Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The Climate Heretic's Handbook: Nigel Lawson's AN APPEAL TO REASON in FT:

Nigel Lawson's An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming was recently reviewed by Clive Crook in the Financial Times: "The sceptical literature on global warming is tiny and, to put it generously, of variable quality. Dissent from the received wisdom that climate change is a global emergency that calls for drastic remedies has been overwhelmed. The climate-science establishment is on board; so is the larger scientific community; and so, lately, are most governments, with Britain's leading the way. Now that the matter has been settled to almost everyone's satisfaction, sceptics are derided as "climate-change deniers" - akin to Holocaust deniers in their moral turpitude and refusal to face the truth. Increasingly, they talk to each other. Nobody else is listening. This is a shame, because on many points the sceptics happen to be correct. Nigel Lawson's short, splendid book on the subject can leave no fair-minded reader in doubt on that score. He points out that this was the first book he had trouble placing with a publisher. No British firm would touch it. You will have to read the book to understand how scandalous this is. An Appeal to Reason is elegantly written, thorough, entertaining and, above all, convincing.

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