State of Fear

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State of Fear

MICHAEL CRICHTON
2004

INTRODUCTION
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
PLOT SUMMARY
CHARACTERS
THEMES
STYLE
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
CRITICAL OVERVIEW
CRITICISM
SOURCES
FURTHER READING

INTRODUCTION

Before publishing State of Fear in 2004, Michael Crichton spent three years researching the novel. He pored over numerous texts dealing with the environment, pollution, global warming, and environmental policy. Though Crichton's novel is a work of fiction, it relies heavily on scientific data and research. He employs dozens of footnotes and graphs throughout the novel that go hand in hand with the fiction. In the novel's preface, he writes that "this is a work of fiction…. However, references to real people, institutions, and organizations that are documented in footnotes are accurate. Footnotes are real."

State of Fear couples Crichton's scientific research and data with a fast-paced plot in which a small group of individuals attempt to thwart the actions of an eco-terrorist group. The eco-terrorists are attempting to create a series of apparently natural disasters and fool the public into believing that the events are the result of the adverse effects of global warming. The terrorists plan a series of five disasters, including breaking off a huge chunk of Antarctica, causing a flash flood in Arizona, creating a large hurricane, and finally using explosives to cause a large tsunami.

Aside from the entertaining action in State of Fear, Crichton also introduces important social issues especially relevant to the twenty-first century, including the influence and role of both corporations and media outlets in scientific research and public opinion. The novel contains an "Author's Message," in which Crichton shares his point of view on the various issues addressed in the book. This includes an appendix entitled "Why Politicized Science is Dangerous," a short essay in which Crichton suggests fundamental changes in the way that environmental research and environmental policy is undertaken and understood, warning against the dangers of "politicized science."

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

John Michael Crichton was born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 23, 1942, to John Henderson and Zula (Miller) Crichton. Crichton grew up in Roslyn, New York, and as an adolescent distinguished himself both inside and outside of the classroom. Crichton was six feet, seven inches tall by the time he was sixteen years old and was a valuable member of the Roslyn High School basketball team. Inside the classroom, Crichton's teachers marveled at his intelligence and his remarkable writing talent. At the age of fourteen, Crichton published his first piece, a travel article, in the New York Times.

Crichton's early success at writing led him initially to pursue a writing career, studying in the English department at Harvard University. Upset by a professor's lukewarm reactions to his writing, Crichton soon became disillusioned with the Harvard English department and switched his academic focus. He graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in anthropology in 1964.

In 1965, Crichton continued his education at Harvard Medical School, and to help pay his medical-school tuition expenses, he started writing novels under various pseudonyms. In 1966, he published his first novel, Odds On, earning him two thousand dollars. Crichton published four more books under a pseudonym in medical school before publishing The Andromeda Strain, his first runaway success, under his own name in 1969. The book became a bestseller and was released as a movie by Universal Studios in 1971.

After graduating from medical school and following the success of The Andromeda Strain, Crichton abandoned his pursuit of a medical career in favor of writing. After The Andromeda Strain, he continued to publish successful "techno-thriller" novels. Crichton is credited with inventing the "techno-thriller" genre, which combines technology (often bio-technology), suspense, and social commentary. In the 1970s and 1980s, Crichton produced a number of acclaimed and bestselling thrillers including The Great Train Robbery, Eaters of the Dead, The Terminal Man, Congo, and Sphere. In 1990, Crichton published Jurassic Park, which critics lauded as his best novel to date; he followed with a sequel, The Lost World, in 1995. Both novels were turned into blockbuster Hollywood movies, helping cement Crichton's stature as one of the most successful and recognized American writers of his time.

In 2004, Crichton again topped several best-seller lists with the publication of his novel State of Fear, a technological thriller dealing with the science and controversy concerning global warming. In addition to his numerous science fiction books, Crichton co-created the hit television show ER and has written a historical novel, film scripts, and works of nonfiction. Crichton has won numerous awards including an Academy Award, an Emmy, and a Peabody Award.

PLOT SUMMARY

Part 1: Akamai

The novel opens on a May afternoon in Paris, France. Jonathan Marshall, a graduate student in physics, has met an attractive young woman named Marisa at a cafe and has taken her back to the wave mechanics laboratory that he is working at for the summer. Marisa pretends to be very interested in Marshall and his work, asking seemingly naive questions about the lab equipment and the security cameras in the lab. Marisa then takes Marshal back to her apartment where she seduces him. Soon after, three men burst into the apartment. The men hold the naked Marshall down on his stomach and inject something into his arm. They quickly leave and Marisa claims that they are merely friends of her boyfriend Jimmy, playing a cruel trick on them. Marshall soon begins to feel ill and decides to leave for home. Marisa agrees to drive him home, but on the way to her car, Marshall's condition deteriorates until he is eventually unable to move at all. After Marshall becomes completely paralyzed, Marisa throws him into the Seine River, where he drowns.

The narrative next shifts to a rain forest in Malaysia. Charles Ling has flown in from Hong Kong the night before to pick up a potential customer who identifies himself as Allan Peterson and claims to be a geologist from Canada. Ling sells cavitation machines that are able to create pits or cavities in solid substances by means of focused sound waves. He takes Peterson into the rain forest where he demonstrates the operation of one of his machines, leveling two sections of cliff. Peterson quickly agrees to buy three cavitation units and has Ling take him back to the airport.

In London, an American man has come to the office of Richard Mallory to pick up a secret package. The package is a box of wire. As the box weighs some seven hundred pounds, Mallory helps the American load the wire into his delivery van. After they load the wire into the van, the van's driver, a woman dressed in military attire, attacks the American and pierces his neck with something that she has hidden behind her back. He curses and runs away from the van toward the street outside. Mallory is shocked by the woman's actions, but she warns him to keep quiet and go back to work and then drives away. Mallory returns to his office but soon hears sirens. He walks outside and sees that a pedestrian has been hit and fatally injured by a bus. The pedestrian is the American man who just fled from the delivery van.

The next scene takes place in Tokyo at the offices of the IDEC (International Data Environmental Consortium). Akira Hitomi, the IDEC director, presents information to John Kenner and Sanjong Thapa about the results of his company's latest research. The IDEC is the world leader in accumulating and manipulating electronic data. Hitomi summarizes the data collected from the last twenty-one days. He reports increased cellular traffic and heavily encrypted e-mail transmissions pointing to a large secretive project in the works that is "global in scope, immensely complicated, extremely expensive."

