Review of The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won’t Hear From Al Gore—and Others, by Joe Bastardi (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, January 1, 2018), 222 pages, ISBN-10: 1984371401; ISBN-13: 978-1984371409; $14.95 on Amazon.
Perhaps broadcaster Sean Hannity described Joe Bastardi’s new book best in his jacket blurb: “Joe Bastardi’s love for the weather and climate drove him to write The Climate Chronicles, an exposé of the true climate change agenda.”
Never has this reviewer read a book whose author was more passionate about his subject.
Generous Criticism
Bastardi provides readers a short course on weather forecasting in terms anyone can understand. In the process, he uses global warming alarmists’ own words to refute their claims humans are destroying the earth, yet does so in a kind way.
For example, Bastardi, who has read everything Pennsylvania State University researcher Michael Mann has written, expresses pity for Mann for having tied his career to a lie he can no longer walk back. Mann is primarily responsible for the highly controversial ‘hockey stick’ representation of recent climate temperatures.
Bastardi also analyzes Bill McKibben’s tweets from 350.org to teach the reader about weather while gently showing McKibben’s total lack of understanding of it. McKibben founded the anti-fossil fuel organization, 350.org.
Bastardi makes a living forecasting weather for people and companies whose economic viability can depend on accurate forecasts. His reputation and livelihood are on the line every day. As Bastardi shows, New York City could have avoided immense damage had Mayor Michael Bloomberg listened to Bastardi’s urgent reports five days before Hurricane Sandy.
Power Versus Truth
Bastardi writes not to change the world but to defend science against an ongoing assault. His goal is always truth.
Bastardi suggests the goals driving climate alarmists involve money, self-esteem, power, control, or all of the above, and not necessarily in that order, while noting alarmists are never held accountable for their decades of incorrect predictions of environmental doomsday.
When disaster fails to materialize as climate alarmists predicted, they say it was a timing error and move on to prophesy another upcoming catastrophe.
“It’s actually a great strategy because there’s always going to be some location on the earth where some kind of extreme is occurring—though, in most places, the weather is tranquil the majority of the time,” Bastardi writes. “If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be so many people on the planet, which I suspect is another agenda that drives all this.
“Simply find a place where a rare event is occurring, then blast headlines that claim it’s because man is destroying the planet,” writes Bastardi.
Four Key Questions
Bastardi asks four questions at the beginning of the book. Does the Sun have a far greater effect on climate than carbon dioxide? Do the cycles of currents in the ocean, where a vast amount of the Earth’s heat is stored, have a far greater effect on climate than carbon dioxide? Do stochastic events (such as volcanoes) have a far greater effect on the climate than carbon dioxide? Does the very design of the climate system have a far greater effect on the climate than carbon dioxide?
Bastardi patiently and clearly explains why the answer to each question is “yes.” To believe in anthropogenic global warming, you have to believe an increase of one molecule of carbon dioxide out of every 10,000 molecules of air over a 100 year period is now controlling the earth’s climate for the first time in known history, Bastardi shows.
Bastardi exposes a variety of real evildoers as mega-social engineers not truly concerned about the environment. He cites, for example, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change until 2016, who openly stated in 2015 the UN’s goal was to overturn market capitalism: in her words, “to change the economic development model that has been reigning for the, at least, 150 years since the industrial revolution.”
Drawing on Literature, History
Bastardi is a consummate scholar, drawing frequently from such varied sources as Shakespeare, Robert Burns, H. L. Mencken, and President Dwight Eisenhower to make relevant points about politics and human nature. Bastardi presents a four-page parody of Marc Antony’s Act 3, Scene 2 soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, in which Antony scolds “climatologist” Caesar for ignoring the threat of global warming. This hilarious segment alone is easily worth the price of the book.
Bastardi expresses his deep disquiet at the decline of scholarly purity on the part of so many scientists, who he says are foregoing the noble quest for knowledge and truth in the pursuit of fame, fortune, and power. Bastardi notes President Dwight D. Eisenhower expressed similar concerns in his farewell address. Famously warning of a looming military/industrial complex, Eisenhower expressed his additional concern about government’s influence on scientific research, stating the nation must be on guard against the rise of a scientific-technological elite.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money is ever-present and is gravely to be regarded,” Eisenhower said. “Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
The Climate Chronicles is a uniquely educational and entertaining book, well worth the time to read and enjoy.
Jay Lehr, Ph.D. ([email protected]) is science director of The Heartland Institute.