The deniers are winning the war of words

Climate-skeptic books abound on Amazon's top sellers list

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 9:33 AM on 26 Sep 2007

Read more about: books | climate | climate science | climate change skepticism

An Inconvenient Truth is so last year! Al Gore's book may have been No. 1 in 2006, but the global warming deniers and delayers are outselling everyone this year.

Denialists and delayers topping the book charts

Of course, Bj�rn Lomborg's collection of cherry-picked misinformation, Cool It is the top-selling book in four categories: Climatology, Climate Changes, Public Policy, and even Conservation. But who knew that the top book in both Meteorology and Weather was the Competitive Enterprise Institute's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism) -- a book whose title would be accurate if only the word "politically" were removed?

And the no. 2 book in both Climate Changes and Weather is coauthored by world-class denier Fred Singer -- Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years. Sounds like disaster movie dialogue: "It's unstoppable, I tell you, unstoppable."

The no. 4 book in Climate Changes (as of today) is a delightful piece of long-discredited disinformation, The Chilling Stars: The New Theory of Climate Change: "The authors explain their theory that sub-atomic particles from exploded stars have more effect on the climate than manmade CO2." Not. And let's not forget the no. 1 book in the land -- by champion delayer Alan Greenspan -- The Age of Turbulence.

I guess I should have gone contrarian, maybe titled my book: Global Warming: A New Heaven on Earth.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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8 Comments | Post a Comment

The Library Tells The Tale

Tell me about it!

All the King County Library denialist books that I put on hold take months to come in! Even when they order 20 copies, there's still 100 people who want to read the truth.

by jabailo at 10:36 AM on 26 Sep 2007

literary proliferation

Seems the climate debate has been very good for the publishing industry. Same with the Iraq/terrorism debate, and atheism vs religion. Forget academia, we now debate issues using amazon. After all, it's much easier to get published than peer-reviewed.

Richard Dawkins has noticed this phenomenon too. He calls them "fleas."

Now...what did they use to say about climatologists being attention-seeking self-promoters with financial motivations?

by Jones at 10:52 AM on 26 Sep 2007

Fiction, non fiction and fantasy

It depends on what books are selling. Fiction outsells non-fiction 10 to 1. But if you can get a fiction non-fiction book, that really sells. Fantasy books are the best of all.

People might like to read about the faith healers, but when they really get sick, they are grateful for modern medicine developed from science. I'm grateful for living in a country where most times government is from hard headed philosophy, not religion like in some countries.

Fantasy and fiction outsell and can make people feel better. But when we have to deal with reality, that's when it can be hard work. Not everybody is up for that.

by trock at 11:23 AM on 26 Sep 2007
[ Parent ]

Last I checked

They don't put the IPCC report or any number of Journal studies on Amazon ;D

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 5:09 PM on 26 Sep 2007

Gore's contribution to AGW disbelief.

If the deniers are winning the war of words then Gore has to be a major contributor to this. The sheer gall of a man with his jet setting mansion hopping lifestyle telling us, in me too suburban housing driving a 50mpg car about the dangers of global warming it too much to take. This is especially true if you do not believe that enough is known about the natural sources of CO2 equivalent gasses to say that global warming may possibly cause by man aat the most.

by roverdc at 2:49 AM on 27 Sep 2007

This is truly depressing ...

Did Hell and High Water ... Storm Warming ... etc do anything like these? Or is it "Al Gore against the world" in terms of best seller lists?

Now, we can hope it is already entrenched skeptics buying works in their passion rather than uncertain people buying in.

Truly don't like hearing that these works are so popular in the library.

Blogging regularly at Get Energy Smart. NOW!!! to Energize America .

by A Siegel at 7:40 PM on 27 Sep 2007

deniers

Affluent conservative Christians are the biggest deniers, there are letters from them every day in newspapers in Phoenix area.

by blooc at 9:08 PM on 27 Sep 2007

Re: new deniers

"Affluent conservative Christians are the biggest deniers, there are letters from them every day in newspapers in Phoenix area. "

I've had it up to here with these backward "religious" s?itheads. Is there nothing that can be done to shut them up once and for all?

by snedunuri at 10:26 PM on 07 Oct 2007

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