The Deniers

Infobox Book
name = The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud
title_orig = The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud**And those who are fearful to do so
translator =


image_caption = First edition cover
author = Lawrence Solomon
illustrator =
cover_artist = Charles Bork
country = United States
language = English
series =
subject =
genre = Non-fiction
publisher = Richard Vigilante Books
pub_date = 2008-04-01
english_pub_date =
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages = 239
isbn = ISBN 9780980076318
oclc =
preceded_by =
followed_by =

" The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud " is a book by Lawrence Solomon, a Canadian writer and columnist for the "National Post", a newspaper based in Ontario. In this book, Solomon draws attention to a number of scientists and other individuals whom he considers to have advanced arguments against what he defines as the "alarmist" view of global warming, as presented by Al Gore, the IPCC, the mainstream media and other organizations and individuals.

Overview

According to Solomon, he began his search for reputable dissident scientists and published the findings in his column in the National Post [cite web|url=http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=22003a0d-37cc-4399-8bcc-39cd20bed2f6&k=0|title=Series "The Deniers"| author=Lawrence Solomon |publisher=National Post|accessdate=2008-07-15] cite web|url=http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/pages/the-deniers.aspx|title=Series “The Deniers”| author=Lawrence Solomon |publisher=National Post|accessdate=2008-07-22] which began in November 2006. The book is based on these series of articles, and questions the assertion that the “science is settled” as claimed by advocates of the "consensus theory" and attacks the "alarmist" view on global warming. Among the issues raised and alleged flaws presented are the Hockey stick controversy; the Stern Review; hurricane frequency and intensity; the lack of signs of global warming in Antarctica's climate; reservations on the predictability of climate models and its lack of falsifiability; the Singer-Revelle-Gore controversy; and the alternate solar variation theory, regarding the hypotheses of the warming being driven by the interaction of the solar wind with cosmic rays affecting cloud formation. Each chapter includes end notes with references and website addresses.

The scientists whose scientific work and opinions are profiled in the book are, in order of appearance in the book’s chapters: Edward Wegman, Richard Tol, Christopher Landsea, Duncan Wingham, Robert M. Carter, Richard Lindzen, Vincent R. Gray, Syun-Ichi Akasofu, Tom Segalstad, Nir Shaviv, Zbigniew Jaworowski, Hendrik Tennekes, Freeman Dyson, Antonino Zichichi, David Bromwich, Eigil Friis-Christensen, Henrik Svensmark, Sami Solanki, Jasper Kirkby, Habibullo Abdussamatov, George Kukla, the late Rhodes Fairbridge, William M. Gray, Cliff Ollier, Paul Reiter, Claude Allègre, the late Reid Bryson, David Bellamy, and the cautious position of the late Roger Revelle. A brief curriculum vitae for each scientist is presented. In the final chapter, Mr. Solomon presents his personal point of view on this controversy. At least five of the scientists profiled in the book also appeared in the polemic British documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, namely Lindzen, Reiter, Akasofu, Shaviv, and Friis-Christensen. [cite web|url=http://folk.uio.no/nathan/web/statement.html|title= Regarding: “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, broadcast in the UK on Channel 4 on March 8, 2007|author= Nathan Rive and Eigil Friis-Christensen |publisher=Authors statement on the folk.uio.no site |date=2007-04-27|accessdate=2008-07-15]

As of July 22, 2008, the American Amazon store ranks "The Deniers" sales as 712 overall, 4th in both Scientists and Public Policy, and as 6th in Environmental Science books; [cite web|last= |first= |title= The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**And those who are fearful to do so (Hardcover)|publisher=Amazon.com |date= |url=http://www.amazon.com/Deniers-Renowned-Scientists-Political-Persecution/dp/0980076315/ref=cm_cr-mr-title |accessdate= 2008-07-22|quote =U.S. Amazon.com Sales Rank: #712 in Books as of 2008-07-22] the Amazon.ca store ranks the book sales as 145 overall, and as first in Environmental Science books; [cite web|last= |first= |title= The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**And those (Hardcover) |publisher=Amazon.ca |date= |url=http://www.amazon.ca/Deniers-World-Renowned-Scientists-Political-Persecution/dp/0980076315/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216158887&sr=8-1|doi= |accessdate= 2008-07-22|quote =Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #145 in Books as of 2008-07-22] and the Amazon.co.uk store ranks the book overall sales as 9,743, and as 4th in Science books. [cite web|last= |first= |title= Deniers, The (Hardcover) |publisher=Amazon.co.uk |date= |url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deniers-Lawrence-Solomon/dp/0980076315/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216159708&sr=8-1|doi= |accessdate= 2008-07-22|quote = Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 9,743 as of 2008-07-22]

Why "The Deniers"?

