Rating: 
Summary: Great balanced survey of the history of climate science
Review: An excellent short summary of the rise of global climate concerns in the scientific, political and public awareness. Weart details the steps in the discovery of global warming as a concept, including the various transformations that climate theory went through on its way towards adequately explaining what has happened in the past and reliably predicting the general shape of things to come. He explains the science well for the beginner (that is to say, not too deeply) and covers many bases - including solar, atmospheric, oceanic and biomass inputs that shape our climate and the creeping realization that climate change can change (and has changed in the past) much faster than anyone suspected 100 years ago.While covering the science and history in some detail, he also takes great care to acknowledge the inherent uncertainties of climate science, focusing his attention later in the book on the public and political interplay in the process of discovery and discussion about climatic change. He also leaves room for continued debate, although it's clear that he has been convinced of the potential dangers of global warming by the available evidence. For those who find the book short on scientific material, a link is included to a website maintained by the author which contains much more material and data. The author also lists links to other prominent sites for climate change information, including sites which argue against its existence. Overall, I appreciate both the passion and the evident fairness that the author brings to his subject which leads me to give it 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Great balanced survey of the history of climate science
Review: An excellent short summary of the rise of global climate concerns in the scientific, political and public awareness. Weart details the steps in the discovery of global warming as a concept, including the various transformations that climate theory went through on its way towards adequately explaining what has happened in the past and reliably predicting the general shape of things to come. He explains the science well for the beginner (that is to say, not too deeply) and covers many bases - including solar, atmospheric, oceanic and biomass inputs that shape our climate and the creeping realization that climate change can change (and has changed in the past) much faster than anyone suspected 100 years ago. While covering the science and history in some detail, he also takes great care to acknowledge the inherent uncertainties of climate science, focusing his attention later in the book on the public and political interplay in the process of discovery and discussion about climatic change. He also leaves room for continued debate, although it's clear that he has been convinced of the potential dangers of global warming by the available evidence. For those who find the book short on scientific material, a link is included to a website maintained by the author which contains much more material and data. The author also lists links to other prominent sites for climate change information, including sites which argue against its existence. Overall, I appreciate both the passion and the evident fairness that the author brings to his subject which leads me to give it 5 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Putting Global Warming On The Front Burner
Review: Discovery of Global Warming I love scientific detective stories. The fact that the climatological investigation into global warming is ongoing is no barrier to learning about all the legwork that has gone into it. This account is especially welcome, as it is an objective account of how the idea of global warming has developed over the years. It is literally a textbook example of the workings of aggregate knowledge. Especially good is the account of climatology's trip up the blind alley of The Coming Ice Age in the 1970s. This as much as anything tarred the proponents of the global warming hypothesis as a bunch of Chicken Littles who couldn't make up their minds. But while it may have made convincing policy makers more difficult, like so many other missteps in science it ultimately led to a better understanding of what was really going on. And many observed facts have survived through the revolutions of interpretation. You can't argue with the Keeling Curve, which measures the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, for instance. The objectivity continues even in concluding sections, when contemporary politics enter the story. In this account the Kyoto Protocols are a missed opportunity, although their shortcomings and the legitimate objections to them are fairly-enough presented. Plus all the loose ends and shortcomings of the global warming model get spelled out in frank detail. But the existing scientific consensus, that CO2 buildup is real, artificial, growing, and a menace, gets the last word. Dr. Weart's call to action in the end is bitter: more regulation, higher taxes, the whole "wise men" approach to public policy. Principal blame for the crisis is affixed to the U.S., too-as if it is America and not the sainted Third World burning down the world's rainforests. Some of the prescriptions sound like they would indeed be money savers though, such as aggressively heading off methane leaks by mending pipelines. In all, this is an informative, challenging account of how we know what we think we know about global warming. Recommended to everyone with any interest in the issue.
Rating:
Summary: Putting Global Warming On The Front Burner
Review: Discovery of Global Warming I love scientific detective stories. The fact that the climatological investigation into global warming is ongoing is no barrier to learning about all the legwork that has gone into it. This account is especially welcome, as it is an objective account of how the idea of global warming has developed over the years. It is literally a textbook example of the workings of aggregate knowledge. Especially good is the account of climatology's trip up the blind alley of The Coming Ice Age in the 1970s. This as much as anything tarred the proponents of the global warming hypothesis as a bunch of Chicken Littles who couldn't make up their minds. But while it may have made convincing policy makers more difficult, like so many other missteps in science it ultimately led to a better understanding of what was really going on. And many observed facts have survived through the revolutions of interpretation. You can't argue with the Keeling Curve, which measures the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, for instance. The objectivity continues even in concluding sections, when contemporary politics enter the story. In this account the Kyoto Protocols are a missed opportunity, although their shortcomings and the legitimate objections to them are fairly-enough presented. Plus all the loose ends and shortcomings of the global warming model get spelled out in frank detail. But the existing scientific consensus, that CO2 buildup is real, artificial, growing, and a menace, gets the last word. Dr. Weart's call to action in the end is bitter: more regulation, higher taxes, the whole "wise men" approach to public policy. Principal blame for the crisis is affixed to the U.S., too-as if it is America and not the sainted Third World burning down the world's rainforests. Some of the prescriptions sound like they would indeed be money savers though, such as aggressively heading off methane leaks by mending pipelines. In all, this is an informative, challenging account of how we know what we think we know about global warming. Recommended to everyone with any interest in the issue.
