Hmmm so their goes that -4 carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide since you have to fuel up more to get where your going.
Posted on 02/18/2006 9:03:04 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
One of the perquisites of being president is the ability to have the author of a book you enjoyed pop into the White House for a chat.
Over the years, a number of writers have visited President Bush, including Natan Sharansky, Bernard Lewis and John Lewis Gaddis. And while the meetings are usually private, they rarely ruffle feathers.
Now, one has.
In his new book about Mr. Bush, "Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush," Fred Barnes recalls a visit to the White House last year by Michael Crichton, whose 2004 best-selling novel, "State of Fear," suggests that global warming is an unproven theory and an overstated threat.
Mr. Barnes, who describes Mr. Bush as "a dissenter on the theory of global warming," writes that the president "avidly read" the novel and met the author after Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, arranged it. He says Mr. Bush and his guest "talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement."
"The visit was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more," he adds.
And so it has, fueling a common perception among environmental groups that Mr. Crichton's dismissal of global warming, coupled with his popularity as a novelist and screenwriter, has undermined efforts to pass legislation intended to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that leading scientists say causes climate change.
Mr. Crichton, whose views in "State of Fear" helped him win the American Association of Petroleum Geologists' annual journalism award this month, has been a leading doubter of global warming and last September appeared before a Senate committee to argue that the supporting science was mixed, at best.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
L
Heartening.
Have read, and enjoyed, the book. Pokes some fun at the Hollywood green types too.
Iced in here in OKC, could use a little warming right now.
On my "To Read" list; sitting on my nightstand.
Excellent.
I especially liked the part where the pompous ass Hollyweird actor "who plays the President on TV" (modeled after Martin Sheen) gets eaten by cannibals.
One more time. Consider the source.
The dreaded NYT.
Pass.
Aren't environmentalists perpetually "alarmed" at something?
So does E85 NOT emit carbon dioxide?
I read it, and like many of Crichton's books it's way over the top, but the foot notes are real. The theme of the book is what's important, and that is that scientists like anyone else, know which side of their bread is buttered. These days, any scientist that comes up with data that doesn't prove "Global Warming" doesn't get the grant, tenure or a spot on stage.
Cleanup on aisle 3!!
There are some mental images we were NOT meant to see....
Crichton has been taking a lot of heat for disagreeing with what has become dogma. The simple fact is that the alarmists have always been wrong on population, on energy, and I think they are wrong again on global warming. There are a lot of good things that could come from a more temperate global climate and regardless implementing painful political regimens which accomplish little more than to punish ourselves in an attempt to change something we can not control will solve nothing. We can not even get a simple habitat functioning "correctly" in a sealed biosphere and the idea that we can some how "fix" the global climate when the definition of broken is something we are not certain of is more than a little absurd.
Supposed to be 15 here tonight....30 miles south of Seattle....and it's been blowing and cold for 3 days....GLOBAL warming my arse!
Hmmm so their goes that -4 carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide since you have to fuel up more to get where your going.
Not that I know, but I gain the impression that environmentism functions as a kind of relgion for many people. To them the biosphere is like some huge organism, and who are like cancer cells that are killing it.
For the past several days we have enjoyed lows in the middle to high teens, low 20s, with daily highs in the mid to low 30s. This is about 10-25 degrees below most normal highs and lows. So, send some of that warm air this way. Tomorrow the heat wave is predicted at 47 and sunny, so we will bask in its glow because starting Tuesday, the 10 day forecast is back to mid-40 highs, low 30s for nights and rain, rain, rain/snow mix, and more rain again. Back to normal! Uggggggggggg.
It's a great read!
No more often than Muslims are angry at something.
Don't tell too much, make'em read it.
I'd probably go see this one if made into a film.
"Aren't environmentalists perpetually "alarmed" at something?"
Not just the environ-mentals, the left, the Islamofascists, the PETA's, the Greenies, etc., etc., etc.
The world is full of irrational, emotional hysterical fruitcakes.
This just shows that it takes very few people going the other direction to break a monopoly. It took just Rush Limbaugh at the beginning to break the liberal media's monopoly. The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal stood alone, and quite effective, against the other newspapers. FoxNews all by itself, has been breaking the monopoly of the MSM networks. A few actors and a handful of authors and conservative college professors will hopefully soon break up the liberal monopoly in other important areas.
Why not? As Martha would say, "It's a good thing."
OTOH, Gore Vidal, a writer of "historical fiction" is interviewed as a biographer of Lincoln on The History Channel.
Add "Alarms" to the list of liberal buzzwords like "scary" and "frightening" used to describe those who disagree with them as even more dangerous than they could possibly have imagined.
Oh, not that they voted for W, or respect his intelligence, or patriotism, or competence... yet somehow they're still alarmed.
Wake me when the New York Times learns how to speak literally.
Criton is also Democrat, how has usually donated to Democratic candidates and causes. However, he is very good researcher, and knows how to turn facts into facinting stories. I'm sure he didn't arrive at this position lightly.
The NGO's had everyone conviced that Global Warming was for real, and that intervention would have a real impact. They really, really don't want anyone to get in the way. Further, the book is probably an indictment of the new NGO-enviro industry, which has become more powerful and self interested than nearly any corporate or political entity.