The term "The Deniers" is controversial even among some of those profiled in the book, which often raises the question of why Solomon would choose it as the title for both his book and its related newspaper series. The following two quotes provide some insight into Solomon's thinking in that respect.Quotation|”More important, I am a layman trying to understand, and help other laymen to understand, how we should think about the global warming debate. For us, the answer cannot be to settle the science directly. For the most part, the layman must rely on the argument from authority, including a careful sifting of the credibility of the authorities and the relevance of their expertise to their particular claims for which they are advanced as witnesses. [...] I have been asked many times why I titled my series and now this book "The Deniers", in effect adopting their enemies’ terminology. Many of the scientists in this book hate the term and deny it applies to them. I could give several reasons, but here is the most important. The scientists are not alone in having their credibility on trial in the global warming debate. They are not the only “authorities” in the argument, and not even the most important “authorities.” Most laymen, most citizens, owe most of what we think we know about global warming not to science directly, but to science as mediated by the media and by political bodies, especially the UN and our governments. We citizens, trying to discern what to do about global warming, must judge not only the credibility of the scientists but of those who claim to tell us what the scientists say. To that end, as you read through this book, judge for yourself the credibility of those who dismiss these scientists as cranks or crooks, and call them "The Deniers".”| Lawrence Solomon, pp.7-8 , in "The Deniers"

Book Reviews

On the The Washington Times, Shawn Macomber said:

On The Vancouver Sun, Mark Milke book review said:

A rebuttal was published a week later, by Richard Littlemore saying that:

On Forbes.com, George Gilder wrote:

Newspaper Series

In its own words, the National Post's newspaper series, "The Deniers", profiles "the ideas and the scientists who do not share the “consensus” United Nations’ theories on climate change and global warming." The series began on November 28, 2006 with its debut article, "Statistics needed". That article described the events wherein Edward Wegman and an "expert panel of statisticians" in a report before the energy and commerce committee of the U.S. House of Representatives concluded that "the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported." This was in reference to the original hockey stick graph produced by Michael E. Mann and prominently featured within the 2001 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (TAR).

Within about a year the series had grown to 38 separate articles, which discussed a wide range of inconvenient topics for those who accept the IPCC view of climate change and global warming. These include topics such as the science is "not" settled, [cite web |url=http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=7e23a550-9cc4-4697-b730-b2d094f1628a |title=Unsettled science |accessdate=2008-08-31 |author=Lawrence Solomon |publisher=National Post |date=2007-03-14 ] there is evidence of warming on Mars, [cite web |url=http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=edae9952-3c3e-47ba-913f-7359a5c7f723&k=0 |title=Look to Mars for the truth on global warming |accessdate=2008-08-31 |author=Lawrence Solomon |publisher=National Post |date=2007-02-02 ] Jupiter's orbit has a significant effect on the Earth's climate, [cite web |url=http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=bfeddc8e-90d7-4f54-9ca7-1f56fadc7c2b |title=Climate change by Jupiter |accessdate=2008-08-31 |author=Lawrence Solomon |publisher=National Post |date=2007-11-10 ] the warming may actually be beneficial rather than catastrophic, [cite web |url=http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1d78fc67-3784-4542-a07c-e7eeec46d1fc&k=0 |title=Warming is real - and has benefits |accessdate=2008-08-31 |author=Lawrence Solomon |publisher=National Post |date=2007-02-02 ] the role of CO₂ has been exaggerated, [cite web |url=http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=0923043c-1302-4ab0-a2c4-58bd90f25552 |title=Limted role for CO₂ |accessdate=2008-08-31 |author=Lawrence Solomon |publisher=National Post |date=2007-02-02 ] the predictions of computer models depend on a lifetime for CO₂ in the atmosphere which far exceeds that which is observed by actual measurements, [cite web |url=http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=433b593b-6637-4a42-970b-bdef8947fa4e |title=Models trump measurements |accessdate=2008-08-31 |author=Lawrence Solomon |publisher=National Post |date=2007-07-07 ] and this is only a small sample of the topics covered in the full series.

Some of the those profiled by Solomon in the newspaper series have complained. Through a press release, Nigel Weiss "rebutted claims that a fall in solar activity could somehow compensate for the man-made causes of global warming." [cite news | author= Nigel Weiss| title = Climate change is chiefly man-made |publisher= University of Cambridge | date = 2007-02-07 | url = http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2007020201| accessdate =2008-07-20] The National Post published an apology and withdrew any allegation that Dr. Weiss is a global warming "denier". [cite news | author= Lawrence Solomon| title = Will the sun cool us?: Apology To Dr. Nigel Weiss|publisher= National Post | date = 2007-02-07 | url = http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=17fad0e2-6f6b-41f3-bdd8-8e9eeb015777&k=0| accessdate =2008-07-20]

References

External links

[http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/pages/the-deniers.aspx National Post’s Series “The Deniers”] by Lawrence Solomon.