Controlling Climate Change [Paperback]

I approached this book in an endeavour to determine current policies on climate control and attitudes to AGW (anthropogenic global warming). However, the book is wholly and completely biased to only one viewpoint, accepting in whole the latest IPCC report, despite the numerous errors exposed by more detailed analysis (gross exaggeration of the melting of Himalayan glaciers, of the land below sea level in Holland, the amazon forests and etc). Metz is a former EC bureaucrat, and has an axe to grind, having argued tirelessly for carbon taxes within the EU and the incredible level of bureaucracy it demands. He accepts without question the alleged consensus on AGW as propounded by the IPCC, despite the many objections from both within the climate community and from many other scientists. The objections include biased source data, concerns about the basis of computer models which fail to account for key variables such as clouds and aerosols, the importance of water vapour as the dominating greenhouse gas, and bias within the climate community itself. They all point to an arrogant belief that the consensus is absolutely right and any dissent is out of order. This is not science as practised from the Greeks onward, and a consensus is not an accepted term for scientific progress. A recent example of the spurious concept of consensus should suffice: the role of eugenics in biology. Widely accepted by a consensus of biologists in the early part of the 20th century, eugenic ideas were put into practice in many advanced countries, such as the USA, Sweden and Germany. Put briefly the theory advocated the "improvement" of the human species by selective breeding on the one hand and by sterilization of unwanted humans on the other. The theory came closest to practical application in Nazi Germany, and resulted in The Holocaust. The consensus was wrong and totally misguided from the start, and is now rejected absolutely by all civilized nations. Can we see a parallel with AGW? The EU is virtually alone in advocating and practising carbon taxing, and matters have recently come to a head by the refusal of China, India, the USA and Middle eastern countries in rejecting the attempts by the EU to impose carbon taxes on the airline industry worldwide. It could lead to a trade war, with those objecting countries effectively boycotting Airbus aeroplanes and opting for Boeing planes instead for example. Carbon taxes are having a regressive effect on European industry more widely, and vast subsidies are being offered for technologies (such as wind and solar energy) which would otherwise be totally uncompetitive. This at a time when the EU is in crisis for other reasons: the Euro itself is under severe pressure, and most EU countries are in recession with no hope of growth at all. The great European dream of union is in danger of collapse from within, and Metz must share the blame for bringing this situation into effect with his advocay of regressive economic policies such as carbon taxes based on questionable science. Should readers want an unbiased account of the problems of climate change, they should look elsewhere.