Ah, but you miss the real point of "global warming", "climate change", "Kyoto", et al. Environmentalism has no desire to actually do anything about climate change. Instead, the effort is designed to transfer wealth and power -- to them and to their client regimes -- while destroying capitalism.
Environmentalism is nothing more than our old friend, totalitarian socialism, in a green uniform -- complete with "useful idiots".
I find that very heartening, agreeing with Chrichton on environmental matters is a very, very good thing.
Hearing Charlton Heston read the part about "Life Will Find a Way" raises the hair in the back of your neck.
Pish. Maybe it wasn't made public because it was a private conversation? I know, I know, novel idea and all that, but not everyone wants to (or should!) tell every little detail about every little conversation. Even if he is the President, he does have the right to privacy. :P
Now that I've gotten that little burr off my mind (that statement really annoyed me, lol), I'll say that the book mentioned is on my "To Read" list.. which is about a mile long, and growing every day. I'm a regular bookworm. And I'm sure I'll enjoy it, as I've enjoyed The Andromeda Strain (I need to re-read that one.. haven't read it in years), and Jurassic Park. Personally, I think the book is more frightening than the movie.. and I don't freak easily anymore, so if I freak over something, I know it's good!
And "global warming" my arse. I'll believe that when I don't need 6+ blankets on my bed to keep warm in the winter! Of course.. even if I don't strictly need them.. I may keep them there anyway. I'm a blanket hog, too. :P :)
Cheers,
~Moshi-chan
read later
That's why they call 'em "watermelon environmentalists."
Green on the outside, Red on the inside.
The enviornmentalists are supposedly scientists who would never descend into "superstitious religion" but here they are preaching "Global Warming." Crichton has called their bluff and exposed them as phonies.
Any educated, informed reader should note that the name of these "leading scientists" is never provided.
One man's "leading scientist" is another man's moonbat, particularly when they are scientists only in their own minds...
Also his lecture "Fear, Complexity and Environmental Management in the 21st Century:" http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speeches/complexity/complexity.html
I am shivering at the computer with two sweaters and a blanket. On the other hand we just had the warmest January in 100 years. There are those who believe that the big danger of global warming is that it will cause an imbalance leading to severe global cooling.
This Sunday, I guess this evening, 20/20 is having a special on the issue. It will be interesting to see what viewpoint they take and how they balance the arguments.
It's a whopping 9 degrees here in KC. That's up from 3 degrees yesterday morning. Might make it up to 20 this afternoon.
"I read this book. The enviros should be afraid because Crichton totally devastates the fantasy that humans are somehow affecting the planetary weather systems."
I will give in to the envirowhackos that humans have played a significant role in affecting the weather.
Their solution? Let's keep the status quo by taking away technology from America and allow China and third world countries to pollute so that we will still be equal in our emissions.
What no one has asked these whackos is this, "If we stop progress, how long will it be to another ice age? " I mean I look at it this way. Take a pot of water in ice cold weather and it will freeze. Now put fire under it, slow but steady, That's global warming. Eventually the water will melt. Now turn off the fire. What happens?
Before I believe that there is global warming, I need that question answered.
I don't remember there being much of a plot or character development, just an entertaining format to present the information he wanted us to read...
...rather like the "novel" Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. It's really a refutation of some historic propaganda, not a novel.
Neither of these "novels" would make good movies.
As well, Mr. Crichton should. This global warming can be summed up in 1 small diagram that anyone can (or should be able to) understand. 
It is a fact that, right now, the Sun is burning hotter than it has in 8,000 years (by scientists calculations).
Same distance between objects = hotter source = hotter objects.
It really isn't rocket science...it's simple (and I mean very simple) physics.
That's funny. I just rewatched Jurasic Park on TV tonight as a fan of Sam Neil's acting and Jeff Goldblum's comedic relief. And was thinking about "Life finds a way" and how much further we've come along the cloning and DNA manipulation route since the book was first written.
Wonder how Chuck is doing lately with the Alzheimer's and arthritis. Remember fondly some of his roles, from his portrayals of Andrew Jackson to Moses to astronaut on The Planet of the Apes to The Omega Man.
God bless him. And thanks also to Crichton for a lot of reading and movie fun over the years. My favorite is still Andromeda Strain.
I would look very closely at any data claiming the sun was "hotter".
The answer may be simply precession, that we are in the part of our cycle where our axis (which wobbles back and forth) is tilted more toward the sun and coinciding with the time in our eliptical orbit around the sun where we are closer to the sun during the summer.
Precession cycles are around 10-12,000 years in length as I recall. I have an article about this linked from my profile page.
You are exactly correct. The more far gone ones even refer openly to Gaia, their name for the Earth goddess. Some of the really radical animal rights whackos think that we're morally wrong for using oil because it disturbs the graves of dead dinosaurs. Unfortunately, as Dave Berry says, I am not making this up.
actually, he doesn't say we're not. In fact some of the best scientific evidence he links to shows that we are, just not in the way the global warming industry says. He destoys the studies of average temperature rise with studies of the urban heat island effect and how that distorts the readings in the global warming studies.
his basic argument, iin almost everytthing he writes, is that we really don't have a clue, and any suggestion otherwise is usually a) wrong and b) motivated by something other than a search for truth.
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