Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate

The revised and expanded third edition of Hot Talk, Cold Science forms the capstone of the distinguished astrophysicist Dr. S. Fred Singer’s lucid, yet hard scientific look at climate change. And the book is no less explosive than its predecessors—and certainly never more timely.

Singer explores the inaccuracies in historical climate data and the failures of climate models, as well as the impact of solar variability, clouds, ocean currents, and sea levels on global climate—plus factors that could mitigate any human impact on world climate.

Singer’s masterful analysis decisively shows that the pessimistic, and often alarming, global-warming scenarios depicted in the media have no scientific basis. In fact, he finds that many aspects of increased levels of CO2, as well as any modest warming, such as a longer growing seasons for food and a reduced need to use fossil fuels for heating, would have a highly positive impact on the human race.

As alarmists clamor to impose draconian government restrictions on entire populations in order to combat "climate change," this book reveals some other startling, stubborn contradictory facts, including:

• CO2 has not caused temperatures or sea levels to rise beyond historical rates.
• Severe storms have not increased in frequency or intensity since 1970—neither have heat waves nor droughts.
• Global "climate change" is not harming coral reefs.
• Any increases in CO2 concentrations across huge time spans haven't preceded rising global temperatures, they’ve followed them by about 600 to 800 years—just the opposite of alarmist claims.
• "Carbon" taxes and other "solutions" to the global warming "crisis" would have severe consequences for economically disadvantaged groups and nations.
• Alarmist climate scientists have hidden their raw temperature data and deleted emails—then undermined the peer-review system to squelch debate.

In sum, despite all the hot talk—and outright duplicity—there is no "climate crisis" resulting from human activities and no such threat on the horizon.

Dr. S. Fred Singer (1924–2020) was a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Member of the International Academy of Astronautics. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University.

David R. Legates is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, retired Professor of Climatology in the Department of Geography and a retired Adjunct Professor in the Department of Applied Economics and Statistics at the University of Delaware. He received his PhD in climatology from the University of Delaware, and he has taught at Louisiana State University, University of Oklahoma, and University of Virginia. He is former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Observation and Prediction and former Executive Director of the United States Global Change Research Program; and he has been Research Scientist at the Southern Regional Climate Center, Chief Research Scientist at the Center for Computational Geosciences, and Visiting Research Scientist at the National Climate Data Center.

Anthony R. Lupo is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of Atmospheric Science and Principal Investigator of the Global Climate Change Group in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Missouri (MU). He received his PhD in atmosphere science from Purdue University, and he has been a Member of the Working Groups I and III for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Research Scholar at the Belgorod University in Russia, Fulbright Research Scholar at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Associate Editor of the Monthly Weather Review, and Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University at Albany.