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L**E
the Great Barrier Reef and the Paris Agreement
This book deals with virtually all of the major climate issues, from atmospheric temperatures to sea level rise to ocean acidification, the Great Barrier Reef and the Paris Agreement. Moreover, 21 of the 22 chapters written by leaders in their fields have been written especially for this book and seem to me to be absolutely up-to-date through 2016 and even a few mentions of events in 2017! (The exception is a chapter from a book published in 2010 by the late Bob Carter, a paleontologist and marine geologist.) The essays are very well-written and highly detailed; they do not seem to have been restricted in length. Thus the book is very satisfyingly complete at 335 pages. For those who wish to go further into any topic, there are 45 pages of well-chosen references (perhaps 500 in all).Highlights for me are as follows:Carbon Dioxide and Plant Growth, by Dr. Craig D. Idso. The author has done much to study the impacts of CO2 on plant growth. His Table 13.1 is a detailed look at the effect on plant growth of a 300 ppm increase in CO2. As all greenhouse operators know, CO2 levels at 800-1000 ppm are good for growth, but Table 13.1 tells us that an increase to about 600-700 ppm will produce 34-36% increases in the world's most important crops (wheat, rice, sugar cane, etc.), with corn not far behind at 24%. With world population increasing, these benefits of increased CO2 are crucial to maintaining and increasing world food production. Idso points out the increased greening of the planet as shown by NASA satellites that has led to a 6-13% increase in primary plant productivity since the 19080s.The Impact and Cost of the Paris Agreement, by Bjorn Lomborg. The author begins his chapter with the statement that global warming is real, mostly man-made, and will have a negative impact over the long run. He then calculates not only the benefit (reduction in global temperature) but also the cost associated with each country's statement of their intentions in the Paris Agreement. He assumes that each country actually makes good on its stated intentions (such as the USA promise to reduce CO2 emissions by 26-28% by 2030) and also considers the extension of these actions out to 2100. The result is absolutely flabbergasting: A reduction in global temperatures by 0.05 degrees Celsius by 2030 compared to the expected increase of a degree or so, and a reduction by 2100 of 0.17 C compared to the expected increase of about 1.5-2 C. Under an optimistic scenario of great efficiency of these actions, the cost is estimated at 946 billion, but under a more realistic scenario the cost balloons to about 1.9 trillion US dollars. At the time of writing, this was the only peer-reviewed benefit-cost analysis of the Paris Agreement.The Poor are Carrying the Cost of Today's Climate Policy, by Dr. Matt Ridley. Ridley estimates that ethanol subsidies have consumed about 5% of the world food crops and quotes the UN conclusion that it was the main cause of the rise in food prices in 2008 and years following. Dr. Indur Goklany has calculated that this policy resulted in the death of 200,000 people. Wind turbines kill rare birds of prey, including eagles, hawks, gannets, and swifts, plus great numbers of bats. Wind and solar power both receive huge subsidies from many governments, which enrich rich people and raise the price of electricity for poor people.Mass Death Dies Hard, by Clive James. This chapter is NOT written by an expert in climate science, but it is still one of my favorites. Clive James is a poet, author, and broadcaster. He writes "I speak as one who knows nothing about the mathematics involved in modeling non-linear systems." But he does know something about the language and uses language precisely enough to keep me laughing throughout his chapter. Here is a sample: "The Australian climate star Tim Flannery will probably not, of his own free will, shrink back to ...being an expert on the extinction of the giant wombat. He is far more likely to go on being one of the mass media's mobile experts on climate...It will go on being dangerous to stand between him and a TV camera. If the giant wombat could have moved at that speed, it would still be with us."I enjoyed reading almost every chapter. The main person responsible for the book appears to be the editor, Jennifer Marohasy, a Senior Fellow at the Australian Institute for Public Affairs. As such, there is a distinct leaning toward topics of interest to Australians, such as the Great Barrier Reef (two chapters) and the astoundingly mediocre (or worse) Bureau of Meteorology (several more chapters). One of the most perfect takedowns of the BOM is the chapter by Joanne Nova, writer of the witty and always perceptive climate science blog http://joannenova.com.au/ . She documents in unanswerable detail the trials and tribulations of one temperature station in Rutherglen, Australia, which has consistently reported temperature using the same equipment in an area that has not undergone much urban growth, thus a rare example of a long-term undisturbed data series. The raw data show a gentle cooling over 100 years, and this trend is matched by 4 nearby stations. However, the BOM transforms this into a rather sharp rise by "homogenizing" the Rutherglen data with measurements from 23 stations, some rather distant. This appears to be an example of contaminating good data with bad, a practice that Anthony Watts (another author of another chapter in the book) has repeatedly called attention to. (Watts is the proprietor of the most widely read blog on climate science)I should state that I chose to buy the rather expensive paperback book rather than the very affordable Kindle version. I am very happy with my decision, because the paperback book is so well put together, with good binding, wide margins, and highly readable type. It has clearly been planned with considerable care. I expect it will be useful to me for years to come, so for me the book was the better option.
A**A
The outcomes of climate mitigation policies are completely out of balance with the tremendous costs.
"Climate Change: the Facts 2017" is a very good overview of many different aspects of CC. The 22 papers describe many current topics in climate science and mitigation policies. For example, paper no.15 by Lomborg, "The economic cost of the 2015 Paris Climate Summit", describes the meaningless result of the promises done by the Parties. In the best scenario the temperature reduction will be 0.05 ° C by 2100. The economic losses caused by these policies will be 1 trillion US dollars each year, by 2030, right up to 2100. I like the clarity provided by this article. What I do not like at all is that the world leaders appear to follow trough on these tremendous sacrifices for such a meaningless result. It would be more effective to spend the money on adaptation, instead of on the outdated and clearly useless mitigation technologies.
