State of Fear - Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton certainly is not making any friends with this book. In a fast-paced, action-packed thriller, Crichton tells the story of environmental groups gone crazy! ELF - the Environmental Liberation Front - an underground movement willing to hurt, destroy, and even kill in the name of its war for the environment is the chief antagonist in this book. But, it is fueled and funded by many established environmental institutions. It is this web of deceit and destruction that the protagonists uncover in this book. Along the way, Crichton allows his main characters to expose many of the lies surrounding Global Warming. Crichton footnotes the most controversial comments with articles from scientific journals. We discover that it is impossible to make long-term forecasts in weather. Think about it: we cannot get an accurate local forecast beyond about 10 days! No one can possibly predict the global climate with accuracy, given its vast complexity. There is no such thing as a perfect environment. Some environmentalists are "absolutists" who assume that there is such a thing as a perfect environment. But nature is constantly shifting, changing, adjusting. Be warned. Everybody has an agenda. The case for Global Warming is not as watertight as some would like it to be. Many are like the old preacher who gets to this point in his manuscript: Weak point... speak louder! In an appendix, Crichton offers some possible solutions to shed light on how to be environmentally conscious without abandoning reason. Sure, it might feel good to mimic the status quo, but this can be devastating in the long-run. Ignorance always finds a way to hurt others.