Richard’s review of Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters > Likes and Comments
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I felt the book had great focus, albeit focus that was somewhat diluted by the "head spinning whiteout blizzard of statistics and graphs," as you put it. But I think there is an important core here. 1. Climate science is not being presented in a straightforward way that can helpfully inform debate and policymaking, and many of the headlines we read about what is happening with climate changes are just demonstrably false. 2. The arguments being made on the political left and right seem to be poorly informed. Contrary to what you hear from some on the right, it's hard to argue that the climate is not changing or that human activity and carbon emissions do not contribute to that. Contrary to what you hear from some on the left, it is still very uncertain what impact human emissions are having on overall climate change and so prescriptive policies designed to "battle climate change" by "battling human CO2 emissions" could be very misguided.
Yup! It's a mess! I don't expect that human wisdom is going to inspire us to tap the brakes a wee bit. We're definitely not going to "solve" it. We're definitely going to have an interesting future. Hang on!
Thank you for your well-written erudite analysis. I hope anyone interested in this book reads your review. Every point you make is helpful, but this is something most would miss and crucial to considering what he says:
"A great benefit of Kindle books is that they are searchable. I searched the book for a number of essential climate science keywords, and discovered zero hits for: Peter Wadhams (Arctic researcher), permafrost, methane hydrate, methane clathrate, methane craters, ocean acidification, ocean deoxygenation, East Siberian Arctic Shelf, pine beetles, tree death, threshold temperatures (too hot for agriculture), etc. A whole bunch of essential information is absent in the book, and it may be an invisible elephant in the room. Could doom mongerers [sic] actually be reality mongerers?"
I actually saw that quotation from the review as a bit of a red flag. Richard, if you read the book, why did you have to search for mention of those things? Rather than reviewing Koonin’s book it seems you mostly tried to revive fearful certainty among any who may have had their “climate science” faith shaken by other positive reviews of the book by raising the specter of issues he did not mention in much detail with the implication that he’d intentionally whitewashed them. I listened to the book on Libby myself, so may have missed some details, but, seemed to me that he covered albedo and polar ice cap melting head on, concluding that your death spiral scenario is looming much less largely than we’re generally lead to believe. Perhaps your methane related scenarios are equally so? Or perhaps he left them out because methane persists in the atmosphere for only 12 years (if I heard that right) so a large one time release is unlikely to have lasting effects? My general impression is that if a negative review can’t point out actual errors in the author’s facts or logic, but still comes off fundamentally opposed to the book’s main point, that is a sign of closed mindedness, no matter how they attempt to vouch it.
Richard - thanks for your detailed review. I read Koonin’s book earlier this year and appreciated the focus on data points. What do specific reading do you recommend as specific reading for the educated layperson to understand the full scope of the debate? I’m curious about the methane omissions you cite. Are there other significant areas know at the time of writing that were similarly ignored? Has Koonin himself responded to them?
Goodreads doesn’t like links in comments.
McGuire, Bill, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide, Icon Books, London, 2022.
Read, Rupert and Samuel Alexander, This Civilization is Finished, Simplicity Institute, Melbourne, 2019.
Google this for an important report by Seibert and Rees:
Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective
My blog is Wildancestors, which is located at blogspot com.
Then, search for Free Brain Food. A list of files appears. Here are some:
Wild, Free, & Happy sample 55 (Climate 01)
Wild, Free, & Happy sample 56 (Climate 02)
Wild, Free, & Happy sample 57 (Climate 03)
Wild, Free, & Happy sample 58 (Climate 04)
Bright Green Lies (Book Review)
The End of Ice (Book Review)
A Farewell to Ice (Book Review)
Life After Fossil Fuels (Book Review)
Unsettled (Book Review)
Under a White Sky (Book Review)
Clean Green Incoherence (Rant)
Nonrenewable Geology (Rant)
The End of Ice by Dahr Jamail
I can't see from your review why you gave the book 2 stars. Most of your review was your own explanation of climatology, and a small part of it was criticising Koonin's 3 'suggestions', which he offered as possible responses (with acknowledged caveats) to climate change.
