State Of Fear

book by Michael Crichton ISBN:0066214130

on Environmentalism

in terms of the fiction, I found the characters rather 2-dimensional, like reading Ayn Rand. But the storyline itself was kinda fun.

I wish he's put the non-fictional bits (endnote, references, etc.) online for better cross-reference.

His main points seem to be:

• we don't know enough about the environment/climate to predict its future or evaluate the relative importance of various factors in changing the future

• support for Environmentalism is part of a wider effort to control the US populace through Fear. Other vectors include safety and... (health/nutrition?)

  • this broader effort started at the time of the destruction of the Soviet Union, since a new scary monster was needed

• the main activists in this effort, parallel to the Military Industrial Complex of the Cold War, consists of the politicians, lawyers, media, and universities

some criticisms:

• Gavin Schmidt http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74

• Gavin Schmidt again http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2005/02/01/schmidt-fear/

• Chris Mooney checks Crichton's footnotes http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/06/checking_crichtons_footnotes/

• David Brin slags Crichton in general: In effect, by disdaining "consensus science", and offering no alternative, this branch of an obstinate aristocratic clade is - through Crichton - telling Civilization's finest minds to return to their labs and tend their own business. As "boffins" they should stick to test tubes and leave policy to whichever self-chosen elite of aristocrats, politicos and/or philosopher kings happens to sit at the pinnacle of government and finance... Not one of these lecturing heroes ever mentions the one corrective prescription that might actually work - general openness (Transparent Society). The way we have often managed to get so many advances without hubristic calamities... Let there be no mistake, this plot outline is not Modernist. It is Romantic at every level.