K**R
Good collection of articles
This book is a good collection of short write-ups on various issues related to climate change. The content is fairly scientifically written and referenced. However I found it extremely annoying that almost every para has some lost words in the e copy.
P**N
Real Science, not Fake News!
There is a bit of a difference between Science and Science Fiction. Climate Change: The Facts 2017 is SCIENCE! What is reported in the press about climate change is Science Fiction. Just for starters, carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant nor is it harmful to life on Earth. To the contrary, without carbon dioxide there would be NO LIFE on Earth. Sea level is not rising catastrophically nor will it be 5-20 feet higher than today at the turn of the century. Sea level has been rising slowly for the past 12,000 years when the last ice age melted. The amount of rise is so small that it is barely noticeable. Where it does seem to be rising more quickly it is almost always a case of land subsidence due to rebound in the north because the miles of ice are no longer depressing the crust. Global temperature is NOT rising, either. We have been in a hiatus since 1998, when temps remained level. We are now entering a Grand Solar Minimum and it may get a lot colder.I was in Dusseldorf last week to present a paper on erosion in the Fiji Islands. All the erosion investigated had purely human causes, i.e., sea walls, groins, removal of stabilizing vegetation or animals. The sea level in the Fijis is nearly static and has been this way for 50-70 years. Yet the Fiji government is in Bonn, Germany, right now with their hands out for aid, claiming they will soon be climate refugees. They must be talking about another Fiji in a parallel universe because the one I spent three weeks doing field work in is in great shape!Read Anthony Watt's book, Climate Change: The Facts 2017 if you really want the truth about what is happening in the climate. Your alternative is to go see Al Gore's latest horror film about how we are all going to die because we drive our cars, heat our homes, and use electricity on a daily basis to make our lives better.
L**F
This book is a mindblowing counter to IPCC scientific modelling ...
This book is a mindblowing counter to IPCC scientific modelling (and subsequent public statements) on climate change. This book has been compulsive reading for an environmental scientist such as myself who firmly believed in athropogenic climate change in the 20th century being the major contributer to the so called accelerated temperature warmings. If one had to highlight one single item from the book to reveal to the anthropogenic climate change believers the flaws in IPCC state of the art modelling I would highlight the referenced letter by 49 former NASA scientists and astronauts to the Business Insider, 11 April 2012 complaining about NASAs activisit stance toward climate change at the expense of empirical evidence.
G**R
Sehr gutes Buch
Das Buch Climat Change " The Facts 2017" ist ein Reader mit Beiträgen von verschieden Autoren. Einige der Autoren/in würde mal wohl als "Klime-Leutegner" bezeichnen können. Andere sind enagierte Wissenschaftler und Jonalisten die zu einezelnen Aspekten der Klimawandel Diskusion kritsche oder alternative Positionen vertreten. Jeder der sich ernsthaft mit dem Klimawandel beschäftigt sollte diese Autoren und Ihnre Positionen kennen.
P**.
I found this book to be the best ever for a complete coverage on all that is ...
I'm a scientist and have followed the development of the UN IPCC Climate Change pronouncements since 1997. I suspected that the Science was wrong then and after more research to today, I am completely convinced that Man-Made global Warming is neither man-made nor is it 'bad' when it occurs now and then. I found this book to be the best ever for a complete coverage on all that is wrong with the UN IPCC conclusions and also provides real Scientific Explanations of the myriad of causes of Changes in Climate that has been going on for millions of years and that today's changes are not unusual and have all occurred before. What makes this book so unique and comprehensive that it is a collection of 22 separate and independent chapters each on specific aspects of Climate Change according to the expertise and specialization of the individual authors (e.g. molecular properties of CO2, Measurements of Temperatures, oceanography etc), mostly all well qualified Scientists. it does include a few chapters by non-scientists who provide their views simply as observers, If you have a basic understanding of the Sciences and methods and only want to read one book to explain it all, then this is the book you should get! I have read some of the work published by some of the contributors and communicated the editor and find that these are all well know experts in theirs fields of specialization from Climatology to astrophysics all of which impacts climate!.
M**E
Excellent product
This excellent book explores very recent research into and views about climate and the very many complex factors which create it and its changes, against the prevailing orthodoxy which demonises both CO2 and humanity as causative. 23 authors offer diverse views on Barrier reef corals, oceans, distortions by climate computer modellers, heatwaves, the costs to the poor of current climate policies, the role of CO2 as a vital trace gas for life and fertility, the geological background to climate changes, sun and moon patterns and cyclic shifts, Papal politics in climate change sermons, the dubious politicisation of the Paris Agreement, the funding and censorship in AGW policy, and so on. It ends with a brilliant and very ironically amusing article by Clive James on apocalypticism and fear factor which has me laughing out loud, it is so spot on. It should be widely read by all the forces who seek to bring and end to industrial civilisation, as put forward originally by the influential Club of Rome, which went on under Maurice Strong to form the UN IPCC agenda. There, they "hit on the idea of global warming" to bring this about, along with stating that democracy was no longer suited to world problems. Hence the censorship of alternative scientific views which do not accept AGE theory. The book is sober and not a polemic, and deserves success.
H**K
There is nothing wrong with our climate
Nature needs carbon dioxide, the greenhouse effect doesn't exists, the earth has all its existence undergone climate changes. So, why the current panic, and all the measures taken to try to reduce antropogenic CO2, which we need. All projects costs us a lot of money and will not change anything at all?
ヤ**ス
Kindle版は文末が途中で切れている欠陥品
Kindle版を購入したが、文末が途中で切れている箇所が多過ぎて読むに値しない欠陥商品だった。ひどすぎる。文章が正しく表示されないのは私だけの問題ですか?
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