A review of the new book ‘Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival’ by Dr Peter Carter and Dr Elizabeth Woodworth

Reviewed by Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and Paleoclimate scientist, Australian National University

“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”

~ Winston Churchill

“In 2017, the heat waves, extreme wild fires, and flooding around the world confirmed beyond doubt that climate disruption is now a full-blown emergency, yet governments have simply watched the disasters magnify, while rushing ahead with new pipelines and annual trillions in fossil fuel subsidies.”

~ Carter and Woodworth

While documenting extreme weather events, the bulk of the mainstream media did not report their connection with global warming.

A new book titled ‘Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival’, by IPCC expert reviewer Dr Peter Carter and author Dr Elizabeth Woodworth, with a forward by the leading climate scientist professor James Hansen, outlines the criminality of those who actively promote the continuing emission of carbon gases into the atmosphere with full knowledge of the consequences, including the breakdown of the large ice sheets, sea level rise and intensification of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods and fires around the world.

The book highlights the collusion of large part of the media with climate change denial and cover up, stating:

“There is no benign explanation for a full media blackout of a significant global development that was heralded by the United Nations Secretary-General. This blackout goes far beyond ignorance or negligence. It is a wilful obstruction of public knowledge of the extraordinary extent of global efforts to combat the greatest existential threat of all time by changing business-as-usual. We define this wilful, methodical blocking of vital survival information as an unprecedented crime against life on the planet.”

The book cites the US writer Tom Engelhardt (‘Terracide and the Terrarists: Destroying the Planet for Record Profits’):

“The fossil-fuel companies are guilty of the ultimate crime, because they are earning their “profits directly off melting the planet, knowing that their extremely profitable acts are destroying the very habitat, the very temperature range that for so long made life comfortable for humanity.” … “However, Big Carbon could never have been able to continue its polluting ways – long after the scientific community had reached consensus about the connection between fossil-fuel emissions, global warming, and climate change – without the assistance of the media.”

The scientific basis for the book includes the extreme rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide – CO2 – since the onset of the industrial age, reaching ~403 parts per million in 2017, and the corresponding rise in mean global temperature to +1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperature (Figure 1), pose an existential risk for the future of civilization and nature.

Figure 1. A plot of mean global temperature since versus ...