Posted: 12/14/2004
Crichton Target of Environmentalists' Wrath
NCPA Scholar Amused by Green Movement’s Venom
December 14, 2004 – Best-selling novelist Michael Crichton has drawn the ire of book critics and environmentalists alike for portraying global warming activists as the villains in his latest book, “State of Fear.” NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett noted that Crichton’s book, “while fanciful, is drawing the ire of the green movement precisely because it comes at a time when many on the environmental left are offering up doomsday scenarios and even resorting to terrorist tactics.”
“They love Crichton when he attacks government or especially industry, but once he targets a sacred cow of the left – the radical greens – he is a poor writer and a villain,” said Burnett.
In “State of Fear,” the villains are proponents of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, who are aided by the liberal media, trial lawyers and Hollywood celebrities. Crichton presents global warming theory as nothing but hype: scare scenarios, promoted by shameless environmentalists eager to use bad science to raise money and draw attention to their cause.
What appears to be the central cause for the environmentalists’ venom is the fact that Crichton actually believes this thesis. The thriller comes equipped with footnotes, charts and two appendixes detailing why the author believes politicized science is dangerous.
“It’s threatening because there is a lot of truth in his thesis,” said Burnett.