A Cold Shoulder

True Believers still reject global warming

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
2/21/06
http://zeppscommentaries.com/S&E/crichton.htm

The Science Fiction community – in America, at least – has always had a strong representation from people who are either libertarians or free marketeers, or (for those incapable of seeing the built-in conflict between market demands and individual rights) both. The worst cases are Randroids, who are utterly convinced that government is the root of all evil, and that churches and corporations wouldn’t DREAM of taking over the power vacuum if government were to be somehow eliminated from human affairs. Aside from being rather poorly thought out, it also has a rather vile premise, that human greed can be counted upon to solve all social problems.

Like in Rwanda, perhaps.

It’s an ideology, an odd one that celebrates the individuality of humans while vociferously opposing any other viewpoints, labeling such as “socialist” and “authoritarian.” As if churches or corporations wouldn’t share such traits.

Holding this particular ideology doesn’t mean someone can’t write great science fiction. Robert Heinlein incorporated it in a lot of his novels, and usually did so in a way that didn’t interfere with the magic of the story one bit. I often most enjoyed the stories where I was most likely to disagree with the political philosophy that informed the story.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (Pournelle in particular) wrote stories driven by a benign and efficient free market. Then they started writing together, and wrote a couple of SF classics: “The Mote in God’s Eye” and “Lucifer’s Hammer”.

They wrote some other books, but in general, the team hit a decline. They wrote one in the late eighties in which one or both writers decided it was high time someone gave those weak-kneed librul environmentalists the kicking around they so richly deserved. This was some twenty years ago, when there was a lot of room for legitimate debate about global warming. They posited a world gripped in a massive ice age, with glaciers spreading rapidly south of Minnesota. Characters in the book ruefully admitted that they could have avoided this disaster if they had only kept pumping CO2 into the atmosphere to stave off the next ice age. The book was written with the truculent anger of AM talk radio. It had a number of other flaws and might have been a failure in any event, but when reading fiction, science fiction in particular, suspension of disbelief is all-important, and it doesn’t happen if the writer is sitting between you and the printed word and making faces at you.

Let alone shouting “This [imaginary] disaster is all YOUR fault, you liberal bastard!”

They crossed a line between writing a story based on a philosophy, and tractor art. They blew right through that line that separates advocacy from propaganda.

So it stood to reason that a dozen years later, Michael Crichton, always behind the curve, would try something similar. He wrote a book “State of Fear.”

Now, truth in advertising time: I haven’t read the book. Crichton is uneven at the best of times, and reading a book that stems from an effort to promote a long-since discredited notion (in this case, that global warming is nothing more than fear-mongering from people who, Unabomber-like, are Luddites who hate technology and want us all back living in the trees.) It really doesn’t sound like a promising read. When Niven and Pournelle wrote their book [Fallen Angels], there was at least some credibility for their belief. Michael Crichton has come along and taken an Allen Drury approach to a topic that is, in the scientific community, no longer even faintly controversial. Global warming is a fact. Human involvement is regarded as a given. A lot of the major corporations that did so much to promote the ideas espoused by Crichton, Niven and Pournelle now admit those ideas are inoperative, and are working to stave off the coming disaster.

But True Believers don’t handle changes in dogma from on high very well. Ironically, Crichton includes a screed in his book warning of “Politicized science.” Presumably, as opposed to politicized science fiction.

“Sixty Minutes” ran a piece last night on the thawing of the Greenland ice cap. A recent report noted that the melt runoff from the ice cap had more than doubled in the past ten years (21.3 cubic miles in 1996, 53 cubic miles in 2005). One of the most striking parts was when the 60 Minutes reporter was interviewing one of the scientists on the ice cap, surrounded by crevasses, and he suddenly realizes he can hear running water. The scientist points to a crevasse. “It’s there, about 150, 200 feet down. Water running under the icecap. The rate at which the glaciers are flowing to the ocean has increased, tripling in the past 10 years.”

Quite aside from a rise in ocean levels, it has the potential to completely shut down the Gulf Stream, which has already been reduced in volume by a third since 1970. That would have massive effects on the globe’s weather patterns. London might find itself with the type of climate that Juneau, Alaska presently enjoys.

