Crichton Crisis
I finished a novel last year by well-known thriller author, Michael Crichton (famous for ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘The Andromeda Strain’), called State of Fear. While the 1200+ reader reviews at the Amazon.com site I linked to are quite varied, the main intent of the book was certainly to make you think, amidst the whirlwind story which surrounds the ideas presented within. They gave me pause to some of my overall thoughts expressed previously regarding issues such as climate change (despite my positive review of documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, and as was also slightly shown at this much-debated previous post). This rethink may stem from my already critical viewpoint towards the media, and their general obvious tendency to endorse the latest controversy and to help drum up hysteria about certain issues when afforded the opportunity.
During several points in the novel, Michael Chricton sidetracks with his characters into a detailed critique of the fear-heightening tactics of not just the media, but several other common entities in our modern-day society. It is an interesting thought he presents: politicans appeal to our fears (whether of crime, terrorism, losing one’s job) to become elected; lawyers contrive dangers for lawsuits and injustices in order to have reasons to go to court and keep their lucrative line of work; the media boosts its ratings by broadcasting more fearful news stories. These generally unaccountable groups unwittingly work together, and have the ability to exacerbate fear of something for their own aggrandizement, whether there is truth to the base claim or not. According to Crichton, the result is that this contrived fear tends to hold society back, pointlessly wasting its time and resources trying to address the latest ’scare’ (even with no lack of better causes). In a roundabout way, Crichton relates this concept to a number of supposèd bandwagon issues and controversies, including climate change.
I’ve scanned a brief excerpt from this novel, ‘State of Fear’, which you can read here (in .pdf format – for some reason, it works best if you download it to your computer, by right-clicking and going to ’save’ on the menu which pops up). To set the scene you are reading, the protagonist of the story, a lawyer named Peter Evans, is speaking with the eccentric Professor Hoffman while attending a conference on climate change. Hoffman’s dialogue and observations on recent history (particularly, the end of the Cold War) and media trends are interesting to say the least, whether you agree with them or not. Regardless, there are multiple sides to the climate change debate out there, firmly convinced that they each are right:
- The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (see also here)
- A Canadian Climatologist
- The European Union
- The guy who started the Weather Channel
I certainly welcome the idea of environmental improvements in the field of air pollution reduction and shifting to more alternate energy sources. Because of higher gas prices these days and the general dislike of impulsive OPEC nations, it appears to be heading in that direction anyway. But, despite the inspired creation of a new class of modern victim (the climate refugee), as has happened many times throughout history (and clearly shown by films like ‘Waterworld’ and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’), humanity apparently can actually adapt to a world with a changed climate.
Explore posts in the same categories: Environment, Mediums at Large
March 17th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I’m sorry, dude – I find Crichton to be such a bad writer as to be clinically unreadable. His style is sophomoric, has wooden dialogue and I find his aim simplistic. As I recall reading his “Rising Sun”, a book whose portrayal of Japanese involvement in America to be alarmist at best and bigoted at worst.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Point taken – but has his more recent style changed since his earlier days (it’s been a long while since I read Jurassic Park – I think it had a different flavour)? I also found surprising that in this fictional story, he cited real studies with hard data to support his viewpoints.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
What is the main purpose of any writing? To share the writer’s views with as many readers as possible. Crichton’s book enhanced my understanding that so-called ‘climate change’ has been hijacked by promoters for their own agenda and/or gains. The most decent part of the book is the closing part, the author’s message, where Crichton gives his personal reasons why this book was written and his own opinions about climate change. It’s a wonderful book and I used it for reference many times already.
March 19th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I am not fond of the ‘action’ in the book, but I found helpful many of those studies which he quotes at the end of the book, which correct the ignorant media. This is very helpful, mainly for people who do not know history, how the climate changed during the millenia, with no help from humans. Who, of course, not having television fear-mongers, adapted.
March 20th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Unless of course, you were in the Mayan Empire (or most tropical civilizations) during the natural medieval warming period, in which case your empire collapsed due to lack of a food supply from the incessant droughts. However, at least the rest of the world readily adapted!
March 21st, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I can understand the purpose in writing, however my earlier comment was simply that I find Crichton’s thinking and insights to be superficial and simplistic in scope. I also find the media ignorant, but in a different way – in that they have difficulty comprehending the science behind anthropogenic climate change. Coming from a background writing political issues, they feel that they need to present a “balanced” viewpoint on what is essentially a technical issue.
However, I will comment that the media prominence given to the issue has applied the push undertaken by politicians in many countries. The cap-and-trade market recently announced in Montreal is one example of many such excellent initiatives that may yet turn the corner.
March 22nd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Well, there were many countries and states in history which passed away due to many factors, and that includes the Mayan state, or the Roman empire. This is the way of things. The warming in the Middle Ages, most probably not caused by combustible engines, or coal powered hydro plants, was a boon for the agriculture economy of Europe. Of course, to dampen the enthusiasm, it was followed by ‘little Ice Age’, Black Death, and famines. But if you look at history, humans always somehow adapted and survived. If we are in a warming trend (following the cooling trend of 1940-80 -what was that caused by? Widespread use of fridges?), we will adapt. Especially in Canada.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Is that actually your attitude? Don’t change a thing and it will all work out just fine?
It probably mimics that of much of the North American middle class, a towering demographic of self-absorbed inertia.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Maybe the Leading Edge missed my previous comment on this topic – we are, as a society, myopically zeroing on a problem which we cannot fix, and taking our attention from problems we CAN fix in the environment. Of course, it is not viewed as fashionable, and there is no sexy priest for things like garbage collection, cleaning the Great Lakes, and finding better ways to make roads driveable in the winter without salting. These are, of course, things too small for the global fearmongers.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Your statement is predicated on the belief, shared with a minority of researchers, that climate change is not anthropogenic.
Your small-town approaches, while useful on a local level, suggest a certain small-mindedness.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Comment nice, now.
This situation can be refered to as the “tragedy of the commons”. Although there may be anthropogenic causes of climate change, with noble aims behind it, it will take much luck to get overseas up-and-coming polluters like China/India to do anything binding, let alone our own industrialized neighbour, the U.S. And, although our well-intentioned Canada signed a binding agreement to reduce levels, we still increased our emissions. What to do, what to do?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
March 27th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Dear leading edge – maybe you can point out what is a small town/small-minded approach? I observed long ago, that when arguments fail to refute a common sense comments (why does common sense elicit so much anger?), disparaging remarks are substituted for facts. The fact that I comment about real environmental problems does not seem to me to be small-minded. I would rather think of it as not being a part of the common pop herd.
I would also like to comment, that in the same period when Canada’s emission rose, the U.S. emissions went down, even though they did not sign a treaty.