Not-Recommended Bad Books

Read + Reviewed (most recent first)

Heaven and Earth: Global Warming the Missing Science (2009)
by Ian Plimer

• I stumbled onto "Heaven and Earth: Global Warming the Missing Science" while browsing for research material on Milankovitch Cycles and volcanoes. Since this book was written by a professor (BSc/PhD) of geology at Adelaide University, and contained more than 2300 references spread across 500 pages, I decided to buy it without reading any reviews (a big mistake)
• I first read the material on Milankovitch Cycles then decided to read the material on volcanoes and this is when warning bells went off for me. Why? Plimer states that volcanoes release more CO₂ (carbon dioxide) than humans. However, other books I've read indicate it is just the opposite. This link: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php indicates that humans release 130 times more CO₂ than volcanoes.
  • USGS quote: Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1991). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 27 billion tonnes per year (30 billion tons) [(Marland, et al., 2006) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2, through 2003.]. Human activities release more than 130 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of more than 8,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 3.3 million tonnes/year)! (Gerlach et. al., 2002)
• Ian Plimer made some good points when shows that human civilizations appear to do better when the climate is warmer (Roman and Medieval warmings). I suspect this may be a personal opinion of a sun-loving Australian because science has proven that:
  • Warm climates are much more dangerous for human health. For example, northern and southern climates rely on cold cycles to exterminate disease bearing pests (malaria bearing mosquitoes come to mind). But we all know that the warming planet is changing the climate on the sides of cool mountains which bring disease bearing insects to higher altitude humans. With regards to Plimer's thesis, weren't the medieval warmings also filled with bubonic plague (carried by fleas inside rats), tuberculosis, cholera and typhus?
  • Warm bodies of water are much less healthy for aerobic life. Why? Cold water contains the highest levels of oxygen while warm water releases dissolved gasses (think of a warm beer). This is why salmon, trout, and char continue to migrate closer to the poles. Many scientists believe that four out of last five mass extinction events occurred as a result of high temperatures leading to a condition where oxygen producing microbes are replaced with anaerobic. When this happens oxygen-breathing land animals then go extinct.
• When Plimer finally declared that higher temperatures would be good for coral, I decided to search for some online reviews. Here are just three of many I turned up via Google:

Critical Links:

• No Science in Plimer's Primer
  http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25433059-5003900,00.html
  • Quote: If Plimer is right and he is able to show that the work of literally thousands of oceanographers, solar physicists, biologists, atmospheric scientists, geologists, and snow and ice researchers during the past 100 years is fundamentally flawed, then it would rank as one of the greatest discoveries of the century and would almost certainly earn him a Nobel prize. This is the scale of Plimer's claim.
  • Quote: While the text is annotated profusely with footnotes and refers to papers in the top journals, thus giving it the veneer of scholarship, it is often the case that the cited articles do not support the text. Plimer repeatedly veers off to the climate sceptic's journal of choice, the bottom-tier Energy and Environment, to advance all manner of absurd theories: for example, that CO2 concentrations actually have fallen since 1942.
• The Sceptic's Shadow of Doubt
  http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-sceptics-shadow-of-doubt-20090501-aqa1.html?page=-1
  • Quote: Some of his critics say they are surprised that a former head of the University of Melbourne geology department, with more than 120 published papers to his name, would include unsourced graphs in his book. Asked where he found one graph showing temperatures across the 20th century differing markedly to the data used by the IPCC or the world's leading climate centres, Plimer says he can not recall.
  • Quote: David Karoly, also an IPCC author, says there are other examples of misleading use of data. The first graph in the book contrasts temperature over the past two decades with climate models used by scientists, but averages the models together, removing the variation they factor in.
  • Quote: Professor Charlie Veron, former chief scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, says every original statement Plimer makes in the book on coral and coral reefs is incorrect. He says many of the contextual diagrams and references used in the book are accurate, but "when it comes to attacking climate change science, Plimer changes tack. We are served up diagrams from no acknowledged source, diagrams known to be obsolete and diagrams that combine bits of science with bits of fiction."
• Heaven + Earth - review by David Karolya
  audio file (10:20 minutes) from The Science Show, Australian Broadcast Company
  http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2593166.htm
• Ian Plimer’s ‘Heaven + Earth’—Checking the Claims
  http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91