The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air About Global Warming

Patrick J. Michaels · Robert C. Balling

May 2000 · Cato Institute

About this ebook

Global warming is vastly overrated as an environmental threat, argue leading climatologists Patrick J. Michaels and Robert Balling, Jr. Former Vice President Gore staked much of his career on a largely mythical problem, they write. Unlike every other book on global warming, The Satanic Gases places the issue in its proper social and scientific context. Citing the pioneering work of historian of science Thomas Kuhn and economist James Buchanan, Michaels and Balling demonstrate that it was inevitable that global warming would be distorted by the political sphere and that most scientists would either stand mute or actually assist in that process. But, the authors argue, such distortions in science are always temporary, and inevitably the scientific community will concede that earlier forecasts dramatically exaggerated the threat of global warming.

About the author

Patrick J. Michaels is Distinguished Senior Fellow in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University and senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute. He is past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, winner of the American Library Association’s worldwide competition for public service writing, and an author of the 2003 climate science “Paper of the Year,” awarded by the Association of American Geographers.

Robert C. Balling, Jr. is a professor in the climatology program in the School of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University.