Customer Reviews
Just what it says on the tin - By: Mr. S. Loveday, 16 Sep 2008 
This is a wonderful book. As the title suggests, it is cool, reasonable, & patient, looking carefully at all the evidence & coming to conclusions which it is hard to disagree with.
Like other reviewers, I find it hard to take excerpts from the book because I would have to quote the whole thing! However, perhaps I may try to help anyone who is wondering whether to read it. One way to look at the global warming/climate change debate is to ask oneself three questions.
First, is the world getting warmer?
Second, is human activity, & specifically CO2, a major cause?
And third, does it matter? Will there be harmful consequences? And if so, what should we do about them?
Much of the angry debate between believers & sceptics rages round the first two points. Lawson surveys the evidence on both, & comes to a conclusion. But what makes this book so powerful is its focus on the third question: whether a warmer world is one that will harm people, animals, plants, & our descendants. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) argues that it will. Lawson disagrees. He takes us through the IPCC scenarios, & their range of predictions relating to five potential impacts of a warmer world: on water, ecosystems, food, coasts, & health. In each case he demonstrates, with evidence, that a warmer world will either be neutral or even beneficial. What makes this evidence particularly persuasive is that much of it is drawn from the IPCC's own 4th report (2007)!.
It would be wrong to think of this book as complacent, a kind of 'I'm all right, Jack, pull up the ladder'. As Lawson points out, the single major cause of ill-health & deathin the world is poverty, & if we take the standpoint of human welfare, the surest way to benefit humans is to lift them out of poverty. Lawson sees many serious problems facing the world, & many things that urgently need putting right. The view of this compelling & convincing book is that global warming isn't one of them.
A call for solid science to replace the hype and hysteria - By: Farouq Taj, 14 Sep 2008 A well written & thought provoking book that attempts to speak above the hysterical din that dominates the subject.
The author calls for a considered approach & appeals to organisations to address the issues we facein a sensible & practical way.
Lawson knows best apparently - By: Deborah Joffe, 23 Aug 2008 
The combined wisdom of the world's leading climate change scientists is clearly no match for Nigel Lawson. He alone is clear sighted enough to see these clever people are all wrong. Stop worrying you people on coastlands & islands as you watch the tide rising. Stop fussing about those droughts Africa & Australia! Trust Nigel, everything will be well because...er because he says so.
Thought-provoking contribution - By: William Podmore, 19 Aug 2008 
In this thought-provoking book, Nigel Lawson asks key questions about global warming. Is the world warming & if so, why? How much warmer will it get? What will be the consequences? What can & should we do about it? What is the most cost-effective way to tackle it?
He looks at the temperature record. Surprisingly, temperatures have not risen since 2001, even though global CO2 emissions have been rising faster than ever. There was a 0.7oC rise over the last century while the CO2in the atmosphere rose by 30%, largely caused by industrialisation driven by the rapid worldwide growth of carbon-based energy consumption (burning coal, oil & gas). Some, possibly most, of the warming is due to this growth of CO2 emissions & so of CO2 concentrationsin the atmosphere.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report predicted a sea-level rise of between 18 & 59 centimetres by 2100. (Its 1990 report predicted a 3.67 metre rise.) The IPCC predicted a 1.8o-4oC temperature rise by 2100, a mean of less than 3oC. (At 3oC, it says, "Globally, the potential for food production is projected to increase.") 3oC is 0.03oC a year, compared to 1975-2000's 0.02oC a year.
The IPCC says the one `virtually certain' impact of global warming is `reduced human mortality from decreased cold exposure'. A 2003 Department of Health study confirmed this, predicting a decreasein cold-related mortality of 20,000 & an increasein heat-related mortality of 2,000 by the 2050s.
On the IPCC's worst case scenario, of 1% growth a yearin the developed countries & 2.3%in the developing countries, global warming could cost us 5% of world GDP by 2100. This would make developed countries' GDP 2.6 times today's rather than 2.7 & developing countries' GDP 8.5 times today's rather than 9.5.
Lawson argues that we should drop the precautionary principle because it is wrong to take decisions on the basis of worst-case possibilities: probabilities, not possibilities, should be our guide.
He looks at the prospects of some specific disasters. He notes that Antarctic ice-sheets are growing, that the IPCC's 2007 report said that an `abrupt transition' of the Gulf Stream is `very unlikely' & that the World Meteorological Organization said of climate change's effects on hurricanes, "no firm conclusion can be made on this point."
The EU's Emissions Trading Scheme has increased profits for selected emitters & not cut emissions. Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism has done no better. The EU promotes growing biofuels, yet the Chinese government has suspended the production of the biofuel ethanol because it has raised food prices.
The Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform said that meeting the EU's agreed target of 20% of energy from renewables by 2020 would raise our electricity costs by £18-22 billion a year.
In June 2007 Merkel & Blair tried to get the G8 to agree to cut emissions by 50% by 2050. The rest rejected the idea. Six months later, Britain & Germany lost again when they proposed a mandatory global emissions cut of 25-40% by 2020.
We could control the world's temperature by severely limiting carbon dioxide emissions through raising prices of carbon-based energy, to make non-carbon-based energy more competitive. But this would force our energy-intensive industries out to China & other countries. (Although China's, & India's, emissions per head are still far less than the West's.) 1990s Russia showed that the only way to meet the Kyoto targets is to destroy your industries.
Lawson argues for an across-the-board carbon tax, even if it forces our remaining energy-intensive industries abroad, & for ending subsidies to all carbon-based energy. Instead, we need to keep our industries, se we need new carbon-based power stations & new gas storage facilities, which the market has not provided & will not provide.
Deluded amateur challenges the science - By: Michael Berners-lee, 12 Aug 2008 Lawson fliesin the face of scientific consensus with no solid basis for his position. An unhelpful book.