Reporters at the White House asked Scotty McClellan if Putsch regarded Michael Crichton as an expert on the global warming issue. Putsch had claimed to have read “State of Fear” and did meet with Crichton.

Learning that the president was paying attention to Michael Crichton at a time when the government supposedly is addressing the issue of global warming is a bit like learning that the guys at JPL had invited the president of the Flat Earth Society to review launch and trajectory plans for their next Mars orbiter, or that the local zoo had brought in a creationist to help describe the taxonomy of species.

So the reporters at the White House, still trying occasionally to act like actual, you know, journalists, asked McClellan if Putsch regarded Crichton as an expert on the topic of global warming.

McClellan refused to answer that one.

Not very reassuring. At a time when no sane individual questions the fact of global warming, and only a handful question if it is anthrogenic or not, the president is paying attention to the SF equivalent of Victor Lysenko.

Even when the entities that made Putsch possible, the oil companies, have pretty much abandoned the pretense that global warming isn’t happening.

True believers.

I’ll get email, wanting to know if I looked at the weather reports this past week. I did. It was cold. Even here, it dropped to 10 above, about the coldest it’s been in several years, and unusual for late February.

But I know the historic averages for this region, and I know something about this “cold snap” that most people don’t: thirty years ago, the weather we had last week was considered normal.

We’re used to warmer winters.




White House press secretary Scott McClellan ducked a question from a reporter Monday at a briefing aboard Air Force One over whether President Bush believes best-selling author Michael Crichton is an expert on global warming. Crichton, made famous by books like Jurassic Park, was the subject of a New York Times article that alleged Bush took Crichton's criticisms of global warming at a private meeting seriously. Cricton's 2004 book, State of Fear, sought to debunk global warming, which has been roundly endorsed by scientists around the world.

In the transcript, the reporter asks:

Q But Michael Crichton as an expert or a novelist the President enjoys reading?
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MR. MCCLELLAN: The President read his book, and he was glad to have the opportunity to visit with him.

Q -- believes as expert opinion?

MR. MCCLELLAN: I think you should look at what we outlined, Jessica. If you want to ask the President about it, you are -- you're welcome to do that at some point. But I'm not going to get into talking about private meetings that he has.
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The transcript in context:

Q There was a report on television last night about the -- about global warming and demands contribution to the atmosphere, and so on, was -- is the U.S. government -- does the U.S. care that the polar ice caps are melting? And this whole sort of energy reform that you're putting forth, does the environment play any part in it?

MR. HUBBARD: I'll let Scott take that one.

MR. MCCLELLAN: What was your question.

Q It was a story on "60 Minutes" last night about global warming and -- what's the administration's position on any of this energy reform, or whether it's --

MR. MCCLELLAN: The United States is leading the way in investing in the kind of technologies to help us address greenhouse gas emissions. That's something we -- remember, we're on track to meet the President's goal of reducing greenhouse gas intensity that he outlined. And we also have joined in partnerships around the world to invest in research and development when it comes to climate change. It's an issue that the President takes seriously, and we announced the Asia Pacific Partnership, remember, and that is an initiative to help lead the way to address some of these issues associated with climate change.

Q Do you take Michael Crichton on the issue seriously?

MR. MCCLELLAN: What's your question?

Q There's a story --

MR. MCCLELLAN: I think what I can point to -- I'm not going to get into talking about private meetings he's had, but look at the initiatives we've outlined, look at the leadership the President is providing to address the challenges of climate change. It is an issue that we take seriously, and that's why we've been investing billions in research and development to better understand the science of climate change. That's why we've initiated partnerships, like the Asia Pacific Partnership, to address these issues, as well.

Q But Michael Crichton as an expert or a novelist the President enjoys reading?

MR. MCCLELLAN: The President read his book, and he was glad to have the opportunity to visit with him.

Q -- believes as expert opinion?

MR. MCCLELLAN: I think you should look at what we outlined, Jessica. If you want to ask the President about it, you are -- you're welcome to do that at some point. But I'm not going to get into talking about private meetings that he has.

Thanks.