In Vancouver one week later, Nat Damon, who works for Canada Marine RS Technologies, signs a nondisclosure agreement with a new client, Seismic Services. Damon's company rents research and remote submarines to energy companies. While discussing the client's needs, Damon becomes suspicious when the men answer his questions vaguely. They tell him they want to place external devices on the ocean floor. The men pay the expensive fee for renting the submarine up-front, and Damon feels as though there is more to their story than they are letting on.

The next scene takes place in Iceland. Philanthropist George Morton, NERF (National Environmental Resource Fund) director Nicholas Drake, and lawyer Peter Evans have flown into Reykjavik and driven out to a remote glacial research site. Morton has personally funded this particular research project and the group has come to analyze the progress of the research. While Morton and Evans are distracted by the presence of two beautiful local graduate students, Drake gets into a confrontation with Dr. Per Einarsson, the lead scientist on the research project, about what specific findings he will publish concerning the research.

After returning from Iceland to Los Angeles, Evans and Morton meet with Thapa and Kenner, who advise Morton to hold off any further contributions to Drake and NERF. At Morton's insistence, Evans visits the offices of NERF's Vanutu litigation team; they are planning to sue the United States over rising sea levels caused by global warming, which is threatening the low-lying atolls of Vanutu. He meets the famous litigator John Balder, who is in charge of the team, and his assistant, Jennifer Haynes, who the reader later learns is Kenner's niece.

Drake has planned a well-publicized charity event in which he gives Morton NERF's Citizen of the Year award. However, upon accepting the award, a drunken Morton mysteriously and publicly lambastes Drake and NERF before driving off in his Ferrari. Evans attempts to follow Morton and comes upon the scene of Morton's wrecked Ferrari, and although there is no body, pieces of Morton's clothing are found. It is assumed that he has been swept away by the ocean.

After the accident, there are a series of unexplained break-ins and mysterious attacks. Recalling Morton's last words to him, Evans uncovers a hidden piece of paper with a set of coordinates. Kenner and Thapa realize the coordinates represent geographical locations, and the first one on the list is Mt. Terror, Antarctica.

Part 2: Terror

Part 2 opens with Kenner, Evans, Sarah Jones, and Thapa on a long flight to Antarctica. During the flight, Kenner explains to Jones and Evans that intelligence has uncovered information that members of ELF (Environmental Liberation Front) have been purchasing some very expensive equipment, including military equipment and experimental technology to enact an as-yet-unknown plan. The four on the plane are traveling to Antarctica to try to find out more about what ELF has in the works.

After landing on the runway at Marso del Mar, the team is transported to Weddell Station, the base nearest Mount Terror. Kenner has learned of a scientist who has recently arrived and set up a camp south of Mount Terror, calling himself James Brewster. After investigating his credentials, Kenner finds the man to be an impostor. The team sets out to investigate his camp, traveling over the dangerous Antarctic shear zone in snowtracks, a special kind of treaded automobile designed to cross the rugged, icy landscape. A local researcher calling himself Jimmy Bolden leads the way. Upon arriving and inspecting the camp, the team finds that Brewster has set a number of PTB (precision-timed blast) cones at regular intervals along an Antarctic shelf, and Kenner explains, "I think there's no question of what he intends. Our friend Brewster is hoping to fracture the ice for a hundred miles, and break off the biggest iceberg in the history of the planet."

Kenner directs the team to split up, and he follows Brewster's tracks in his snowtrack while Jones and Evans follow Bolden back to Weddell Station in their snowtrack. Along the drive back to camp, Bolden tells Jones and Evans that they will take a short cut. Traveling down this new route, a transmission comes across the radio from Weddell Station that Jimmy Bolden has been found unconscious in a maintenance room. Evans and Jones realize that their guide is actually an ELF operative in disguise. The impostor calling himself Bolden has led them out to a dangerous ice shelf. When they try to escape, the ice cracks and the two tumble down a crevasse along with their vehicle.

Evans and Jones manage to climb out of the crevasse and attempt to walk back to camp in the freezing temperatures. Just before the two succumb to the elements, they come across a small NASA vehicle with a transmitter, through which Evans is able to relay their location back to Weddell Station. The two are rescued and brought back to the station. Through computer investigation, Kenner and Thapa determine that the man who identified himself as Brewster is actually David R. Kane, a graduate student from the University of Michigan. Upon going through Kane's belongings the team finds a photograph with coordinates and containing the caption "Scorpion B." They determine that it shows the site of another ELF operation in a place called Resolution Bay in the Solomon Islands. The team boards a plane back to Los Angeles.

Part 3: Angel

On the flight back to Los Angeles, Kenner informs Evans that he needs him to plant a bugged listening device in Drake's office in order to further monitor the NERF/ELF communications. Evans is reluctant at first, but finally agrees at Kenner's insistence.

After arriving in Los Angeles, Evans returns to his apartment, where he meets a private investigator who claims he was hired by George Morton. He tells Evans that he will return later that morning with "something important," and asks Evans to leave his apartment door unlocked when he leaves.

Kenner and Jones go to a military surplus store. Kenner has learned that ELF purchased a large number of rockets from the store. When questioning a store employee, Jones spots the man known as "Brewster" and chases after him. Jones and Kenner tail Brewster until a man driving a blue pickuptruck picks him up. It turns out the man driving the truck is the Bolden impostor. Kenner and Jones follow the truck to a private airfield. In a building near the airfield, Kenner and Jones discover a kind of testing facility in which an engine is repeatedly struck by lightning. While they are inspecting the testing machinery, Bolden and Brewster lock them in the test chamber and restart the testing sequence, intending to electrocute Kenner and Jones. Bolden asks how long they can survive, and Brewster answers, "One bolt, maybe two, but by the third one, they're definitely dead. And probably on fire."

Part 4: Flash

Finding themselves locked in the testing room with only seconds before the lightning starts striking, Kenner quickly tells Jones to strip off all of her clothes, especially anything containing metal. Kenner likewise strips and piles all of their cast-off clothing on the engine where the lighting will strike. Next, he tells Jones to lie flat on the floor, close her eyes, and not get up. Soon the next "test" begins and lightning starts blasting the engine. Their clothes catch fire, which in turn creates smoke, activating the emergency sprinkler system. Though Jones suffers singed hair and some body burns, the two survive the near-death experience relatively unharmed.

