The following paragraph is taken from the forward to the book Taken by Storm by Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick. Inviting Sir Mortimer Long-Bore to write the forward indicates not only the conviction of their thesis but also offers a bit of levity to the debate:
The authors are wrong to question any of this. Morally wrong. Nor are the authors even qualified to make commentary on this sublime topic. One is an applied mathematician who apparently works on topics in radiation and fluid dynamics. The other is an economist who studies environmental policy. What claim has either to expertise on global warming or climate change? For tutelage on issues of such importance I counsel reliance on the authority of qualified experts. You may find, as I did, the book An Inconvenient Truth to be greatly informative in this respect.
So according to Long-Bore, Al Gore is qualified to write a book on climate change, but a scientist and environmental economist are not.
He closes with this gem:
In contrast, the book you are viewing is subversive climate literature. Do not read it. I have not read it, and you should not either; indeed, I threw my copy on the fire. I only regret that burning the book was my only remedy. In a better age I would have burned the authors with it.
I’ve been concerned for some time now that the debate on climate change has less to do with science and much more to do with politics. If there is anything to fear surrounding this debate it is the troubling rhetoric and the denunciation of any form of dissenting opinion. A call for book-burning (hell, people-burning!) should be a bit of a wake-up call.
Thanks again Kate.
Update: Billy, in “Comments”, was kind enough to point out that the forward was not actually penned by Sir Mortimer Long-Bore.
Go on then, call me thick, I have it coming.
Um, I think you may have missed the screaming SATIRE that is the foreword.
Well you got me there Billy.
But I would argue that while it is SATIRE, it isn’t exactly “screaming SATIRE”. It didn’t strike me as all that far-fetched, based on some of the stuff we’ve been fed over this issue.
Climate Change made the typhoons in the south pacific very destructive. Typhoon Ketsana made a lot of mess in Philippines and Vietnam *
Climate Change is really scary, now we have super typhoons and a lot of flooding going on some countries..,;”