How Did I Miss This?

The most recent issue of On Earth, the magazine put out by the Natural Resources Defense Council, has a little article called "News From the Department of Hot Air," [in the blue sidebar beside the far more important "Home on the (Artillery) Range" story] bringing me the amazing fact that in February of this year the American Association of Petroleum Geologists awarded their journalism award to Michael Crichton for his work of fiction, State of Fear. From the April edition of the AAPG newsletter, Explorer:

Presented for notable journalistic achievement, in any medium, which contributes to public understanding of geology, energy resources or the technology of oil and gas exploration.Michael Crichton, an international author, for his recent science-based thriller State of Fear and Jurassic Park.

"Science-based thriller" State of Fear, AND, mind you, that classic of contemporary science - Jurassic Park. It's my understanding that geologists, even petroleum geologists, are scientists, that they actually attended university classes where they learned things like chemistry and physics, maybe biology, certainly geology? How amazing, then, that they should have this much trouble discerning a work of science fiction from journalism! And the fact that the book actually contributes to the public misunderstanding of energy resources and what they are doing to our planet is the most hair-raising aspect of the story.

Dr. Gavin Schmidt, in his article Michael Crichton's State of Confusion, on the blog RealClimate, has ferociously and scientifically (in fact, so scientifically that it's actually far past most people's capacity to comprehend the whole thing - and I include myself in this group) debunked Crichton's book.

In a departure from normal practice on this site, this post is a commentary on a piece of out-and-out fiction (unlike most of the other posts which deal with a more subtle kind). Michael Crichton's new novel "State of Fear" is about a self-important NGO hyping the science of the global warming to further the ends of evil eco-terrorists. The inevitable conclusion of the book is that global warming is a non-problem. A lesson for our times maybe? Unfortunately, I think not.

Like the recent movie "The Day After Tomorrow", the novel addresses real scientific issues and controversies, but is similarly selective (and occasionally mistaken) about the basic science. I will discuss a selection of the global warming-related issues that are raised in between the car chases, shoot-outs, cannibalistic rites and assorted derring-do.

The science writer Chris Mooney also worked over Crichton's "scientific" footnotes in an article in the Boston Globe last February. The sad part of the story is that they don't sell RealClimate and The Boston Globe in every airport bookstall in the world, as they do popular works of science fiction like State of Fear. And, of course, that touchstone of petroleum geology journalism, Jurassic Park.

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