Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As I read this book I highlighted points I wanted to specifically check, researched them and did not find any significant errors. I am a stickler for accuracy and know the subject area quite well. I would like to congratulate Alan Moran on putting together a wonderful book. All our politicians should read this. I have had a deep interest in the area ever since I saw Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Before then I was a believer, concerned about Global Warming and went along to the Perth première of Al Gore's movie. But that is when I really started to question the whole thing. As an economist specialising in econometrics, I saw that Gore committed every statistical sin in the book including the way he used graphs and the scales and periods chosen. What threw me most was the absence of the MWP on the Hockey Stick - which was his big sales pitch. So I went away and did some reading and had even more questions. Since then I have kept closely informed on the subject. It is with this hyper-critical background I thought I would mention a couple of points in the book which I think are in error. 1. This first is minor, but has a big impact from a visual perspective. In Anthony Watts' section, Chapter 20 page 265 Figure 1. The first two dates on the bottom axis read 1987 and 1996 instead of I assume 1887 and 1896. If someone is just skimming the book they will see that graph and think it is over such a relatively short period from 1986 it is not that relevant. But it has a huge impact when they can see it is 130 years! It would be nice to fix that. 2. Re Ian Plimer - I am troubled by a couple of sections in his Chapter 1 which may need correction. Under point ii) page 12 Plimer writes: Only 1 molecule of every 85,000 in the atmosphere is CO2 of human origin,..... He goes on, We are asked to believe that the 32 molecules of CO2 of natural origin in every 85,000 molecules play no part in driving climate change. Now this is a pretty convincing statement only if people believe it and I don't believe the average person would be able to work out where it came from and he provides no citation for it. Even with my above average knowledge I can't work it out entirely. E.G. He is saying that 33 out of every 85,000 atmospheric molecules are CO2. That represents 0.0388% or 388 parts per million of CO2. So I can understand that bit, though it isn't quite up to date with 399.83 pmm from last week here: http://co2now.org/Current-CO2/CO2-Now/weekly-data-atmospheric-co2.html But where does he get that only 1 out of 33 molecules of CO2 are of human origin? I have indeed read that only 3% of all annual CO2 emissions into the atmosphere are of human origin. And 3% of 33 molecules is 1 molecule. But the argument is that it is the 3% of annual emissions which the natural carbon cycle can't deal with and therefore accumulates in the atmosphere. So that total atmospheric CO2 has gone from 280ppm at pre-industrial levels to 400ppm now. with the additional 120ppm being attributable to humans. I know it doesn't work like that. For starters the greater the CO2 the greater the fertilisation and greening of the planet. The warmer the atmosphere (naturally or otherwise) should lead to a de-gassing of the oceans. So there are lots of natural feedbacks which would change the amount of CO2 emitted and sunk. I just think that Plimer has left it too simplistic and therefore too open to criticism. It looks like he has made the same mistake that Anthony Watts, Hocket Schtick and others made, misinterpreting a paper indicating approx 3% of annual flux is human caused, to mean total background CO2. See: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/new-paper-finds-only-375-of-atmospheric.html If Plimer has something to clarify this, it should be included. 2. On that same page 12 (he repeats this again on page 13 talking about tipping points) Plimer claims: "....CO2 was far higher than at present and, with the first two great ice ages, up to a thousand times higher than the current atmospheric CO2 content." Again there is no citation. To be honest I assumed this was a typo when I first read it and thought perhaps he meant to write that it had been over 1,000 ppm in the past, A thousand times more is about 400,000 ppm, or 40% of the atmosphere. Sure we can argue that at a time in the earth's past about 4.3bn years ago the atmospheric CO2 content might have been as high as 85%, http://www.amnh.org/learn/pd/earth/pdf/evolution_earth_atmosphere.pdf, I can even find references that during the Phanerozoic period where CO2 averaged 100,000ppm - 150,000ppm and reached maxima even greater than that, it was close to it's optimum to start photosynthesis. http://www.eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C01/E4-03-08-02.pdf But it is hard for Plimer to argue that at any time when the Earth was habitable, was the atmospheric content a thousand times higher than it is today. So I really think this would benefit from clarification/correction. The whole thing would make a lot more sense if Plimer had meant to write 1,000 ppm, not a thousand times more! http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/10/study-climate-460-mya-was-like-today-but-thought-to-have-co2-levels-20-times-as-high/ I just think it is a pity that these queries occur in the first chapter of a very good book which I have read in detail and apart from the other typo mentioned have difficulty faulting. Of course these issues pale into insignificance compared to the wild claims and disproven projections of the climate alarmist camp. Overall the book is an excellent, educational and worthwhile read of the highest order. It benefits greatly from having a combination of highly qualified scientists to knowledgeable popular writers on the subject. It is an east scientific text to read, but with hundreds of references and citations it provides the proofs and detail which us geeks demand from such a book.