cover image The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the Obsession with 'Climate Change' Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?

The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the Obsession with 'Climate Change' Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?

Christopher Booker, . . Continuum, $29.95 (368pp) ISBN 978-1-4411-1052-7

Booker, a weekly columnist for the Sunday Telegraph , expands on a global warming chapter from his previous book, Scared to Death , co-written with Richard North, to argue that the earth is not warming. According to him, efforts to mitigate what he claims to be an imaginary problem will devastate the global economy and shift the balance of power to favor Asia to the detriment of the European Union and the U.S. Much of the book will be familiar to readers of climate-change-hoax literature: climate change research relies on flawed computer models; the “hockey stick” graph of temperature rise, made famous by Al Gore, is based on inaccuracies; the costs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will be huge, the political difficulties of realizing them untenable, and the results inadequate. Booker's stated purpose is to put all the “complex arguments” on both sides of the debate into chronological context, but his treatment is anything but balanced, and his credibility may be undermined by previous controversial claims, such as that white asbestos is identical to talc and secondhand smoke does not cause cancer. (Jan.)