Book Review
Title: The Sky Dragon Slayers: Victory Lap
Author: Various
Genre: Non-Fiction/Science
Rating: *****
Review: The new The Sky Dragon Slayers Victory Lap is the follow up to Slaying the Sky Dragon (2011) which I previously reviewed (see here), the foreword written by Dr. Tim Ball, I have also reviewed some of Dr Ball’s books.
The first thing I need to point out is this new volume structured differently. Whereas the first book was a collection of essays from various authors complied together The Sky Dragon Slayers Victory Lap has one continuous narrative running throughout.
Both books adroitly dismantle the greenhouse gas theory, the scientific cornerstone of consensus science about man-made global warming. For 30 years depicted as nature’s ‘bad guy’ – carbon dioxide – is shown to be innocent and not our climate’s ‘control knob.’
The new book begins by looking at the basics of heat transfer and the fundamentals of the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ (GHE) where it is explained how the supposed GHE works. The book’s premise is that CO2 is benign and not a dangerous pollutant. The science therein builds the case that carbon dioxide, like other atmospheric gases, serves to cool our planet’s surface, not heat it up.
As such, the authors ‘slay’ an array of key consensus science arguments showing them to be fundamentally false. For example, we are shown that humans exhale, via respiration, a far higher concentrations of CO2 than is in our atmosphere and that horticulturalists pump very high concentrations of carbon dioxide into real greenhouses because it is the perfect fertilizer for plants.
So, by a mix of simple examples interspersed with a plethora of high brow scientific ones, this new book comprehensively explodes the misconceptions about the physics, chemistry and biology in the perennial Global Warming/Climate Change debate.
As the book shows, the “spectrum varies between the extreme positions of those who claim we must act immediately save the planet to those who claim there is no real problem.”
The authors adduce that there are three sides to modern climate science debate. These are identified as:
1) Alarmists – which includes government academics and individuals such as Dr. Michael Mann, Al Gore and many more,
2) Lukewarmers – who only ask questions with certain boundaries and certain individuals in this camp including Dr. Roy Spencer and Anthony Watt, and finally:
3) Climate Realists (true skeptics) – these researchers rigorously follow the scientific method and among them are included the Sky Dragon Slayers and Principia Scientific International (PSI).
This third group have been met with great hostility from the other factions and the book shows examples of how they have been targeted and harassed for asserting that our attention must be on empirical scientific evidence, rather than unverifiable (fanciful) computer models.
I would say that the tone and intellectual focus of the new ‘Slayers’ book on what may be proved materially in the ‘real world’ via applied science rather than academic theorization is in no small part due to the professional backgrounds of the key authors listed on the cover.
It is certainly no trivial point that these are highly-credential scientists have sterling reputations in their fields. Dr George Chilingar was indeed a long-time science adviser to the United Nations, while Dr Pierre Latour recently received a life-time achievement award for his science.
The new volume is not shy in stridently demanding that empirical evidence trumps computer modeling every time. The guiding principle being that if a theory lacks predictive properties i.e. it cannot reproduce what it claims in the real world, then it should be discarded.
The emphasis that these applied scientists put on strict application of the scientific method was stimulating as such intellectual, pragmatic rigor doesn’t only apply to science, it ought to apply to all life-impacting information we are given.
The authors urge us to question, test and prove or disprove the information before we accept it as true or false. Isn’t that a non-controversial, self-evident axiom?
One of the cornerstones of the book’s argument is that consensus greenhouse gas science is speculative guesswork and permits infringements of the laws of thermodynamics. But, as the book correctly states, scientifically laws cannot be infringed, they must be obeyed.
We are told: “A Law, according to the scientific method, is a theory that has never been disproved, and cannot be broken or violated, unless the Law is first shown to be wrong” an example of this is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics which states colder cannot heat hotter.
The authors then dissect modern climate theory by going right to heart of the popular definition of Global Warming:
“Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide (CO2) and other air pollutants and greenhouse gases collect in the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and solar radiation that have bounced off the Earth’s surface. Normally, this radiation would escape into space—but these pollutants, which can last for years to centuries in the atmosphere, trap the heat and cause the planet to get hotter.”
The book shows how this definition in and of itself is wrong and violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which has never been proved to be incorrect.
Delving into why the scientific debate has been mired in political considerations, the book identifies the scientists and organisations that have been abandoning or turning on its head the laws of thermodynamics to advance career opportunities, improve pay grades and build pension pots.
While Principia Scientific, which sponsored the book, proudly claims no political affiliation the authors offer illustrations of how teachers and lecturers in our schools and universities spoon-feed misinformation to us from a very young age. Indoctrination is societal, which explains why so many people buy into the myth and lies.