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Bryn
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Jun 29, 2021 02:44PM
I felt the book had great focus, albeit focus that was somewhat diluted by the "head spinning whiteout blizzard of statistics and graphs," as you put it. But I think there is an important core here. 1. Climate science is not being presented in a straightforward way that can helpfully inform debate and policymaking, and many of the headlines we read about what is happening with climate changes are just demonstrably false. 2. The arguments being made on the political left and right seem to be poorly informed. Contrary to what you hear from some on the right, it's hard to argue that the climate is not changing or that human activity and carbon emissions do not contribute to that. Contrary to what you hear from some on the left, it is still very uncertain what impact human emissions are having on overall climate change and so prescriptive policies designed to "battle climate change" by "battling human CO2 emissions" could be very misguided.
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Yup! It's a mess! I don't expect that human wisdom is going to inspire us to tap the brakes a wee bit. We're definitely not going to "solve" it. We're definitely going to have an interesting future. Hang on!
Thank you for your well-written erudite analysis. I hope anyone interested in this book reads your review. Every point you make is helpful, but this is something most would miss and crucial to considering what he says:"A great benefit of Kindle books is that they are searchable. I searched the book for a number of essential climate science keywords, and discovered zero hits for: Peter Wadhams (Arctic researcher), permafrost, methane hydrate, methane clathrate, methane craters, ocean acidification, ocean deoxygenation, East Siberian Arctic Shelf, pine beetles, tree death, threshold temperatures (too hot for agriculture), etc. A whole bunch of essential information is absent in the book, and it may be an invisible elephant in the room. Could doom mongerers [sic] actually be reality mongerers?"
I actually saw that quotation from the review as a bit of a red flag. Richard, if you read the book, why did you have to search for mention of those things? Rather than reviewing Koonin’s book it seems you mostly tried to revive fearful certainty among any who may have had their “climate science” faith shaken by other positive reviews of the book by raising the specter of issues he did not mention in much detail with the implication that he’d intentionally whitewashed them. I listened to the book on Libby myself, so may have missed some details, but, seemed to me that he covered albedo and polar ice cap melting head on, concluding that your death spiral scenario is looming much less largely than we’re generally lead to believe. Perhaps your methane related scenarios are equally so? Or perhaps he left them out because methane persists in the atmosphere for only 12 years (if I heard that right) so a large one time release is unlikely to have lasting effects? My general impression is that if a negative review can’t point out actual errors in the author’s facts or logic, but still comes off fundamentally opposed to the book’s main point, that is a sign of closed mindedness, no matter how they attempt to vouch it.
Richard - thanks for your detailed review. I read Koonin’s book earlier this year and appreciated the focus on data points. What do specific reading do you recommend as specific reading for the educated layperson to understand the full scope of the debate? I’m curious about the methane omissions you cite. Are there other significant areas know at the time of writing that were similarly ignored? Has Koonin himself responded to them?
Goodreads doesn’t like links in comments.McGuire, Bill, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide, Icon Books, London, 2022.
Read, Rupert and Samuel Alexander, This Civilization is Finished, Simplicity Institute, Melbourne, 2019.
Google this for an important report by Seibert and Rees:
Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective
My blog is Wildancestors, which is located at blogspot com.
Then, search for Free Brain Food. A list of files appears. Here are some:
Wild, Free, & Happy sample 55 (Climate 01)
Wild, Free, & Happy sample 56 (Climate 02)
Wild, Free, & Happy sample 57 (Climate 03)
Wild, Free, & Happy sample 58 (Climate 04)
Bright Green Lies (Book Review)
The End of Ice (Book Review)
A Farewell to Ice (Book Review)
Life After Fossil Fuels (Book Review)
Unsettled (Book Review)
Under a White Sky (Book Review)
Clean Green Incoherence (Rant)
Nonrenewable Geology (Rant)
The End of Ice by Dahr Jamail
I can't see from your review why you gave the book 2 stars. Most of your review was your own explanation of climatology, and a small part of it was criticising Koonin's 3 'suggestions', which he offered as possible responses (with acknowledged caveats) to climate change.