Evans returns to his apartment to find the private investigator whom he had been expecting sitting on his couch. However, Evans soon realizes that something is terribly wrong, as the investigator does not respond and cannot move or even blink his eyes. Evans calls an ambulance. After talking to a detective about the man's condition and denying any knowledge of what happened to him, Evans discovers a DVD left behind by the investigator. He inserts the DVD into his player and views a recording apparently made with a hidden camera in a NERF conference room. The tape shows Drake and NERF PR director John Henley arguing about the organization, funding, the upcoming conference, and how they can manipulate the public.

Evans removes the DVD and goes to Drake's office. He visits with Drake and purposefully leaves behind a bugged cell phone. Evans then goes back to his apartment and watches more footage on the DVD before he is interrupted by a phone call from Thapa informing him that they must leave immediately.

Part 5: Snake

As Thapa and Evans fly over the Arizona desert in a helicopter, Thapa explains to Evans the latest data that has come in concerning the ELF/NERF operation in Arizona. Intelligence has learned that operatives are planning to launch about one hundred and fifty rockets in the air to an altitude of about one thousand feet; however, Thapa, in the presence of the helicopter pilot, will not reveal what the operatives are trying to accomplish.

In a Flagstaff restaurant, Kenner explains the Arizona operation that ELF/NERF is planning: they will shoot the rockets into a developing thunderstorm in an attempt to strengthen it, creating a devastating flash-flood that will engulf campers in nearby national and state parks.

The next day, near McKinley State Park, Evans and Jones are driving in an SUV when they see the same battered blue truck that Bolden picked up Brewster in. The pickup truck rams the SUV once and then drops back. Soon after, lightning begins striking the SUV directly, as if something on the vehicle is attracting all the lightning in the area. As the lightning strikes to the SUV become more frequent and damaging, Evans and Jones abandon the vehicle and seek shelter first in the forest and then in an old building. Despite their efforts to avoid the lightning, it continues to strike around them and eventually Jones is struck directly, knocking her unconscious.

Kenner, in his own SUV, finds himself attracting lightning strikes just as Evans and Jones did, but he soon realizes what is causing the unnatural strikes. The radios that the team is using to communicate with each other have been tampered with and implanted with a mechanism that attracts the lightning strikes. Upon realizing this, Kenner tells the others and orders them to throw their radios away. Evans discards his radio and administers mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Jones, bringing her back to consciousness. Though Jones and Evans never reach their intended rocket array, both Thapa and Kenner reach their respective arrays. They get into gunfights with the ELF/NERF operatives, and have limited success in stopping the rocket launches. The park begins to flood; Jones and Evans, having returned to their SUV, find themselves being swept away in the rushing water. Just before their SUV topples over an overpass, the two manage to climb out and safely transfer to Thapa's SUV. Thanks to the efforts of Kenner, Jones, Evans, and Thapa, as well as a local state trooper, all the innocent campers escape the flood safely.

Jones is treated for her lightning strike at a Flagstaff hospital and the group returns home to Los Angeles. Back in Los Angeles, Evans meets with Jennifer Haynes, who shows him several sets of environmental and temperature data to explain the complexities of the Vanutu litigation. Haynes reveals to Evans that NERF cannot possibly win the case in court, and that the whole set up and press conference that is about to take place announcing the lawsuit is merely for publicity. NERF never actually intended to take the case to trial. During the press conference, Drake reports from loudspeaker, "I have an extremely sad announcement to make. I have just been handed a note that says the body of my dear friend George Morton has been found."

Evans is summoned to identify the body of Morton, but the report is that the body has been partially devoured by sharks. When inspecting the body, Evans looks for familiar identifying signs. Though he has some doubts, he concedes that it is most likely Morton's body. After arriving back at his apartment, someone attacks Evans, hitting him on the head with a blunt object. He is held as his assailants produce a small octopus that bites Evans on the arm. As the assailants flee, Evans struggles to a chair and his condition rapidly deteriorates:

He could not lift his head. He could not move his arms. He could not even move his eyes. He stared and the fabric of the chair and the carpet on the floor and he thought, This is the last thing I will see before I die.

Part 6: Blue

Evans's sometimes-girlfriend Janis arrives at his apartment to find him in an unresponsive state; soon after, Jones arrives and calls an ambulance. Under hospital care at UCLA medical center, Evans survives; he is told that he was bitten by a blue-ringed octopus, whose potentially deadly poison has no known antidote. Once recovered, he is able to attend Drake's much publicized conference on abrupt climate change. Among the audience members of the conference is the notorious Dr. Norman Hoffman, who attempts to disrupt the proceedings by defaming Drake and the other promoters of the conference, whom he calls "fearmongers." Evans is charged with keeping Hoffman occupied to avoid further disruption of the proceedings; he takes Hoffman aside and talks with the scientist about his various theories and views.

During the conference, Kenner deduces that ELF/NERF operatives are planning to create a massive tsunami originating in the Solomon Islands off the coast of Resolution Bay. Shortly after learning this new information, Kenner, Thapa, Evans, Jones, Haynes, and Ted Bradley depart by plane to Resolution Bay.

MEDIA ADAPTATIONS

State of Fear (2004) is available in unabridged audio on both cassette and CD through Harper Collins Audio. The novel is narrated by George Wilson.

Part 7: Resolution

The team is transported by helicopter to a landing site near Resolution Bay, but they soon realize that they have been double-crossed by their pilot as soldiers emerge from the jungle shooting at them. While attempting to hike into the operation site, all of the team except for Thapa is captured by local rebels. A grisly scene ensues in which Bradley is bound with ropes and beaten by a frenzied crowd before being eaten alive in a cannibalistic ceremony. Kenner and Evans manage to escape with the help of Morton, who, the reader learns, faked his death and has been working to thwart ELF/NERF's efforts since he first went missing. Together, the team sabotages the creation of the massive tsunami. The novel ends on the flight back to California, during which Morton excitedly spells out his vision for the future of environmental activism and research.

CHARACTERS

John Balder

Balder is a famous litigator. He has been hired by George Morton to lead the legal team on the Vanutu suit. His nickname is the "Bald Eagle," and he always dresses in blue: a blue suit, shirt, and tie. Balder is extremely confident, bordering on arrogant, and enjoys his fame and reputation.