Certainly, our modern and complex lifestyles make us time poor and superficial; disinclined to probe behind what ‘experts’ in the establishment tells us is ‘settled science.’ We thus surrender an amount of our individualism to the social contract in return for protection and the security this offers us.
However, this invites corruption. Elements in the establishment – political and scientific – have and will censor anything that threatens their agenda. ‘Secret science’ has become the norm where results may be published in journals, but the actual methods, data and calculations are kept under lockdown.
‘The Slayers’ show how the academic peer review system has been corrupted and a diminishing body of new science survives open scrutiny.
The book is structured chronologically and narrated in such a way to give the reader a sense of witnessing the unraveling of a great deception.
For me, Chapter 2 was one of the most interesting as it focuses on the lawsuit that took place between Michael Mann, who created the famous Hockey Stick Graph and Dr. Tim Ball.
The prime example of this being the take home message from the ‘science trial of the century’ whereby co-author, Dr Ball triumphed in defending against the epic court battle versus UN IPCC poster boy, Dr Michael E Mann. The Supreme Court judge tossed out Mann’s lawsuit because he declined to reveal the nitty-gritty of his ‘secret science’ in open court.
Within the online scientific community it is well known that Mann’s Hockey Stick Graph was a complete fabrication – made famous by none other than Al Gore in his mockumentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’
Dr Mann is castigated in both Slaying the Sky Dragon and Dr. Ball’s The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science. The lawsuit came about when Dr. Ball quipped that Mann belonged in state pen rather than Penn State, which I found rather humorous.
Through the case, Dr. Ball insisted that Mann reveal his “secret science” which he refused to do. The Supreme Court of British Columbia dismissed Mann’s lawsuit and awarded the defendant Ball full legal costs.
The success of Dr Ball in exposing and defeating such a heavily-funded, immensely vaunted establishment ‘expert’ is in part due to the emergence of an erudite online community that has rallied together to de facto manage their own peer-to-peer review system. Thus, as long as free speech is tolerated online, open information can be the antidote to government propaganda.
In the next 3 chapters, we get a brief reiteration of the science that was set out in Slaying the Sky Dragon and the history of climate science and the GHE, while not the most interesting of chapters they were informative to read.
Chapter 6 was too technical for me as it is a summary of George V. Chilingar’s paper which shows CO2 cools rather than heats. But for those with a very strong background in science, this might be a very interesting chapter for you to read.
Chapter 7 was also very technical. It details the results of an experiment performed by Professor Nasif Nahle which was challenging for me to follow. It is similar to an issue I had with Slaying the Sky Dragon which became increasingly technical as the book progressed.
Chapter 8 was less of a chore and the diagrams helped me understand the work conducted by Carl Brehmer which debunks the water vapor feedback hypothesis. Through judicious application of known and verifiable real world data, Brehmer discovered that while it is true that higher temperature creates a higher level of humidity through evaporation, it is false that this higher humidity leads to warming.
Brehmer’s research demonstrated that the actual data from real world measurements shows humidity has a cooling effect. Chapter 9 is the last in the technical chapters which details a study by Tamarkin and Bromley on carbon dioxide.
The final two chapters wrapped the book up very nicely. Chapter 10 details a variety of achievements of the many scientists who would not submit to political pressures and refused to produced “post-normal science.” This list is vast but includes:
The foremost British climate scientist, Dr. Phil Jones, admitted that the so-called “historic” temperature data was fake. This became known as the “Climategate scandal.”Oxford University’s Myles Allen conceded that there is no rapid warming happening anywhere on the planet.The journal, Nature Geoscience acknowledges that warming has been on the low end of all model predictions for the last sixty years.
There are many, many more. The final chapter summarizes the work Principia Scientific International (PSI) has done in fighting for real science (validated by empirical testing, experiment) and the truth, which it promises to continue to do.
We are told PSI is sustained by the unpaid and voluntary work and effort of its many members who are dedicated to the pursuit of truth no matter what the personal cost.
I am no brainwashed school drop out “Greta.” Writing this review as a young Chemistry undergraduate, the better informed elements of the younger generation will need to step up and offer our own voices in the melee.
In summary: The Sky Dragon Slayers Victory Lap was very informative, building on and recapitulating key science from Slaying the Sky Dragon as well as new information along with many battles that have been hard-fought and won.
I did have similar issues with Victory Lap that I had with Slaying the Sky Dragon – some parts were just too technical for me to understand so I couldn’t write much on them, But, speaking as a student scientist, I enjoyed seeing the fight being taken to the next level and seeing that PSI and their causes were gaining the upper hand.
Despite the technical challenges I give it 5 stars because it is thorough and based on factual evidence exposing fallacies in the consensus narrative that have existed for too long; longer than I’ve been alive and the principles of openness and accountability it advocates needs to be supported by a more skeptical younger generation.
Buy it here:
Paperback: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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