Wednesday, January 05, 2005
State of Fear, and Michael Crichton on tsunami warning systems
The central premise of the story is that about fifteen years ago environmentalist non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which have huge budgets and a lot of people to employ, found themselves without a mission. In the rich countries that fund these NGOs with both tax dollars and private contributions, most of the really obvious environmental problems were solved or on their way to solved. The air and water were tremendously cleaner than they had been twenty years before, industry was cleaning up its waste disposal practices and the old low-tech dumps, and endangered species were protected. Afraid that they would lose both relevance and financing, the environmentalists hunted around for a new cause that would inspire the activist imagination and settled upon global "warming," which morphed into "climate change."
The novel proposes that at least one of these organizations would run amok. A panicked NGO teams up with eco-terrorists to stage environmental catastrophes that would appear to validate the case for global warming with the purpose of sustaining the focus of its contributors. The central character of State of Fear is a young and liberal lawyer who works for a left-wing billionaire who has given a lot of money to the organization.
As the story unfolds, our young and liberal lawyer finds himself in almost constant peril of life and limb. He also finds himself endlessly in the company of extraordinarily smart and beautiful women who set him straight about the dubious science of global warming. The lawyer, the billionaire, a brilliant federal agent, and various of these beautiful women travel a long distance both politically and actually -- their investigations take them from Iceland to Antarctica to the Arizona desert to the South Pacific, and from left-wing to right-wing. Who can really argue with that kind of fun?
Anyway, one of these staged catastrophes involves triggering an undersea earthquake in the South Pacific, with the idea that it will unleash a tsunami that will threaten the American Pacific Coast. Not unlike what this lunatic has proposed.
In any case, the quake does set off a tsunami, and that gives Crichton a vehicle for describing tsunami warning systems (edited slightly to avoid spoilification):
Eight thousand miles to the east, it was the middle of the night in Golden, Colorado, when the computers of the National Earthquake Information Center registered an atypical seismic disturbance originating from the Pacific basin, just north of the Solomon Islands, and measuring 6.3 Richter. That was a strong quake, but not unusually strong. The peculiar characteristics of the disturbance led the computer to characterize it as an "anamolous event," a fairly common designation for seismic events in that part of the world, where three tectonic plates met in strange overlapping patterns.
The NEIC computers assessed the earthquake as lacking the relatively slow movement associated with tsunamis, and thus did not classify it as a "tsunami-generating event." However, in the South Pacific, this designation was being reexamined, following the devastating New Guinea earthquake of 1998 -- the single most destructive tsunami of the century [a quaint designation since December 27 - ed.] -- which also did not have the classic slow tsunami profile. Thus, as a precaution, the computers flagged the earthquake to the sensors of the MORN, the Mid-Ocean Relay Network, operating out of Hilo, Hawaii.
Six hours later, mid-ocean buoys detected a nine-inch rise in the ocean level consistent with a tsunami wave train. Because of the great depth of the mid-ocean, tsunamis often raised the sea level on a few inches. On this particular evening, ships in the area felt nothing at all as the big wave front passed beneath them. Nevertheless, the buoys felt it, and triggered an alarm....
Does Crichton have timing, or what?
On the matter of environmental politics, I predict that State of Fear will cause more public relations trouble for the Kyoto Treaty than any study or white paper or industry lobby ever could.
17 Comments:
By 
Sluggo, at
Wed Jan 05, 10:34:00 AM:
Crichton is either even smarter than you think he is or the luckiest bastard on earth. He always seems to just out in front of techno issues. If he wants to have a movie made of this, though, he better be ready to change the perpetrators into Haliburton.
By Pile On®, at
Wed Jan 05, 11:01:00 AM:
This clearly outs Chrichton as a neo-con zionist member of the tri-lateral commission. How could his timing have been so good if he hadn't known Halliburton was going to cause an earthquake in the Pacific?
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Jan 05, 11:10:00 AM:
Crichton probably owns Halliburton.
By 
, at
Wed Jan 05, 11:27:00 AM:
"the shoddy science peddled by environmental activists"
Crichton is a novelist, you know.
You might consider spending a Sunday reading the science before dismissing climate change in public. Some of the conclusions are pretty straightforward.
Dr. David Suzuki has 15 honorary doctorates and is an Officer of the Order of Canada:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Science/
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assesses peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Peace.
By , at
Wed Jan 05, 11:42:00 AM:
A message from the government of Canada:
http://www.climatechange.gc.ca/onetonne/english/media_room/media.asp
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Jan 05, 11:48:00 AM:
Peace Dude: My post was more conclusory than I intended it to be -- that is, I do not know one way or the other whether the environmental activists are peddling "shoddy science." But Crichton certainly thinks so, and that is all I meant when I characterized his novel as "a powerful attack on the shoddy science." I probably should have tossed an "alleged" in there somewhere.