Barry Beckman

Beckman is a famous litigator who has been hired to defend the United States against the Vanutu litigation. He is something of a law prodigy, having become a professor at Stanford Law School at the age of twenty-eight. Crichton writes, "Beckman had an incredibly agile mind, a charming manner, a quick sense of humor, and a photographic memory."

Jimmy Bolden

Bolden is a researcher working at Weddell Station in Antarctica who is attacked and placed in a maintenance room by ELF/NERF operatives. One of the operatives assumes his identity and repeatedly attempts to kill Evans, Kenner, and Jones.

Ted Bradley

An actor friend of Peter Evans, Bradley accompanies the team to the Solomon Islands. When they are captured by local rebels, Bradley is beaten by a mob and then eaten alive in a cannibalistic ceremony.

James Brewster

The real James Brewster in the novel is a professor at the University of Michigan. One of his graduate students, an ELF/NERF key operative named David R. Kane, impersonates him, and thus the other characters in the novel refer to Kane simply as "Brewster."

Nat Damon

Damon owns and operates a company called Canada Marine RS Technologies, a company that leases research submarines to clients around the world. He is murdered by ELF/NERF after securing a submarine lease for them.

Nicholas Drake

Drake was a highly successful litigator who retired to become the director of NERF (National Environmental Resource Fund), an American environmental activist group. Drake has spent the last ten years heading NERF, attempting to raise funds and public awareness about what he describes as an imminent global crisis: global warming. Although Drake usually assumes a reserved and calm public demeanor, he is easily angered and loses his temper periodically throughout the novel.

Per Einarsson

Einarsson is a leading geological researcher working at a glacial site in Iceland. He refuses to have his reputation compromised by reporting the findings of his research in language dictated by Drake. Einarsson values his academic reputation in the scientific research community above all else and refuses to compromise at all with Drake.

Peter Evans

Evans is a twenty-eight-year-old junior associate at the Los Angeles law firm of Hassle and Black. Morton considers Evans his favorite lawyer and often solicits his counsel in legal and other matters. As the novel progresses, Evans learns of the plot by NERF to cause a series of "natural" disasters to coincide with Drake's much publicized conference on global warming. He helps John Kenner in his attempt to thwart Drake, nearly getting killed several times in traveling to Antarctica, Arizona, and the Solomon Islands as he helps sabotage the efforts of the NERF/ELF operatives.

Jennifer Haynes

Haynes is an associate of John Balder. She is working for Morton on the Vanutu lawsuit. As the novel progresses, she works closely with Kenner, Evans, and Thapa on trying to prevent the would-be natural disasters. Like her uncle, John Kenner, she possesses a remarkable bearing, competence, and extensive and varied knowledge.

John Henley

Henley is the head of Public Relations for NERF. In several scenes, it is suggested that Henley is the mastermind behind the secret NERF/ELF operations.

Akira Hitomi

Hitomi is the director of the IDEC (International Data Environmental Consortium), a group that monitors data and communication transmissions around the world. He is employed by John Kenner to monitor a network of wouldbe environmental terrorists.

Norman Hoffman

Hoffman is an eccentric professor emeritus from USC. He studies what he terms the "ecology of thought" and is one of a few academics publicly criticizing the current environmental movement. He fancies himself a kind of scientific prophet crying out in the academic wilderness.

Jimmy

Jimmy is one of the eco-terrorist conspirators; in Chapter 1, he pretends to be the hotheaded boyfriend of the beautiful Marisa, who lets herself be "rescued" by an unsuspecting scientist; after Marisa seduces the scientist and extracts information, the eco-terrorists execute him. Jimmy and Marisa later try to lure George Morton in the same way, but fail.

Sarah Jones

Jones is Morton's personal assistant. As Kenner and Morton begin to work together to thwart the operations of ELF/NERF, Jones travels with Kenner, Thapa, and Evans and acts as a key player in the team's attempts to sabotage the operative's plans. She has a romantic interest in Peter Evans and thus becomes jealous of Jennifer Haynes.

David Kane

Kane is a graduate student at the University of Michigan and an ELF/NERF agent. He assumes the identity of one of his professors, James Brewster, and other characters in the novel often refer to him as "Brewster." Kenner and his team find Kane posing as Brewster in Antarctica and discover he has set a line of explosives there that will cause an enormous chunk of ice to break off into the ocean.

John Kenner

Kenner is one of the most heroic and enterprising characters in Crichton's novel. At thirty-nine years old, he can boast a number of accomplishments. He has a doctorate in civil engineering from Caltech as well as a law degree from Harvard Law School. He is a consultant to the EPA, the Department of Defense, the government of Nepal, and the U.S. Department of the Interior. He is an expert skier and mountain climber. In addition to all his accomplishments, it becomes evident throughout the novel that he is a kind of jack-of-all-trades and has a vast and assorted knowledge on a host of unrelated subjects. Through his experiences with tracking ELF/NERF and his conversation with Dr. Norman Hoffman, Kenner comes to see global warming very differently.

John Kim

Kim is the bank manager at Scotiabank in Vancouver, and one, among several, of Morton's bankers around the world.

Margaret Lane

See Margo Lane.

Margo Lane

Margaret Lane, who also calls herself Margo, is one of Morton's mistresses. Crichton describes her as "an ex-actress with a bad temper and propensity for litigation." She is extremely fickle and demanding, and often makes demands, not just of Morton, but also of Evans as his attorney. After Morton disappears and is assumed dead, Margo is attacked by eco-terrorists and is hospitalized.

Charles Ling

Ling is based out of Hong Kong and sells cavitation machines, instruments that create large cavities in the earth using sound waves.

Herb Lowenstein

Lowenstein is a lawyer at Hassle and Black. He is a senior partner on George Morton's account and handles mostly estate management. He is fond of pulling rank and disparaging Evans at the law firm.

Richard Mallory

Mallory is the owner of a London graphics shop called Design/Quest. Mallory supplies the ELF/NERF network with half a million feet of wire that will eventually be used in ELF's Arizona operation.

Marisa

Marisa is a sexy, exotic young woman who seduces Jonathan Marshall and aids in his murder. She later attempts to seduce Morton but her efforts are thwarted with the unexpected arrival of Morton's assistant, Sarah Jones.

