The Autralian author and broadcaster Clive James once published a collection of poems under the title, ‘The Book of My Enemy has been Remaindered’. This came to mind the other day when I found a huge stack of Tim Flannery’s ‘The Weather Makers’ selling for £2 each in a discount bookstore.As I didn’t own a copy of this seminal outpouring of global warming alarmism, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. Opinion makers around the world had hailed its publication in 2005 (priced at £20) as a revelation, and I was interested to see whether this had stood the test of even such a short time.

So last night I settled down to get my two quids-worth with a quick flick through, starting at the back. You can learn a lot about a book in a very short time by reading the acknowledgements.

How would you react to a supposedly objective review of climate science if it had been funded by an American free market think-tank, enjoyed the support of the Bush administration’s energy minister, relied on Exxon’s research department for guidance, and the author was deeply indebted to Fred Singer for alerting him to the realities of global warming alarmism in the first place? If you are reasonably well acquainted with the climate debate, as I assume most people who visit these pages are, then you would probably not be expecting a wholehearted endorsement of the greenhouse gas hypothesis. Nor would you be surprised if environmentalists tried to discredit the book purely on the basis of who had assisted the author, without considering a word of what he actually had to say. Continue reading »