Rating: 
Summary: Story how a bunch of US junk scientists fought for money
Review: Dr. Weart has received an extra star for his attempt to cover the early history of climate science. That's it.
I was kind of disgusted by this book because what I expected was a story about some scientific discoveries connected with the global climate. A story about the history of science is always fun to read even if it is a little bit biased - for example towards the advocates of the global warming which was expected in this case.
Instead, this book is mostly a story about the money. It's a story about a group of greedy people who were not satisfied with their funding as the scientists and with the "boring" objective tasks that a scientist must usually solve, and who always wanted to find new sources of funding by claiming a "discovery" of something new and sensational. And Dr. Weart is completely open and reveals his opinion that it is OK if science is affected by politics. In fact he enjoys it, and as a historian of science, he is happy to analyze this interaction.
Let's hope that I am not the only one who believes that it is unacceptable for scientific research to be affected by politics, and on the other hand that science cannot determine which policies should be adopted.
If you see the book, try to count how many times the word "funding" appears in it. I find it completely scary. The truth in science does not depend on the money! These global warming alarmists seem to be a culture for which science is a hostage and a tool to achieve something completely different.
If you open this book, you will see many stories about some scientists who were supposed to measure the concentration of some gas somewhere - according to the old-fashioned, objective rules of science. Because they knew that it's unlikely that anything shocking would be found in this way, they decided that they wanted to measure something completely different - something that can be used to argue that there is a big "discovery" - this bogus discovery was finally called "global warming" (well, after the attempts in the 1970s to call it "global cooling").
It is a great "theory" that predicts something 20 years from now - a short enough period to scare the people, but a long enough period to get funding for a long time and to allow the people to forget that you were wrong once it's proved. It's a theory that Weart admits won't ever be quite convincing, but nevertheless the decision making should be based on it.
The book offers, much like many similar books, simplistic arguments that the global climate is simple and its models should be right. Weart does not hesitate to claim that the temperature in 2050 will be up to 5.5 Celsius degrees higher, even though it is known that the temperature in the last 100 years only rose by 0.6 degrees or so.
Even if you forget whether the global warming is true or not, the history as described in this book is completely twisted. For example, it is focused on America only. There is nothing about the 20th century European scientists, for example. And of course, there is nothing about e.g. the influential Russian Academy of Science that identified the Kyoto protocol as a "scientifically unfounded nonsense".
Mr. Weart won't tell you such things - instead, he will brainwash you with the obnoxious lies about the "scientific consensus" - this consensus has become the only real "argument" of the "evangelists". It's because he kind of knows that Goebbels said correctly that a lie that is repeated 100 times "becomes" the truth.
The global climate has been a politicized topic for many decades - but this is one of the first books I've seen which is completely open about the fact that the global warming alarmists are twisting the data - and picking their problems - in order to get more funding and in order to support their political allies.
Weart also happily attacks the global warming skeptics by the characteristic far left-wing argument that they may have some links to the corporations. Well, I will probably prefer a person paid by a corporation over a person who wants to destroy the corporations - but the actual scientific results don't depend on such things as long as science is done properly. Weart openly says that it should not be done properly.
Weart's book actually describes the very same people as Crichton's "State of Fear". The difference is that Crichton's novel ends with a happy end - the evil eco-terrorists are either shot, or eaten by the eco-friendly native tribes - while Weart's novel ends as a horror: the same people are celebrated as heroes who are almost allowed to declare their rubbish comments called "global warming" as one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs of the century.
I am ashamed that these global warming people are sometimes identified as our colleagues.
Dr. Lubos Motl, Harvard University
Rating:
Summary: New York Times review
Review: Excerpt from review by Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times Sunday Book Review, 10/5/03: "Debate persists over the extent of human-driven warming and what to do about it. But recognition that in a short span our species has nudged the thermostat of the planet remains a momentous, and sobering, finding. "The Discovery of Global Warming" describes the intellectual journey toward that conclusion, with all of its false starts, flawed hypotheses, inventiveness and persistent uncertainties. It reveals the effort as one of the great exercises in collective sleuthing, with pivotal insights provided by experts in fields as varied as glaciology, physics and even plankton paleontology. "Charting the evolution and confirmation of the theory, Spencer R. Weart, director of the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics, dissects the interwoven threads of research and reveals the political and societal subtexts that colored scientists' views and the public reception their work received. ... Climate science will probably remain easily misconstrued by alarmists of all stripes -- both environmentalists eager to stoke public fears and antiregulatory activists and politicians fearful of any impediment to unbridled enterprise. "The Discovery of Global Warming" does cut through much of the persistent hype surrounding the issue. Weart has also set up a Web site, www.aip.org/history/climate, that adds many layers of detail to the scientific chronology."
