Global warming not a crisis (?!)

I'm a fan of Michael Crichton. He does TV, movies, books and he really uses his brain to arrive at conclusions that have to do with reason and responsibility. Example, the global warming debate. You might think, "Is there an actual debate?" Well, seems that the prevailing "awareness" on global warming is more a product of consensus than rigorous scientific research and careful consideration of facts, data and known history.

This is taken from ~C4Chaos (thanks for heads up!)

"Note that the debate is not whether Global Warming is real or not, but whether is it a crisis or not. And by the time the debate was over Michael Crichton and team *won* the debate. So much for consensus. Here are the links. It's divided into 10 parts."

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10

You can also download the transcript [PDF].

Here's Part 4 where Michael Crichton presented his case:



If you enjoyed this short video, perhaps you wish to see "An hour with Michael Crichton" at Charlie Rose's. Here's the link (Google Video). Time 57 min.

*NOTE: after several comments elsewhere on the web, just a brief point to clarify my position here. To that purpose, I have modified the title (see parenthesis). I don't think global warming is not a problem, since it's quite evident it is happening, and YES we should continue to move away from carbon. Still, I do believe we need to study it more thoroughly before turning it into a contested political issue - which it has already become - thus severely limiting unbiased scientific research. Frankly, we still don't know the ratio of our contribution to global warming versus a dozen other contributing factors. And again, consensus by itself was never a measure of good science. (The Church at the time of Galileo also had a scientific consensus.) Future predictions are not the best way to pursue this conversation, until we develop much more sofisticated models, since at this point we can't even predict the weather 30 days from now. I also believe there are other, quite astonishing and immediate crisis facing our humanity, from access to drinking water, infant mortality, hunger, to illiteracy and human rights etc. that need express global action. Therefore, I'm inclined to see in the global warming "story" (not the actual global warming that takes place anyway) another doomsday scenario offering fear and panic to the public, instead of education and information. I rest my case.