Book Review: Are Humans Really Responsible for Changing Climate? The Trial of C02 in Court of Public Opinion

Written by For the Novel Lovers on October 13, 2023. Posted in Current News

Book Review

Title: Looking out the Window: Are Humans Really Responsible for Changing Climate? The Trial of Carbon Dioxide in the Court of Public Opinion by Bob Webster

Genre: Non-Fiction, Science, Climate

Rating: 5 Stars

Climate change is something every single person has probably heard about or been taught about at some point in their life but in this book, Webster asks the question; are humans really responsible for climate change or is there something else going on. Webster lays out the questions he is going to answer using the scientific method which we have to remember, can’t validate a theory but can invalidate one if it doesn’t match up with real world observations.

The first thing Webster points out about climate is that it changes naturally and it can be influenced by external factors, For example, a fortuitous late 20th-century solar grand maximum together with a strong El Niño warming spike in 1998 served to produce enough short-term climate warming to build a base from which this new climate change narrative was launched simply because it was accompanied by a persistent long-term atmospheric CO₂ growth. However, previously the opposing narrative during mid-20th century cooling, saw some scientists blaming fossil fuels for releasing sunlight-blocking particles that were claimed to be causing climate cooling.

Webster also points out that the argument that the science is settled and the debate is over is completely false as only scientific laws are seen as settled under the scientific method and the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Theory is just a theory meaning it isn’t settled by any means. For decades, many that have opposed the GHG narrative have been dismissed while the media continues hyping stories for ratings rather than pursuing the truth. Before getting into the meat of the book, Webster does take the time to explain what the scientific method is. The scientific method is a method scientists use to test the validity of a theory or hypothesis by one or more of the following:

a. Evaluating its conformity with scientific laws (Is any scientific law violated?)

b. Testing by experimentation (Is it compatible with experimentation?)

c. Real-world observation to assess conformity with reality (Does it conform with the observed evidence in nature?)

If a theory or hypothesis fails any one of these tests, it is invalid and must be rejected or revised.

Webster then takes a closer look at Earth’s atmospheric CO₂ volume over the past half-billion years and concludes that the average over that period was five times higher than the present levels. Thus, any claims that current levels of atmospheric CO₂ are “unprecedented” is clearly false. We have to remember that early global temperature records only go back about 300 years and that the amount of CO₂ in our atmosphere now is no where near close to the average of the past 550 million years.

Many people forget when discusses climate that the Earth has natural cycles of warmer and colder periods and while these might be hard to understand without a scientific background, the graphs Webster uses are easy to understand without being overly complicated. While we don’t know what triggers these warmer and colder periods, what we do know is that during the past 60 million years, Earth’s climate has been significantly colder than Earth’s typical climate.

In the final few chapters Webster goes over the current Climate Record, its history and characteristics as well as the issues with the Record itself and the wealth of data missing from it. Through these chapters, Webster is able to demonstrate why the scientific method isn’t being upheld in modern climate science and what we can do to change this. Even as a layperson, Webster’s book is carefully laid out, well thought out and presented in a way that everyone can understand. Overall, I found this to be an insightful look into climate science and what is going on behind the scenes that most of us don’t get to see.

Buy it here:

Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk                                  amazon.com

Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk                                          amazon.com

Read More: Forthenovellovers

Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Defend The Scientific Method

PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX. 

Trackback from your site.