land, but the focus is always on carbon emissions instead of bigger problems. He also gets annoyed with how some weather predictions get presented as facts when they are just scientific guesses, and environmentalists often cause as much harm as good.

Chrichton doesn't use this example, but I think biofuels is a good example. Studies are now showing that the carbon emitted to process biofuels plus the forests that are being destroyed so that we can plant more corn, sugar, etc. to create biofuels has had a net negative effect on the environment. The center to predict hurricanes underpredicted the year of Katrina and has overpredicted every year since. (Note: I'm not saying that all environmental models are useless. In statistics we say, all models are wrong, but some are useful.)

I believe that we do need to be very concerned about the environment. I think we have a moral responsibility to take care of the earth. I believe that global warming is happening, though I am unsure of all of the causes, what is the most important cause, or what we can realistically do to prevent it. I have visited Karl's suggested website for global warming doubters, and if you make it down to the scientific reasons for doubting global warming, I think there are still reasonable reasons to think that there may be other more important causes to global warming than carbon emissions. If you can lead me to sources that prove otherwise, please do. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Chrichton in the time of cholera

Though the word heresy may now be tainted by your modern 'enlightened' perspective, it was once a perfectly nobel specious accusation.
Maybe the thesis of this book has merit—elites manipulating the fear of the masses for profit—but i might stick it to Haliburton before Greenpeace.  I do think its irresponsible to deny climate-change though.  In the 19th century, the Michael Chrichton types were telling us that the microscopic germs causing cholera epidemics were a fantasy of fear-mongering scientists—no need to dig up London and put in a sewage system.
At this point in time the science is pretty clear:   If we put sewage in the water, people will get sick, if we put CO2 in the air, energy will be trapped.

Heresy

I may not strongly disagree with Elliott's view on the science of global warming---but isn't "dissing" without reading and the use of the word "heresy" pretty supportive of Crichton's argument (as I understand it from the summary on Amazon) here?

I figure some will enjoy the political/environmentalism commentary, others will enjoy a thrilling (I assume given the author) bit of pure fiction.

Not into it

So, State of Fear?  I guess I'm gonna dis on this book without reading it— just for the climate change heresy.

July's Book-State of Fear

http://www.amazon.com/State-Fear-Michael-Crichton/dp/0066214130

State of Fear by Michael Crichton. Since I am morally responsible for the content of this book, I have to recommend that you skip the first Chapter-it is not essential, and the rest of the book is clean(er). While I did check out Milton Friedman from the library, I felt obliged to pick a novel--if nothing else, the Bibliography is good (honest!).