Just to add fuel to the fire...
That's a pretty disturbing speech. Crichton seems to be a pretty sharp fellow -- he should know better.
My biggest beef with the speech is that he implies that a scientific citation in a leading journal or panel means that whatever point of view is published is scientific fact. That's just not true; especially when it comes to climatic models which are exceeding complex and change often as new supercomputers and models become available.
All it means when you have a paper published in Nature or Science is that it passed peer-review and reflects a profound insight. It could very well turn out to be wrong.
I could probably provide 10 major citations for every one of Crighton's that support a different position.
If the study he quoted about global warming is the one I think it is, it's because the soil has already absorbed so much CO2 during the 20th century that it'll continue out-gassing for some time to come -- even if we cut 100% now. Of course, if we don't cut CO2 emissions it'll be worse later on.
It shouldn't be necessary to point out that a science fiction author probably isn't the best source for scientific insight.