Jonathan Marshall

Marshall is a twenty-four-year-old graduate student in physics working at the Laboratoire Ondulatoire wave mechanics laboratory north of Paris. At the beginning of the novel, he is fooled into allowing two ELF operatives access to the lab, and unwittingly provides them with scientific data that will be used in a future project. Marshall is poisoned and drowned in the Seine River, the first victim of the ELF/NERF network.

George Morton

Morton is a millionaire philanthropist. After gaining his fortune, he has devoted much of his time to various environmental causes. He has a penchant for beautiful women and expensive foreign racecars. As the novel progresses, George goes from a relatively naive foundation donor to a visionary environmental philosopher with novel and radical ideas for creating a more effective and less corrupt string of environmental action groups.

Allan Peterson

Peterson is the alias given by an apparent ELF/NERF operative who arranges for the purchase of the cavitation machines from Charles Ling.

Lisa Ray

Ray is Herb Lowenstein's personal assistant, "a bright-eyed twenty-seven-year-old, and a dedicated gossip." Evans relies on Ray to find out the latest gossip and office information.

Miguel Rodriguez

Rodriguez is an Arizona State Trooper who works with Kenner to save the lives of campers caught in the Arizona flash flood.

Sanjong Thapa

Thapa is Kenner's Nepalese colleague and right-hand-man. Kenner met Thapa during one of his mountain climbing trips and soon after found Thapa indispensable. Thapa is compact, resourceful, and agile. He has an unspecified but considerable amount of military training. Thapa is a whiz with gadgets, firearms, and computers.

THEMES

Function of Fear

As the title of Crichton's novel suggests, a major theme in the novel is fear and societal reactions and behaviors associated with fear. Toward the end of the novel, Dr. Norman Hoffman says to Evans, "I study the ecology of thought … [a]nd how it has led to a State of Fear." Crichton explores the condition of modern society, a geographic and psychological State of Fear. One of the central ideas of the novel is that environmental crises are largely overstated and sensationalized, if not entirely fictional. Collective societal fears about pollution, global warming, severe weather patterns, and the threat of natural disaster result not so much from a true understanding of the scientific research and findings of the last century, but from largely irrational and emotional fears fed by a media that profits from sensational and fear-inducing reporting.

Dr. Hoffman argues that the central fear that occupied Americans before 1989 was the threat of "The Communist menace. The Iron Curtain. The Evil Empire," but the toppling of the Berlin Wall created a kind of fear vacuum that was soon filled by widespread but largely unfounded fears about the state of the environment. Hoffman questions both Evans and the reader:

Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing the culture of Western society really is?… Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, of disease, of crime, of the environment … they are convinced that the environment of the entire planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable! Like the belief in witchcraft, it's an extraordinary delusion—a global fantasy worthy of the Middle Ages. Everything is going to hell, and we must all live in fear.

Although it would be a mistake to equate the views of the character of Dr. Hoffman with those of the author Crichton, both Crichton and Hoffman clearly share a profound concern about the deluding effects of fear, especially as propagated by the mass media. For example, John Kenner, clearly a likeable and level-headed character in the novel, at one point addresses the misleading function of fear:

Remember African killer bees? There was talk of them for years. They're here now, and apparently there's no problem. Remember Y2K? Everything you read back then said disaster was imminent. Went on for months. But in the end, it just wasn't true.

In State of Fear, Crichton does not advocate that readers should remove fear completely from society and media reports, as he sees fear as something inherent in the functioning of every society. What he does argue for is a greater awareness of how fear functions, especially through the media and the academic realms, in the hopes of a more informed and better educated public. At the end of the novel, in a section labeled "Author's Message," Crichton writes of respect for "the corrosive influence of bias, systematic distortions of thought, the power of rationalizations, the guises of self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended consequences." Though Crichton claims that modern society currently lives in a rather bleak state of perpetual and unfounded fears, he holds out hope of a better society through education, unbiased information and research, and the willingness to change.

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY

A fundamental concern in Crichton's novel State of Fear involves the question of whether or not global warming is indeed taking place at all. Conduct research in order to formulate your own personal position on global warming. Is it an actual phenomenon or merely a scientific theory lacking any solid evidence? Present a five-minute oral presentation outlining your position and your reasons for it.
After the actual novel ends, Crichton includes a section entitled "Why Politicized Science is Dangerous." Why does he include this section at the end of the novel, and what specifically does Crichton cite as dangerous about "politicized science?" Write a two-page paper detailing the negative consequences that could result from scientific research tied to politics and politicians.
Perhaps one of the most interesting and memorable of Crichton's characters in State of Fear is Dr. Norman Hoffman. One might easily find disagreement about whether or not Hoffman is a likeable character. Create a character sketch of Hoffman, listing all of his beliefs about fear and global warming. In a three-paragraph essay, try to answer the question of whether or not he is meant to be a likeable character.
Two characters in State of Fear undergo significant ideological changes between the beginning of the novel and the end: both Peter Evans and George Morton shift perspectives by the novel's end. Discuss exactly how the two change. Do their transformations in any way reflect your experience as a reader encountering the novel from beginning to end? Write a one-page essay examining both the characters' changes and your own.

The Limits of Knowledge

Apart from the function of fear, perhaps the next most pervasive theme in the novel involves the limits of human knowledge. Crichton opens his "Author's Message" with the assertion that"[w]e know astonishingly little about every aspect of the environment, from its past history, to its present state, to how to conserve and protect it." In this single sentence, Crichton sums up much of the environmental debate that pervades the novel. Characters from John Kenner to Sanjong Thapa to Jennifer Haynes catalog the mixed and contradictory findings of the past years of scientific research, and the assumptions about the environment held by the public and reported in the news. Although various "experts" claim to have various solutions to the environmental problems, phenomena such as global warming and scarcity of natural resources may not actually exist. Likewise, the track record of environmental preservation has been a dismal one, filled with blunder after blunder. In the end, Crichton advocates a renewed focus on improved research and caution, always taking into account modern society's very limited knowledge of the complexity of the environment. He writes:

We haven't the foggiest notion how to preserve what we term "wilderness," and we had better study it in the field and learn how to do so. I see no evidence that we are conducting such research in a humble, rational, and systematic way.

