Today has been proclaimed by His Holiness the Pope as the first International Day of Prayer for Climate Change. Getting into the spirit, the President of the United States took a 9,000-mile round-trip by private wide-bodied jet to give his usual calm, measured, prudent environmental speech:
Obama On Climate Change: Act Now Or Condemn World To A Nightmare
So I couldn't have picked a better day for the official launch of my new book:
"A Disgrace to the Profession":
The World's Scientists ~ in Their Own Words ~ on Michael E Mann,
his Hockey Stick, and Their Damage to Science
Volume One
Edited by Mark Steyn
with illustrations by Josh
The book is exactly what it says: The story of the most famous science graph of the 21st century and how it led, via Al Gore's movie and the United Nations, to a world of cartoon climatology where Obama, the Prince of Wales and other world leaders now routinely talk like the kind of gibbering apocalyptic loons who used to walk the streets with sandwich boards predicting the end of the world.
Fortunately, there are many sane scientists with a wide range of views on the issue who deplore the perversion and corruption of science in the Age of the Stick. I thought I'd round them up for a book, and found I had so many that we've had to save some of them for Volumes Two and Three. Full disclosure: Mann is suing me for calling his graph "fraudulent", which it is. The case is now in its fourth year in the clogged toilet of the District of Columbia courts - which was Mann's plan all along, and as he's previously done to Dr Tim Ball in Canada. Mann sues because he's incapable of debating those who disagree with him even mildly (as the book illustrates all too well), and the depraved court system in America's capital unfortunately rewards that kind of behavior. I'm fighting to win, because as a gentleman said to me out on the west coast this weekend, if I were to lose, it would be the biggest setback for freedom of speech in America in half-a-century.
But a chap can't sit around waiting for lethargic judges to give him the green light to get on with his life, so I thought I'd use some of the case research clogging up my rec room and put it in a book. We're only on our official launch day and we're already in our third printing. I'm proud to say that my little book has already hit Number One on the Climatology hit parade, which means when we get to trial I may call myself as an expert witness. Our companion book, Climate Change: The Facts, is at Number Nine, and both books are doing better than Mann's tome Dreary Predictions at Number Twelve. In Canada, we're already in the Hot 100. Alas, it's not all good news. British reader Jeremy Boynton writes that Amazon UK have unfortunately miscategorized the book:
I thought you might like to know that Amazon UK have wrongly categorised your forthcoming work on Mann, "A Disgrace to the Profession". They classify it as a "Scientist biography". Scientist?
Jeremy Poynton
It's certainly odd to see a book about Michael E Mann listed with books about Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein. We've notified Amazon UK of their error, and asked for the book to be re-categorized under "Bestsellers about Fake Nobel Laureates".
I'm very gratified by the response so far. Dr Judith Curry, whose indestructible courage was one of the inspirations for this book, writes:
Anthony Watts reminds me of this statement I made in a previous post: "Mark Steyn is formidable opponent. I suspect that this is not going to turn out well for you." This book certainly supports my statement...
I hope that everyone will learn that adversarial science as practiced in its pathological form by Michael Mann doesn't 'pay' in the long run.
From the world's most read climate website, Watts Up With That:
It's a scorcher - hilarity and a tale of science and politics gone awry all in one.
From Andy May:
This is an outstanding and important book and I highly recommend it.
From Duane Hershberger:
Highly recommended.
And my personal favorite from Canada's Rebel Media:
It's probably the longest, funniest, most savvily organized and meticulous "screw you" in the history of Western literature.
From Amazon readers:
~If you buy one book about the climate debate - this should be it.
~Required Reading for a Course on Science Ethics
David Home ordered an advance copy direct from the SteynOnline bookstore and writes:
Hello Mark,
Congratulations on your new book, which arrived on Friday last. This is a great compilation of those academics brave enough to challenge a major foundation of the new religion.
Best regards from Whitby, Canada.
David Home
Thank you, David. In this launch week, I'll be doing a little more TV and radio than I usually do, starting tonight with Sean Hannity coast to coast on Fox News at 10pm Eastern/7pm Pacific, and tomorrow morning with Toronto's Number One morning man John Oakley live on AM640 at 8.30am Eastern. Still to come this week, Buck Sexton, Hugh Hewitt and Glenn Beck.
Hope you can catch me somewhere across the dial in the days ahead. But in the meantime here's a great interview I did about the book with my old friend Andrew Lawton on Canada's Roy Green Show. Click to listen:
