Benford on Crichton

Reason Contributing Editor Gregory Benford has coauthored, with Martin Hoffert, a scorched-earth review of Michael Crichton's State of Fear, claiming the anti-green-activist tome misrepresents and misunderstands much of the science on which it is based (Benford and Hoffert are the authors of a paper that Crichton misuses in the book).

Writing in the San Diego Union Tribune, they say:

Much is at stake if we embrace "State of Fear's" take on global warming. Antarctic ice cores show that our civilization has enjoyed a long, comfortable climate for the last 10,000 years. To disturb this with a sudden rise in temperature could soon endanger us. Worse, there are some clues that we could tilt the global equilibrium and not be able to get back to the balmy era we've enjoyed throughout human history. That would be a catastrophe dwarfing the recent tsunami's destruction.

The climate/energy issue failed to surface in the last election not because it's unimportant but because we fail to sense the urgency. In large part this is because of deniers like Crichton, resulting in a U.S. policy that is "aprs moi le deluge."

Benford and Hoffert believe that technological fixes can counteract global warming with few problems. Whole thing here.

Reason's Ronald Baily reviewed Crichton's book in the Wall Street Journal here.

And Benford suggested ways to beat man-generated heat in Reason here.