IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019 - 20

BOOK REVIEWS

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as hurricanes, droughts, tornadoes,
and floods. It is all politics, no sci-
ence." Their evolution denial is
harmless. Research workers in the
health or biological sciences aren't
guided by the biblical account of cre-
ation. But Heartland's introducing
doubt about mainstream climate sci-
ence is criminal.
What motivates Heartland? As
Mann and Toles so effectively explain,
the Institute has historically been
propped up by tobacco money and
more recently the fossil fuel industry,
especially in the form of donations
from billionaires Charles and David
Koch whose fortune derives from
the petroleum and chemical indus-
tries. If you want to see where most
science denial comes from in the
United States, you need only follow
the money.
Among their most salient exhib-
its is the painful story of Frederick
Seitz, once a renowned solid-state
physicist and sometime president
of the prestigious National Academy
of Sciences, which can boast of the
membership of most of America's
best scientists. Mann describes him
as a "founding figure in modern-day
science denialism." Joined by two
other distinguished physicists, in the
early 1990s Seitz went on a public-
ity compaign to debunk the science
behind global warming, acid rain,
and ozone depletion. What was in
it for Seitz? The money of course.
Prostitution is not limited to those
with "love for sale." After leaving aca-
demia in the early 1970s he got over
half a million dollars from tobacco
giant R.J. Reynolds for questioning
the connection between cigarette
smoking and cancer.
There is a sadness in reading this
book, published in 2016, in the fall
of 2018. Mann and Toles were writ-
ing in the final year of the Obama
administration. Despite their rogue's

20

like a dismal time for environmen-
talists but there has been a strong
pushback from a number of states,
e.g., California, which has aggres-
sively pursued its own vehicle emis-
sion standards.
I would encourage Mann and
Toles to update their book and
explain whether the situation is as
bleak as it seems. Another matter
needing scrutiny is nuclear power.
In November of 2018 a liberal lean-
ing organization of scientists and
engineers, the Union of Concerned
Scientists (full disclosure: I belong)
issued a report expressing support
for nuclear power. They pointed out
that with cheap coal and natural gas
available in the United States a sig-
nificant number of existing nuclear
power plants are destined to close
because they cannot compete finan-
cially. These plants, once they are
constructed, have essentially zero
carbon footprint and are supplying
20% of the nation's electricity. The
president of the organization stated,
"These sobering realities dictate
that we keep an open mind about all
of the tools in the emissions reduc-
tion toolbox - even ones that are
not our personal favorites."
The organization's shift in its
advice and position on nuclear
power deserves scrutiny and I hope
Mann and Toles will give us their
voice. A writer for the Boston Globe
compared the Union's about face to
the militant anti-Communist Richard
Nixon opening the doors to China.

gallery of climate change denialists,
they saw reasons for hope. They
point out that solar power doubled
in the U.S. between 2013 and 2014
and wind energy increased by nearly
10 percent. In November of 2015
the two biggest carbon polluters,
China and the United States, agreed
to make substantial cuts in their
CO2 emissions over the following
20 years. This action sent an impor-
tant message to the United Nations
Global Climate Change Conference
taking place in Paris in December
2015: the U.S and China took global
warming seriously. At the time of
their writing, Mann and Toles remark
on a "huge spike" in the sales of
electric vehicles and hybrids. They
assert, "in the wake of the Climate
Change Conference in Paris there
was a collective feeling of euphoria
that maybe, just maybe, we are now
ready to turn the corner in confront-
ing the climate challenge."
Those words come out of an era
that looks like half a lifetime ago.
In June of 2017, Trump, half a year
into his term, announced the U.S
withdrawal from the Paris climate
accords, claiming it, "an agreement
that disadvantages the United States
to the exclusive benefit of other
countries." The U.S. is the only coun-
try to have withdrawn. I suppose
this shouldn't have been a surprise:
in his campaign he maintained that
global warming was a hoax being
perpetrated by the Chinese to dis-
advantage the U.S. economy. The
signing nations had agreed to try
to hold the earth's temperature to
2 °C above pre-industrial levels. At
the announcement of withdrawal,
Trump was accompanied by Scott
Pruitt , then the Environmental Pro-
tection Administrator who, until he
was forced from his job, managed
to delay or rescind numerous clean
air and water regulations. This looks
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

Reviewer Information
A. David Wunsch is Book Review Edi-
tor of this magazine. He is Professor
Emeritus in the Electrical and Com-
puter Engineering Dept. at the Uni-
versity of Massachusetts Lowell. His
email address is David_Wunsch@
uml.edu.

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