Doubt

As a facet of both fear and the limits of knowledge, doubt plays a large role in the novel, beginning with Crichton himself, who doubts popularly-held world views on global warming. From his initial doubt and rejection of conventional science on the subject of ecology and global warming, he writes a novel in which several main characters express their own doubt about the same issues. The most notable doubter is Dr. Hoffman, who expresses his doubt over the "State of Fear" in which the world lives. His doubt over the dire state of the environment leads him to create a philosophy in which he determines that fear is the motivating factor in most political and ideological decisions: "social control is best managed through fear."

Crichton is not suggesting that readers abandon their beliefs in existing issues, or even change their stances on them. Doubt is actually a good thing when it comes to politics and policies. It is through doubt, he suggests, that individuals come to see the issues in a new light. After Evans's conversation with Dr. Hoffman, he too becomes skeptical of the idea of global warming. While he does not thoroughly reject it like Hoffman, he views it with a new skepticism.

STYLE

Episodic Form

State of Fear consists of a number of short sections or episodes, often only a few pages in length. Episodes are scenes in a narrative that function independently, yet must be connected to other episodes in order to create the larger story. In structure they function similarly to episodes of a television program.

This style can present a challenge to the reader; though the sections proceed chronologically, they frequently jump from one location to the next. Thus, the reader is forced to piece together a series of initially disconnected narratives and characters. This technique contributes to the sense of several events happening at once, and adds suspense as the reader pieces together the different stories and threads. At times, the connections are obvious; at other times, they are very subtle, and the reader must use his or her power of deduction, picking up on clues to put the large puzzle of the narrative completely together. For example, the characters of Jimmy and Marisa seem to disappear from the novel altogether after their brief appearances in the first pages of the story. However, they reappear in the middle of the novel, at first glance as random, unnamed characters in a cafe. By picking up on small clues such as physical descriptions and behaviors, however, a reader can discern that Jimmy and Marisa have returned and are trying to trap Morton in the same way that they fooled John Marshall at the beginning of the book.

Humor

Another distinctive feature of Crichton's writing style in State of Fear is his use of subtle and, at times, dark humor. He uses humor to lighten the subject matter, which in some places can be heavy and dense with information. In his "Author's Message" Crichton writes, "we need more scientists and many fewer lawyers." In fact, throughout the novel Crichton makes a number of jibes at lawyers. For example, when Evans and Jones are riding in an SUV and Jones is feeling insecure about Evans's abilities in a dangerous situation, he reluctantly admits that his physical activities and hobbies are of no use in their situation: "I don't shoot guns … I'm a lawyer, for Christ's sake."

In another, darker example of Crichton's humor, Ted Bradley, in the plane en route to the Solomon Islands, states: "I mean, all that talk about cannibalism. Everybody knows it is not true. I read a book by some professor. There never were any cannibals, anywhere in the world. It's all a big myth." After landing on the island and extolling the beauty and virtues of"village life," Bradley is eaten alive in a massive cannibalistic ceremony. Crichton's use of humor here juxtaposes, or compares, the rejection of a theory—in this case, cannibalism—and the theory's reality. In this way, he is perhaps poking fun at his own rejection of commonly held social beliefs.

Suspense

Crichton's use of an episodic plot is just one way in which he builds suspense in State of Fear. Suspense is the rising tension and drama in a novel, which creates uncertainty in the reader as to what will happen next. Suspense is an integral part of many of Crichton's works, and is the primary tool for turning a book about global warming into a page-turning thriller.

For example, when Morton's Ferrari is found smashed in an accident, only a shred of his clothing is left. Without a body to confirm his death, readers may suspect that he is not dead at all. Authorities assume that he was swept away by the ocean. When his body is supposedly found and Evans must identify it, he struggles to find any physical characteristics that would definitively identify the corpse as Morton. Once again, Crichton builds the reader's suspense by leaving open the possibility of doubt. This thread of suspense lasts until the end of the novel, when Morton rescues Evans and Jones from the rebels in the Solomon Islands and reveals that he faked his own death.

Crichton often withholds information from the reader to create suspense. For instance, when Nat Damon meets with ELF/NERF leaders about leasing a submarine, he does not know their true identity. Though he is suspicious of their plans and their inability to give specific information about their need for a submarine, he does not speak up and assumes that his suspicion is unfounded. However, his questioning of the men raises doubt for the reader, and builds suspense as to who the men are and what their plans for the submarine could truly be. These answers can only be found by continuing to read the novel.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Political Climate

Crichton's novel takes place in the relatively short historical span of five months, from May through October of 2004. Although Crichton sets his novel in 2004, the most important historical event that concerns the novel occurred three years before with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. On Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, nineteen men who were operatives of the militant Islamic group al-Qaeda hijacked four American airliners. Two planes were crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The third plane was crashed into the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Many commentators and historians have noted that the hijackings of September 11 mark the most lethal terrorist acts ever carried out on United States soil.

While there is minimal mention of the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, Crichton's novel clearly takes place in a very specific "post 9/11" historical and cultural environment. Central to the novel's action are descriptions of a complex network of data gathering agents and international intelligence agencies. For example, in Part 1, Akira Hitomi, the head of IDEC, informs John Kenner and Sanjong Thapa that "cellular traffic is accelerating. E-mail is heavily encrypted. STF rate is up. It is clear there is a project underway—global in scope, immensely complicated, extremely expensive." After September 11, the media reported extensively on how intelligence agencies gather data and assess the risk and threat of terrorist activities, often by picking up on increased cellular and electronic "chatter" exactly as described in the above passage from the book. This likewise equates the ELF/NERF group in the book with terrorists.

The Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to an international treaty aimed at reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that may contribute to global warming. The original treaty was drafted in 1992. The Kyoto Protocol came about in 1997 as an attempt to set specific goals and deadlines for achieving a reduction in greenhouse gases.

This agreement officially went into effect on February 16, 2005, with 141 countries having ratified its conditions. As of 2005, only a handful of countries had signed the protocol but not yet ratified it, the two largest being the United States and Australia. If a country does not ratify the protocol, it cannot be held accountable by other signatory nations. Since the United States is the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, the international community considers it imperative that the country agree to the protocol's terms.

At the time the Kyoto Protocol went into effect, President George W. Bush made it clear that he would not ratify the amendment because he believed it would have a negative impact on the United States economy. President Bush has also cited uncertainty regarding the science in support of global warming, undoubtedly referring to the same skeptics Crichton mentions in his footnotes and bibliography.

