Joke aside, the problem I have with global warming is not regarding the science itself. It's that some environmentalists want me to accept all the following statements:

* there is global warming
* and it is man-made
* and it is necessarily a bad thing
* so we have to fight it through massive economical planning

Actually, I'm not a scientist and it may be true that there is man-made global warming. But you'd better have to be really convincing if you want me to accept giving even more power to bureaucrats.

I read an article yesterday written by someone who, when driving a Rolls Royce Phantom, was flipped off by a Prius driver. While you could argue about who's being more self righteous, a single V12 has the same effect on the environment as a single hybrid powertrain: none.

When a hypothesis (global warming caused in total or in part by manmade activity) is based entirely on numbers (temperature readings), and some of those numbers are discovered to be false exaggerations, there's a problem. If scientists are going to recommend serious costly overhauls to the economy to curb carbon emissions among other things, they had damn well better make sure the data is right and has been rigorously tested and verified.

I have given an extract of one of his books (Jurassic Park) to students to see if they could spot the five blunders on the one page. He was not much of a scientist.

Here's the first list of facts I found Googling: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12…

Which not coincidentally directly refutes the “facts” you gave. For instance:

“Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

• The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century's last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850. “

How are you so sure the facts you gave are the correct ones? If most scientists believe the facts I just gave, and you're not a scientist, why do you believe them? Recent cooling doesn't refute global warming (which is better termed global climate change anyway) at all. You would expect some small periods to be cooler than preceding ones.

Diamond is a Pulitzer prize winner who writes nonfiction.
Crichton writes science fiction.
Diamond wrote Collapse, a factual account of previous civilization's undoings and what caused them.
Crichton wrote a sci-fi book called State of Fear that talks about environmentalists killing people to support their views.

Michael Crichton was a good sci-fi author and a bad authority on climate change.