May I just take a moment...

[phantom power]

to remark about what a goddamned stupid book "State of Fear" really is?

Things I learned by reading this book:

1) A sudden use of words like "catastrophe" and "disaster" in the media can be dated to within months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which is cinching proof that the Liberal University-Politico-Media Complex was forced to replace "The Red Scare" with "Climate Change" in some kind of Straussian maneuver.

2) Anybody who "believes" in anthropogenic climate change is either (a) an evil charlatan (and ranking member of the Liberal University-Politico-Media Complex), (b) an Effete Hollywood Actor(tm), (c) An eco-terrorist freak, (d) a vaguely wimpy yuppie rube, (e) any other category of whiny-ass titty-baby.

3) Some rubes can be cured, mostly by an existential encounter with People Who Really Are Out To Kill Me, which confers a manly "implacability" on them, and which somehow teaches us that Terrorism and Liberal Fascism are the true threats to mankind.

And all of this, amazingly, written four years into the rule of an Administration that categorically denies the reality of climate change, or of any responsibility for taking action, which you might think would completely invalidate (1), if you were bound by the laws of logic.

It's like Crichton took four years of Little Green Footballs and Powerline posts, and turned them into novel with unholy magicks.

And god help me, I haven't even quite finished it yet.

(edit)
PS, and how could I forget... (4) There is no statistical evidence of increasing extreme weather! None!!!! And the increase in extreme weather you are seeing is from ecoterrorists with weather control technology. Do you see???

[hisownpetard]

1. Sounds like the sub-title should be: Fox Rocks!

[GliderGuider]

2. Yep, that's about what I thought it would be like.

I ain't never ever gonna read or see anything else by that bald-faced propagandist.

[Buzz Clik]

3. How did you like all of Crichton's footnotes and endnotes?

At least 80% of them can be traced directly the Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist.

That may be the worst book I've read in twenty years.

[phantom power]

4. Yes, I was going to say "novelization of Lomborg" ...

but not even Lomborg stooped to the level of paranoia that abounds in Crichton's book. I actually imagine it's possible to write a good novel about climate change skepticism, but this was a piece of hackery.

I think it's the characters that really put me off the most. There literally isn't a single environmentalist in that book who is portrayed with any sympathy. That and the various Dr. Evil schemes for faking environmental disasters. It's the sort of thing I expect from a Clive Cussler potboiler. I used to think better of Crichton.

[Buzz Clik]

5. Excellent point, and I love the "novelization of Lomborg" concept.

Lomborg irritates true scientists, but at least he's attempting to get some level of scientific credibility.

Crichton tossed it all out and went for pure silliness. I several times had to retrieve the book after throwing it across the room in disgust.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Consider the "classic" Crichton plot

I describe the classic Crichton plot as, "You're not as smart as you think you are."/"You have no appreciation of the true nature of what you're dealing with." (Years ago, I saw Jurassic Park without having read the book. Afterwards, I compared notes with an old friend who had read the book, and I was able to accurately predict the major plot deviations from the book.)

Bearing that in mind, this seems to be consistent with his other works. In this case, it's environmentalists and climatologists who aren't as smart as they think they are/have no appreciation of the true complexity of the ecosystem; which (of course) his proxy character does. (How'd I do?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Literary_techniques

[phantom power]

9. Pretty good. That may be related to a theory I have about Crichton.

Step 1) Crichton decides to learn about Topic X. (X = Climate change, or nanotech, or genetics, or chaos theory, or sexual harassment, etc)

Step 2) Crichton realizes that there was a lot he didn't know, and what he just learned really rocked his world, and maybe also scared the willies out of him.

Step 3) He writes a novel, where he projects his astonishment and/or fear onto either (a) bad guys or (b) rubes, who gradually learn about something by tagging along with a Knowledgeable Hero (maybe the best previous example of that one was Sean Connery's character from Rising Sun, until this Kenner guy from State of Fear).

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. You've forgotten one thing

Crichton's medical background served him rather well in a number of his works.

In the case of climatology though, he's out of his realm. (It's as if his classic plot device has turned on him, and this time, He's not as smart as he thinks he is.)

[NickB79]

6. Good God, you read that thing?

I think you deserve a :beer: or two.

What's next on your to-do list, reading Glen Beck's "An Inconvenient Book" while wearing nipple clips?

[phantom power]

7. ...

:spray: :rofl:


Well, my wife gave it to me a year ago or so. I felt sort of obligated to read the thing eventually. And, I figured, I can stand to read people who disagree with me. I've always thought Crichton's novels were pretty good. I hope I'm not panning this one just because he's bashing people like me who are convinced that climate change is upon us. But it really struck me as not just one-sided, but deliberately offensive in its characterization. He seems to be actually convinced that there is no hard evidence of anthropogenic climate change, and that all arguments in favor of it evaporate under a bit of scrutiny. In other words, he really seems to have been completely influenced by Lomborg.

I must say, some of his other recent work has been disappointing. He goofs up his application of evolution to his nano-swarms in Prey, and his treatment of time travel in Timeline doesn't stand up to any scrutiny. And anybody who pins a major plot point on a toss-off like "and nobody understands consciousness anyway" should be flogged.

[losthills]

10. Those Damn Liberals!

[YankeyMCC]

11. Thank you for your service

in slogging through the rubbish and reporting back.

[Dead_Parrot]

12. You poor bastard

When you've finished, remember to rinse your cerebrum out with bleach before attempting to post again. :)

[phantom power]

13. I think I'll also take Nick's advice and drink heavily.

[TheWraith]

15. Please tell me you're exaggerating (4).

If the idea of weather control was really brought up, I might have to hunt Crichton down and slap him.

[phantom power]

16. Actually, it's even worse than that...

The basic plot is that the head of a prominent environmental organization (NERF) commissions an ecoterrorist outfit (ELF, or something) to engineer four extreme events, timed to coincide with a big, highly-publicized environmental conference on abrupt climate change. The backstory is that they secretly know that they don't have any real data, and they are having trouble making enough money from their yearly donations. They need to increase the public's "State of Fear" so that their environmentalism industry continues to get funding.

The four events are:

1) break off a huge chunk of an Antarctic ice sheet, with engineered explosives
2) enhance a weather front into an extreme storm in a national park, with rocket-deployed lighting rods
3) deploy ammonia-producing bacteria (or something, whatever) to steer a hurricane into florida
4) (and here's the punch-line) cause a massive tsunami by triggering a huge undersea landslide off of a pacific island, timed to hit California the morning of the conference, killing huge numbers of people.

Extra credit: how many of you good people can point out why (4) is especially goddamned stupid, and pretty much discredits anything Crichton might claim to have learned about climate change?

Like I said, this is Clive Cussler material. It's embarrassing.

And remember, this is the guy who was invited by Congress to testify as an expert witness on climate change. I need to go drink heavily now.
:banghead: