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''State of Fear'' is a 2004 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton in which eco-terrorists plot mass murder to publicize the danger of global warming. Despite being a work of fiction, the book contains many graphs and footnotes, two appendices, and a twenty-page bibliography in support of Crichton's beliefs about global warming. Climate scientists, science journalists, environmental groups and science advocacy organisations dispute Crichton's views on the science as being error-filled and distorted,〔 PDF version from climateprediction.net site〕〔(Review of Michael Crichton's State of Fear : Weather Underground )〕〔〔(Union of Concerned Scientists ''Crichton's Thriller State of Fear: Separating Fact from Fiction'' )〕 and it was described as "pure porn for global warming deniers" by journalist Chris Mooney. The novel had an initial print run of 1.5 million copies and reached the #1 bestseller position at Amazon.com and #2 on the New York Times Best Seller list for one week in January 2005. The novel itself has garnered mixed reviews, with some literary reviewers stating that the book's presentation of facts and stance on the global warming debate detracted from the book's plot. == Overview == ''State of Fear'' is, like many of Crichton's books, a fictional work that uses a mix of speculation and real world data, plus technological innovations as fundamental storyline devices. The debate over global warming serves as the backdrop for the book. Crichton supplies a personal afterword and two appendices that link the fictional part of the book with real examples of his thesis. The main villains in the plot are environmental extremists. Crichton does place blame on "industry" in both the plot line and the appendices. Various assertions appear in the book, for example: * The science behind global warming is speculative and incomplete, meaning no concrete conclusions can be drawn regarding human involvement in climate change. * Elites in various fields use either real or artificial crises to maintain the existing social order, misusing the "science" behind global warming. * As a result of potential conflicts of interest, the scientists conducting research on topics related to global warming may subtly change their findings to bring them in line with their funding sources. Since climatology can not incorporate double-blind studies, as are routine in other sciences, and climate scientists set experiment parameters, perform experiments within the parameters they have set, and analyze the resulting data, a phenomenon known as "bias" is offered as the most benign reason for climate science being so inaccurate. * A key concept, delivered from the eccentric Professor Hoffman, suggests, in Hoffman's words, the existence of a "politico-legal-media" complex, comparable to the "military industrial complex," of the Cold War era. Hoffman insists climate science began using more extreme, fear-inducing terms such as "crisis," "catastrophe," and, "disaster," shortly after the fall of The Berlin Wall, in order to maintain a level of fear in citizens, for the purpose of social control, since the specter of Soviet Communism was gone. This "state of fear" gives the book its title. Numerous charts and quotations from real world data, including footnoted charts which strongly suggest mean global temperature is, in this era, lowering. Where local temperatures show a general rise in mean temperature, mostly in major world cities, Crichton's characters infer it is due to urban sprawl and deforestation, not carbon emissions. Crichton argues for removing politics from science and uses global warming and real-life historical examples in the appendices to make this argument. In a 2003 speech at the California Institute of Technology he expressed his concern about what he considered the "emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science—namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy."〔(Aliens Cause Global Warming a speech give at the California Institute of Technology January 17, 2003 )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「State of Fear」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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