Herrera: ‘Cool It’ hugely logical

“Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming” by Bjorn Lomborg is PNA Book Club’s third member selection.

A “Cool It” book review by Roger Herrera appears on page 5 of this issue of Petroleum News.

"Coot It" takes on an issue that has become more emotional than scientific, but it does so by accepting much of the dogma associated with global warming without rancor or dispute and then politely re-analyzing the conclusions reached in the Kyoto Protocol to show that they are stupidly expensive and are counterproductive to the best interests of the world’s population,” Herrera said.

Lomborg concludes that Kyoto, if put into practice, would succeed in reducing the world’s average temperature by 0.3 F towards the end of the century at a cost of more than $5 trillion. “Hardly a bargain or a solution,” Herrera said.

“Cool It” is unusual for a PNA Book Club selection in that it deals with the science of the oil and gas industry on only a cursory level.

But Herrera thinks every oil industry employee and every energy CEO should read it. He said the book has “the great attributes of being short … highly readable and hugely logical.”

So instead of being recommended reading, the book club’s editor decided to make it a club selection.

A member forum review for “Cool It” starts Nov. 26, at www.pnabookclub.com. (The member forum for “Oil on the Brain,” the book club’s second selection, just got started.)

PNA Book Club is owned by Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska LLC, which publishes Petroleum News, a weekly oil and gas newspaper based in Anchorage, Alaska.

Whereas the newspaper’s goal is to provide objective news about the oil and gas industry in Alaska, and northern and western Canada, PNA Book Club is set up to put people from the energy industry in touch with authors of popular books: sometimes to educate them about the industry if their books contain misinformation; sometimes to congratulate them for accurately portraying the science behind the industry.

—Petroleum News