Rating:
Summary: Easy Reading but Informative
Review: I have come across a number of scientists over the years who have studied their own little piece of the global climate puzzle and it was they, not this book, that convinced me that man is impacting the climate. However, Spencer Weart's book helped me understand how all the research works together to extrapolate today's weather over the next 50, 100 years. If you are an extremist on either side, this book will not satisfy you. This is a book for people with an open mind to the issue of global climate change. Well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Easy Reading but Informative
Review: The Discovery of Global Warming is a very well written history of the science of climate change. It presents the evolution of the science, with breakthroughs and mis-steps alike, in the greater context of science funding, geopolitics, and society. It presents the science in a way that any reader may enjoy and understand, coming away with a much deeper understanding of how science research happens and what the current scientific concensus on global warming is. The Discovery of Global Warming goes far beyond the minimal understanding (and misunderstandings) of most mainstream media sources. It summarizes all of the core issues and the widely held concensus of the thousands of scientists who commit years of their lives to studying this problem. Unfortunately, this clarity is lost by most writers who do not understand the science of climate change or the scientific process. The real science, largely confined to obscure journals and conferences, presented here is sure to astonish any reader who is not an expert in the field. The long history and current maturity of the science of global warming will also surprise many readers who have not followed the scientific literature over the last 40 years. There exists a large rift in perception and understanding of global warming, between scientists and the rest of society. This is in part because the rather complex science of global warming is not easily communicated between the two groups, and in part because scientists tend to focus on communicating to their peers while most people focus on understanding science that manifests itself in immediate and tangible form. In such a case, we must wait for the field to become mature and for a scientist capable of communicating to a larger audience to step forward and bridge the gap. We are fortunate that someone as capable as Weart (Directory of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics) has taken such care to present the science and history of one of the most important scientific issues of our day.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, clear discussion of science and history
Review: The Discovery of Global Warming is a very well written history of the science of climate change. It presents the evolution of the science, with breakthroughs and mis-steps alike, in the greater context of science funding, geopolitics, and society. It presents the science in a way that any reader may enjoy and understand, coming away with a much deeper understanding of how science research happens and what the current scientific concensus on global warming is. The Discovery of Global Warming goes far beyond the minimal understanding (and misunderstandings) of most mainstream media sources. It summarizes all of the core issues and the widely held concensus of the thousands of scientists who commit years of their lives to studying this problem. Unfortunately, this clarity is lost by most writers who do not understand the science of climate change or the scientific process. The real science, largely confined to obscure journals and conferences, presented here is sure to astonish any reader who is not an expert in the field. The long history and current maturity of the science of global warming will also surprise many readers who have not followed the scientific literature over the last 40 years. There exists a large rift in perception and understanding of global warming, between scientists and the rest of society. This is in part because the rather complex science of global warming is not easily communicated between the two groups, and in part because scientists tend to focus on communicating to their peers while most people focus on understanding science that manifests itself in immediate and tangible form. In such a case, we must wait for the field to become mature and for a scientist capable of communicating to a larger audience to step forward and bridge the gap. We are fortunate that someone as capable as Weart (Directory of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics) has taken such care to present the science and history of one of the most important scientific issues of our day.
Rating:
Summary: On Global Warming's Trail
Review: This fairly slight volume is an important addition to the study of global warming. The book, easily understood by the average lay reader, recounts the history of climate change research starting in about 1896. I should point out that the reader will not take away a reasonably thorough knowledge of global warming science from the book. That is not its purpose. You do learn some elements of the science involved, but essentially you learn how our present day view of climate change came about. Our knowledge of our climate chugged along at a fairly slow rate over the last 108 years for several reasons. A major problem was the essential need for the involvement of a wide variety of scientific specialties. In order to advance the study we have needed the input of physicists, oceanographers, geologists, chemists, meteorologists and even botanists. It is rare that such a diverse group of scientists are needed for an advance in a certain area. Weart describes how all of these researchers started working together in their search for answers to global climate change. The second major difficulty was the lack of certain technologies necessary to achieve meaningful progress. Only recently have we had computers fast enough to process the data in climate modeling programs. Technological advances also had to be made in the equipment needed to take kilometers deep core samples from ice and other strata. Researchers had to learn the hard way that you can't even breathe on ice cores as your breath will contaminate the sample. Weart brings us up to the present and discusses the roles of journalism and politics in advancing and often hindering the governmental support for the recommendations of scientists. The author has no doubt that our planet is warming up, and notes that literally thousands of scientists now support this conclusion. Again, if you are trying to learn the science basics of this topic, you will need a companion volume to this one for that material. Here's a few you might consider:
1.The No-nonsense guide to Climate Change, by Dinyar Godrej
2. Atmosphere, Climate and Change by Thomas Gredel and Paul Crutzen
3. Climate Change by William James Burroughs
4.Is the Temperature Rising? By S. George Philander
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