One of the interesting things about Crichton's book is that it innoculates itself against attack by environmentalists. By portraying them as willing to twist statistics to make their case, anybody who attacks Crichton's argument will be seen by readers of Crichton's novel as having twisted statistics! I therefore stick to the final point of my post, which is that Crichton's novel -- fair or otherwise -- is going to be the most significant public relations defeat for the environmentalist activists in ages.
By , at
Wed Jan 05, 11:49:00 AM:
"RUSSELL TRAIN: Well, as a life-long, love-long Republican, I think it's a little out of line to say that my criticism of the Bush administration science policy is a partisan attack. I like to think that I'm professional, and concerned about science, which we should all be. It certainly is not partisan, nor is -- nor was the report of the Union of Concerned Scientists sweeping generalizations. They were very specific in a number of areas."
- from "Leading Scientists Accuse Bush of Politicizing Science"
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/24/1554238&mode=thread&tid=25
By , at
Wed Jan 05, 04:47:00 PM:
Hey Jack, if you really want a good laugh, go pick up a used copy of Al Gore's "Earth in the Balance." That was a psuedo-intellectual, pseudo-scientific diatribe of the first order. And, by the way, I once worked for an environmental group, and to the charge of "trumping up issues to raise money," they are indeed guilty. NT
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Jan 05, 04:53:00 PM:
Thank you very much, NT! BTW, I hope that you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. For other readers: NT knows whereof she speaks.
By Pile On®, at
Wed Jan 05, 07:23:00 PM:
An honorary doctorate? Jack I hereby give you an honorary doctorate of Climatology.
Mr. Anonymous, I submit for your reading pleasure.
http://www.cnsnews.com/Culture/Archive/200412/CUL20041202a.html
Since you probably won't check it out, a breif excerpt from a story on a speech by a real Phd at MIT.
An MIT meteorologist Wednesday dismissed alarmist fears about human induced global warming as nothing more than 'religious beliefs.'
"Do you believe in global warming? That is a religious question. So is the second part: Are you a skeptic or a believer?" said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen, in a speech to about 100 people at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
"Essentially if whatever you are told is alleged to be supported by 'all scientists,' you don't have to understand [the issue] anymore. You simply go back to treating it as a matter of religious belief," Lindzen said. His speech was titled, "Climate Alarmism: The Misuse of 'Science'" and was sponsored by the free market George C. Marshall Institute. Lindzen is a professor at MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.
Once a person becomes a believer of global warming, "you never have to defend this belief except to claim that you are supported by all scientists -- except for a handful of corrupted heretics," Lindzen added.
Recent reports of a melting polar ice cap were dismissed by Lindzen as an example of the media taking advantage of the public's "scientific illiteracy."
"The thing you have to remember about the Arctic is that it is an extremely variable part of the world," Lindzen said. "Although there is melting going [on] now, there has been a lot of melting that went on in the [19]30s and then there was freezing. So by isolating a section ... they are essentially taking people's ignorance of the past," he added.
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Jan 05, 07:40:00 PM:
Pile, way to take on Mr. Peace Anonymous Dude! I'm not a big global warming expert myself, but I have always been suspicious of the breadth of the claims being made. The idea that a rise in CO2 from 300 ppm to 360 ppm would overwhelm other factors influencing atmospheric temperature seems strange to me.
By , at
Wed Jan 05, 10:31:00 PM:
Jack -
Great post. I confess that I skipped the last part, because I sensed a spoiler, and I am damned near finished with "State of Fear." I do, however, suspect that the good guys will carry the day.
I believe that I have read everything that Crichton (a graduate of Harvard Medical School) has ever written, except "The Great Train Robbery." He's one of my faves.
Jim
Parkway Rest Stop
http://parkwayreststop.com
By , at
Thu Jan 06, 01:32:00 AM:
"Since you probably won't check it out, a breif excerpt from a story on a speech by a real Phd at MIT ..."
Of course I'll read recommendations directed to my attention. I've been leaving URLs all over this place, for days now, and if you folks aren't visiting them please tell me.
Look, I'm not like you: I'm a Canadian, for one. And I'm a liberal Canadian, which means I'm vaguely communist to you guys. I'm visiting you arrogant objectivist Yanks because the difference is fun. I'll post the occasional link for those of you who like to stretch your legs.
