The physical phenomena in climate and weather change are among the most complex in nature, and science can say very little about what will happen to our environment in the future. Yet a large international policy framework has been built precisely on the assumption that we know what is happening and how to control it. In Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming, Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick prove this internationally accepted assumption is false.

Essex and McKitrick explain the science of climate change and show that the widespread belief in global warming is really a house of cards. Along the way they expose society's precarious relationship with science, and propose that the breakdown in this relationship is at the heart of the policy crisis around climate change. Their book proposes a new way of dealing with public issues involving environmental and scientific research that allows the scientific and political processes to function with integrity without undermining each other.


"Any politician who has failed to read this book and yet is willing to commit society's resources to avert global warming has been derelict in his or her duty to the public."
- Professor G. Cornelius Van Kooten,
Canada Research Chair in Environmental Studies and Climate Change, University of Victoria.

"In Taken By Storm Essex and McKitrick offer a scientifically sound argument that is against the mainstream. Let's open up a debate and see who is willing to participate."
- Professor Anastasios Tsonis,
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Atmospheric Sciences Group, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee


"Essex and McKitrick cut through all the obfuscation and double speak which surrounds one of the most complex scientific and economic issues of our times. This book should be required reading by policy makers, and any one in the general public who is concerned about what the Kyoto Accord really means for the environment and the economy."
- Professor Timothy Patterson,
Paleoclimatologist, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University

" I strongly recommend this book."
- Dr. Willie Soon,
Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Harvard University