A Few Words by Micheal Crichton on Global Warming

How many of you knew that Micheal Crichton, the famous novelist, had graduated from Harvard Medical School and that he was a "fellow" at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, after having finished his doctoral thesis? What does that mean? It means that he is well studied in scientific method. He's not just some loony writer who spouts his mouth off about controversial subjects.

Here is some of what he said in a speech he gave in 2003 about global warming and weather predictions:

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're being asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was. They didn't know its structure. They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon….

Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it's even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They're bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment's thought knows it."

The above was quoted in an excellent article entitled Diagnosing Al Gore: Truth in Balance, by Mary Ellen Tiffany Gilder. You might want to read that article and look around the site a bit. (I had the URL here, but it no longer works, but if you type "Diagnosing Al Gore" into your search bar, you should come up with "Diagnosing Al Gore: Truth in the Balance - Man Made Global Warming." This is a "siteweave.net" site and by clicking on the title you should get to the article. Then, on the right, in the blue box, click on "Unlikely CO2 . . . ." and go to the bottom of that section for the Michael Crichton quote.)