Environmental Overview

The year 2004 was marked by significant and highly publicized natural disasters. Seventeen earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.0 or above on the Richter Scale produced varying degrees of devastation and destruction. Even more notably, the deadliest tsunami in recorded history occurred on December 26, 2004. Waves from the tsunami caused massive damage and loss of life in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, the Maldives, and along the east coast of Africa. As of 2005, many communities are struggling with rebuilding their homes and lives amid water and food shortages and slow government response.

State of Fear eerily brings to mind this catastrophic event as "eco-terrorists" attempt to artificially create a deadly and much-publicized tsunami that coincides with Nicholas Drake's conference on global warming.

CRITICAL OVERVIEW

Of all the novels that Crichton has published in his long career, none have met with as much controversy as State of Fear. A number of critics, both literary and environmental, attacked Crichton about the theories posited in his novel. Ronald Bailey, writing in Reason, calls it "The Da Vinci Code with real facts, violent storms, and a different faith altogether." Many reviews indicate that Crichton has a clear agenda in the novel. Chris Mooney writes in the Skeptical Inquirer that the book is "a novel in name only." Instead, he writes, it is a "thinly disguised political commentary, in which a wildly implausible plot … serves as an excuse for a string of … dialogues about climate science." In his review in the New American, Dennis Behreandt writes that the book is solely a vehicle for "Crichton's concerns about global warming alarmism." Despite this, he says, because of Crichton's popularity, "it will almost certainly lead a vast number of readers to question, finally, the lies and myths perpetuated by the global warming cartel."

Noted environmentalist and activist Bill McKibben, in "Stranger than Fiction," reflects a commonly held critical view of the novel. He notes that the novel is part cliché, part scientific treaty, "directing readers to journals like Nature and The Lancet, along with the same small set of studies the climate skeptics have been promoting for years." He calls Crichton's idea of a manmade tsunami "laughable." The novel was also condemned for its pulp structure and questionable science by critics in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and a host of environmental and science magazines. Despite the considerable negative press the novel received after publication, it was a bestseller and was popular among Crichton's fans.

CRITICISM

Greg Wilson

In the following essay, pop-culture writer Wilson discusses Crichton's use of classic elements of espionage fiction in State of Fear.

Michael Crichton's State of Fear has been described by the publisher as an "eco-thriller," implying a new breed of suspense fiction hitherto unknown to the reading public. In truth, Crichton's novel recycles many familiar (and clichéd) conventions from Cold War spy fiction and simply places them into a modern setting, despite the fact that many of the conventions lose their original intent in the transition.

The first chapter of the novel takes place in France. It is a short vignette that ends with the viewpoint character's death. Never again does the story return to France, and the other characters introduced in this first chapter make only brief, insignificant appearances elsewhere in the book. Crichton continues this trend in the next five chapters, which take place in five more widely scattered locations: Malaysia, England, Japan, Canada, and Iceland. None of these locations figures heavily in the rest of the book. This is a classic technique in espionage fiction, meant to show that the events of the story take place on a global scale and, therefore, have global significance. It also provides a sense of exoticism and worldliness often associated with popular spy fiction, most likely due to the mainstream success of Ian Fleming's James Bond books.

It is not until the sixth chapter that the main protagonist, Peter Evans, is introduced. The first five chapters give the reader a sense of the sweeping conspiracy that Evans and company will face in coming chapters. Conspiracy is, of course, a standard ingredient in espionage fiction. In the Cold War era, the fictional conspirators were often high-level members of foreign governments. This is the primary way in which Crichton abstains from convention, since his conspirators are scientists and environmentalists (though they are heavily involved in politics). At its heart, the conspiracy is much like countless other tales of spy fiction: the villains attempt to create global catastrophe for their own benefit. To stop this impending disaster, the protagonists must journey across the globe to places like the Solomon Islands and Antarctica—again recalling the romanticized popular view of Cold War espionage.

One of the most colorful (and absurd) genre conventions Crichton employs is the villains' use of unique methods of assassination. In the first chapter—and several more times throughout the book—Crichton's villains place a blue-ringed octopus on a victim and coax it into biting him or her. The toxin in the blue-ringed octopus's saliva causes paralysis, which can ultimately lead to cardiac arrest. (The deadly blue-ringed octopus also appears in the James Bond film Octopussy. Although the film is loosely based on several of Fleming's short stories, Crichton seems to be borrowing at least some of his genre elements from secondhand sources.) Unfortunately, death by octopus proves to be only mildly successful at best. Evans survives an attack, and two others are hospitalized with fates unknown.

Another unique assassination method attempted by the eco-terrorists involves targeting lightning at a specific source. This culminates in Sarah Jones, the lead female protagonist, being struck by lightning but surviving. While the idea of environmentalists using the natural world as a weapon is intriguing, the notion of undetectable assassination is an ill fit. In the context of political espionage, it makes sense to disguise a single murder so that it might go unsuspected. In State of Fear, at least three landlocked people are stung by a blue-ringed octopus in the Los Angeles area in the same week. This hardly seems an effective tactic for avoiding suspicion.

The literary use of a dying declaration—a revelatory message from someone just before death—has been common in mystery stories ever since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's tales of Sherlock Holmes. In Cold War spy fiction, where the most valuable item in a story is often information, the use of dying declarations achieves a new significance. Crichton uses this technique frequently in State of Fear. After being attacked by villains, Margo Lane speaks of a "blue ring of death" before succumbing to complete paralysis. Millionaire George Morton utters a cryptic statement that is nevertheless rich in information ("All that matters is not remote from where the Buddha sits") just before his car is found demolished on a desolate mountain highway. The main problem with this technique as adopted by Crichton, is that the people making these declarations generally do not die. This leaves the reader wondering if perhaps there was not a more sensible way to convey the information.

Like the dying declaration, the use of coded messages goes back to the earliest mystery stories of the nineteenth century. Also like the dying declaration, the coded message becomes even more significant in the context of espionage. When trafficking in sensitive information, the true meaning of the information must be kept secret by being disguised in some way. The aforementioned cryptic message by George Morton, which sounds to most like the ramblings of an insane man, is meant to lead Evans to a secret location. In that location, Evans discovers yet another coded message composed of long strings of symbols, letters, and numbers. This code is immediately recognized by Professor John Kenner as a list of coordinates for six geographic locations. Later, Evans discovers aerial photographs that appear, at least to an untrained eye, coded. They are negatives of actual images, so that the ocean appears white as snow and clouds look like dark rock outcroppings. Crichton, knowing that this particular bit of visual trickery would lose its impact through mere description, embeds reproductions of the aerial images in his text. In two of the three instances above, however, the messages are coded only insofar as the reader must possess a certain level of available knowledge to understand them. In the same way, any message written in a foreign language is coded to people who cannot read the language. This dilutes the traditional notion of a secret code, which is meant to be truly inaccessible to all but the sender and the receiver.