David Suzuki is a pretty well-educated guy, btw:
http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/top_ten/nominee/suzuki-david.html
Re. the argument quoted by Pile, it's the "contrarian's" rebuttal to the authority of the consensus. Here's how that line of reasoning is refuted in a document distributed to colleagues by Senator John McCain:
Within the IPCC, "scientific consensus" means that the working group authors agree that a fair representation of the scientific debate has been achieved. Points of dispute in the science of climate change are usually resolved either by developing appropriate intervals of uncertainty around certain projections or by crafting language that reflects the different viewpoints of experts within the scientific community and the reasons that the differences exist. The very existence of the large range cited by the IPCC Working Group I 'Summary for Policy Makers' (SPM) for warming projections to 2100 (2.5-10.4 F) attests to the insitence of such carefully peer reviewed documents to summarize uncertainties and disagreements. This stands in stark distinction to the easy and elliptical prouncements of climate change skeptics to reporters or at Congressional hearings. They are non-representative of the scientific consensus. A small handful of contrarian counter examples does not constitute a diminution of broad scientific consensus that climate change is a potentially risky prospect.
As Don Kennedy, chief editor of the international scientific journal 'Science' has argued, "Consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic [climate change] is rare in science. [T]here is little room for doubt about the seriousness of the problem the world faces, and other nations, including most of our trading partners in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, understand that."
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/McCainLetterAttachment.pdf
There's a similar argument made here:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/GammonEtAl2003.pdf
A detailed history of the debate with outbound links to all kinds of primary sources:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/CliSciFrameset.html?http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/Contrarians.html
Peace.
Mr. Peace Anonymous Dude
By , at
Thu Jan 06, 08:05:00 AM:
Mr. Canadian Peace Anonymous Dude:
I actually lived in Canada once upon a time. Dundas, Ontario, to be precise. My sister was born there. Not surprisingly, she is the most liberal member of the family!;)
I agree that there is a tremendous scientific "consensus" around the question of global warming. The history of science, though, is filled with examples of tremendous scientific consensus that turned out to be profoundly wrong. One small example is the now-forgotten "eugenics" science that prevailed from the late nineteenth century until the world turned from it after having peered into the wreckage of Nazi Germany. At that time, there were virtually no credible opponents of the idea that "inferior" humans were reproducing faster than more smarter and more successful ones, and that this tendancy would result in a significant long-term dumbing-down of the human race. This was a subject of tremendous concern accepted by virtually everybody in the chattering classes. It is now considered laughably incorrect. So the "consensus" of the scientific community does not necessarily predict the ultimate synthesis.
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Jan 06, 09:24:00 AM:
Oops. That last comment was me.
By , at
Thu Jan 06, 09:47:00 AM:
Patton, did you read that sunspot article?
"Dr David Viner, the senior research scientist at the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, said the research showed that the sun did have an effect on global warming.
"He added, however, that the study also showed that over the past 20 years the number of sunspots had remained roughly constant, while the Earth's temperature had continued to increase.
"This suggested that over the past 20 years, human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation had begun to dominate 'the natural factors involved in climate change', he said."
Aside from the to and fro over the specifics of the influence of sunspot activity, it's more of the same debate that's described here, blow by blow:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/CliSciFrameset.html?http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/Contrarians.html
Anonymous, re. eugenics, that puppy will never be put to rest. Designer babies are the next wave. At the crest will be wealthy libertarians who don't want to be told what they can and cannot do with their children. They'll point to the genetics work by contrarian academics like Canadian Philip Rushton, employed by the University of Western Ontario, who claims that asians are smarter than whites, who in turn are smarter than blacks.
So long as free societies value academic freedom, there will always be contrarians. The only defense we have against bad ideas gaining purchase in society and doing harm is peer review. Peer review stops the poor research from being published and getting attention. U of Western Ontario took a lot of flack for it's peer review process re. Rushton, and the scientists he quoted came out of the woodwork, shortly after the shit hit the fan, to argue he'd misinterpreted their data.
Peer review is a function of consensus. What's the alternative? If you argue against consensus ... well, to quote Yeats:
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood dimm'd tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
It would be reassuring to hear from conservatives reading this blog who agree with me.
Mr. Peace Anonymous Dude
By , at
Fri Jan 07, 07:30:00 PM:
Patton, I spent the evening researching and writing my comment.
Your comment communicated this:
1) I prefer to look for obvious answers, where available.
2) And one such [i.e., obvious answer] was at hand in July, 2004:
3) "The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame"
4) I've seen nothing in Suzuki's pile of sheepskins to convince me otherwise [i.e., that the sun is not to blame]
By quoting the story, I (that is: me, not you) was pointing out to others following this thread that the article was balanced.
I don't know what you meant by "sheepskins" but, for what it's worth to this thread, David Suzuki is a member of the Order of Canada and was recently voted in a nationwide poll one of the 10 greatest Canadians (that's ever, not just living). You can visit his site and be as demanding and critical as you like, but callous cynicism about his motives or competence says a good deal more about you.
That was a carefully-chosen link, btw, like all the others I've posted here (to complete silence, not incidentally).
Peace.
Mr. Canadian Peace Anonymous Dude
