Review of “State of Fear” by Michael Crichton
The thriller, “State of Fear” by Michael Crichton is an exciting book to read. The story begins the tradition of Michael Crichton, whereby the antagonists gather a mystifying set of highly specialized and valuable equipment that are high-tech. These equipments include shaped explosives, wire-guided projectiles, hypersonic generators, and deep-diving submersible. These people also look for information that seems troublesome and inexplicable that includes use of explosives of seismic data, tsunamis, info on hurricanes, and a lot more (Crichton, 2004). While they encounter people who are against them, the reader discovers that these bad people are ruthless and organized in real manner planning to ensue on mayhem that is high-tech. There will be a review of Crichton’s findings concerning environmental movement.
The readers encounter Peter Evans, who is one of the main characters. He is a lawyer from Los Angeles with an appealing primary client, millionaire George Morton, and also an exciting romantic life. Morton bankrolls the NERF (National Environmental Resource Fund) that is trying to sue the United States based on the Vanutu Island nation for damages caused by global warming as well as the rise in the sea levels (Crichton, 2004). The audience sees Evans as he meets with scientific and legal team that NERF assembles to indict the lawsuit of the rise in the sea levels. During this time, the pace of the story reduces while the NERF team attempt to teach Evans regarding the ambiguity of the theory of global warming. While one may expect from the naming of one of the NERF members, the reader can easily recognize that the author is not a fan of theory of global warming or the environmentalists (Crichton, 2004). The author clearly attacks the science behind global warming and the environmentalists through the mock trials that Evans partakes.
While the action and plot of the story continues with the lectures of Global Warming, the readers identify that the bad guys are in fact, eco-terrorists, who are possibly connected with the NERF organization of George Morton. The readers encounter the main hero, a professor of geo-environmental engineering, Dr. John Kenner, who is also a secret agent for an organization of national security. Evans and Kenner and two of Evan’s romantic interests, persistently follow the people to Arizona and a remote island that is inhabited with cannibals. Kenner is familiar with global warming and manages to teach the readers and Evans about it while they converse in the story (Crichton, 2004). The readers recognize that Crichton has a philosophy of the environment. In the conversation of the two, Kenner proves that there is a media complex that controls the military and plans to control the population by inflicting fear regarding the false environmental calamities like global warming.
Crichton devotes a number of pages to the education of global warming and environmental sermons. The story is also followed by scientific references and the author’s comments on environmental philosophy and how he believes the state of fear ought to be fixed. Crichton manages to reveal his opinion of philosophy in the thriller story. He also manages to educate the readers about global warming. He tries to weave out what seems to be obvious and critical to him. However, the story is dissatisfaction as a thriller narrative and a convincing source of the issue of global warming. The action seems exciting, but it has been bogged by too much education and sermonizing that interrupts the story on several occasions. In fact, most readers are bound to skip most pages while the author tries to educate the reader. Crichton obviously believes that excessive environmentalism does a lot of harm to the globe, and he clearly proves this in his story. By doing this, he brings a dark mood to the readers and makes it unexciting to read.
On a scientific standard, the author is obviously a good researcher because he has managed to bring to the readers a lot of info concerning global warming and environmentalism. The schemes of the bad guys are quite high-tech, so the readers are baffled at how the guys try to introduce climate turmoil (Svendsen, 2008). The readers are left wondering if such things can occur. However, Crichton offers a distorted story of the science of global warming. The author says that it was a rotation of a high-pressure mass that created a ragged hurricane. This is not true because hurricanes are developed from a large mass under low pressure.
Dr. Kenner is also not right when he argues that extreme weather developed in the last fifteen years, or global warming will cause a rise in severe weather. Kenner also notes that global warming indicates weather that is less extreme. This statement is not true because global warming does not indicate less extreme weather (Andrews, 1998). The readers also left without understanding what events like hailstorms, tornadoes and hurricanes can be altered if there is global warming.
The report also does not indicate that it is highly likely that intense precipitation may occur in a number of areas and the rates of rainfall and peak winds from hurricanes may increase. This is a reasonable consequence that the warmer Earth will experience high rates of evaporation and this will avail a lot of moisture for precipitation.
Kenner also argues that the glaciers in Mt. Kilimanjaro do not melt because of global warming. He says that the cause of the melting is deforestation. A lead author who was studying the story objected Crichton’s study claiming that it was applied by skeptics of the greenhouse to depict the melting of glaciers in Mt. Kilimanjaro. Crichton’s application of the findings to conclude the cause of the melting with regards to global warming is quite absurd.
Dr. Kenner also questions why a treaty that has no effect has to be signed. He questioned this during a discussion that concerned the United States signing the Kyoto strategy to fight global warming. Kenner argued that the strategy would reduce the global warming by 0.04 degrees by 2100. This statement has a lot of problems. The protocol of Kyoto was meant for industrialized countries to reduce the emission of the green house gases for the periods from 2005-2012. Developing countries are not obliged to reduce gas emissions. The treaty of Kyoto was meant to last until 2012, and Kenner talks of 2100 (Crichton, 2004). Kenner makes an assumption that the strategy would also apply in developing countries. A measure of the worth of Kyoto treaty would combine its effect that does not pass the year 2012. The reports of the IPCC assessments have indicated the requirement for the emission of the greenhouse gas reduction by fifty percent or more in all the nations by the end of the 21st century. This report also states that there will be little or no emissions of gases by the end of the century to maintain the carbon dioxide concentrations under pre-industrial values. Kyoto had developed a strategy that would achieve this objective.
There are also several other misleading or flawed presentations of global warming in the book. This also includes those flaws of the thinning of the Arctic sea, ground-based vs. satellite measurements of global warming, land measurements of the effect of heating of the island and several disagreements of the estimates of the rise of the sea levels. These are just a few of the many flaws in the book. However, the author manages to highlight esteemed fact that while a large portion of the globe has been experiencing an increase in temperatures for the past years, several sections of the Antarctica has been cooling (Crichton, 2004). The IPCC argues that, in the next 100 years, there is speculation that Antarctic ice sheet will increase in mass. Crichton adds that there has been no increase in the activities of hurricane in the Atlantic in the past ten years. This is a pint that is accurate according to the 2004 record the hurricanes that occurred in Florida.
Kenner also proves the notion of Crichton regarding environmental science. This is evident in Kenner’s conversation with Evans when he tries to teach uninformed environmentalists about global warming realities. Kenner says, “Her intentions are good, but her info is bad.” Kenner adds, “This is a disaster prescription.”
References
Andrews, W. L. (1998). The literature of the American South: A Norton anthology. New York:
W.W. Norton.
Crichton, M. (2004). State of fear: A novel. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers.
Svendsen, L. F. H. (2008). A philosophy of fear. London: Reaktion Books.