The use of impersonation is a standard element in espionage fiction, to the point that it has become cliché in literature (although it is still encountered frequently in films and television shows). Crichton uses this technique when his characters visit Weddell Station in Antarctica. Unbeknownst to them, one of the station's researchers has been replaced with an impostor who aims to blow off a chunk of the Antarctic ice shelf. Crichton's use of this genre convention is a better fit than his use of most of the others; still, one has to wonder if Crichton could have devised a way other than impersonation for his villains to go undetected. Assuming the eco-terrorists were aiming to keep their actions secret, an easily detected impersonation seems like a poor choice.

The familiar ploy of a staged death is also used by Crichton, though the justification seems shaky here as well. Millionaire George Morton appears to die in a car wreck early in the book, only to return in the final few chapters to help defeat the villains. As he told Evans, Morton's rationale for faking his own death was "to get me free … and find out what [the villains] were doing." Before his "death," however, Morton appears to have no trouble avoiding both his lawyer and the villains for weeks at a time as he accompanies Kenner across the globe. In traditional espionage fiction, a staged death represents a chance at new life. It is used by those who must abandon their identities in order to survive—an agent whose cover has been blown, for instance, or a would-be defector seeking freedom. In State of Fear, staged death is merely a parlor game for a rich man who wishes to not be bothered for a while.

One of the defining elements of espionage fiction that Crichton avoids is implicit nationalism. By its very nature, spy fiction—especially that written during the Cold War—is based on the notion that spies and government officials for one country are good, while those of another country are bad. Since the novel mainly depicts a conflict between professional ideologies (politicized science vs. pure science), Crichton does not fall victim to nationalism. In fact, he seems to favor the notion of international cooperation in a manner seldom encountered in traditional espionage fiction. Despite his global idealism, all but one of the book's main characters are white Americans. The single foreigner, Kenner's assistant Sanjong Thapa, is less a character and more a mouthpiece for conveying scientific information.

The fictional elements discussed here are not representative of the finest examples of espionage fiction. Like many genre conventions, they are motifs encountered only occasionally in the body of literature. However, these conventions have captured the attention of mainstream readers and serve as low-level descriptors of work that can be distinctively identified as espionage fiction. Some of these genre conventions seem somewhat implausible, even within the context of the Cold War. In fact, taken out of the context of the Cold War, many of these elements do not even make sense. Assassins carrying around delicate octopuses as (not very) deadly weapons? Environmentalists wreaking havoc with the environment they seek to protect, just so they can say "I told you so" to the minority that doubts them? The result is machination without purpose—a replica weapon prop from a spy movie that looks the part but fires only blanks when the trigger is pulled.

Source: Greg Wilson, Critical Essay on State of Fear, in Literary Newsmakers for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.

John Stone

In the following excerpt, Stone argues that Crichton's State of Fear is much more than casual reading, and includes important messages about global warming and the environment.

WHAT DO I READ NEXT?

Michael Crichton's first novel, The Andromeda Strain (1969), is a science fiction novel about a deadly encounter with extraterrestrial organisms.
Crichton's Congo (1980) is a thriller that opens with the gruesome murders of eight American geologists on an expedition in the African jungle. A trained gorilla named Amy is enlisted to head a new expedition into the mysterious Congo.
Crichton's novel Prey (2002) is an exciting science-fiction thriller involving nanotechnology and tiny machines that become self-aware.
In Global Warming: The Complete Briefing (2004), John Houghton presents in a single volume a look at the science and controversy surrounding one of the most familiar and debated environmental phenomena of recent years.
In Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media (2004), Patrick Michaels expounds upon a central premise of Crichton's State of Fear: the necessity for science free from bias and distortion.

State of Fear … is not merely a good airport bookshop thriller, but also—and indeed more importantly—a tract conveying some serious messages for our media-driven times. To render the themes of that tract even clearer, Crichton includes … an Author's Message so that the reader may know "where, exactly, the author stands on these issues". Space precludes its reproduction, but a few points from it may illustrate his broad conclusions:

"We know astonishingly little about every aspect of the environment …"
"Atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing, and human activity is the probable cause". [This, I may interpolate, is probably the only statement about which the global warming zealots and their critics agree; and even then, note that penultimate word "probable". The question of whether an increasing level of carbon dioxide poses any threat whatsoever to mankind is of course an entirely separate matter.]
"We are also in the midst of a natural warming trend that began about 1850, as we emerged from a 400 year cold spell …"
"Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend might be a natural phenomenon."
"We have not the foggiest notion how to preserve what we term 'wilderness'…"
"I am certain there is too much certainty in the world".

Let me note a good example of the kind of thing Crichton is getting at. Among the many reference works cited in the 21-page bibliography is Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), one of the most influential books to have been published in the 20th Century, and one which perfectly illustrates his point about the dangers of pursuing seemingly good environmental causes without thinking through the costs (in the broadest sense of that term) of doing so. In retrospect, it is now possible to say quite unequivocally that Carson's book has been responsible for killing more people than Mein Kampf. It is true that, unlike Adolf Hitler, Carson did not set out to kill people. Nevertheless, the road to the malarial Hell which was paved with her doubtless good intentions in demanding the banning of the use of D.D.T. (previously widely and effectively used for control of the malarial mosquito) has been just as deadly for the two million people—more than half of them children—who these days die from malaria each year in her name….

As one whose first venture into academia was an Honours degree in Mathematical Physics, I have always retained an interest in scientific debates even though it is over fifty years since I last laboured in that vineyard. The feature therefore of the global warming controversy which I have long considered most important is well summed up in the final component of those thirty-six additional pages of Crichton's book, namely his Appendix entitled Why Politicized Science is so Dangerous. He is right. It is: and for that Appendix alone, State of Fear is worth reading.

Source: John Stone, "Michael Crichton on 'Global Warming'," in National Observer, Vol. 64, Autumn 2005, pp. 31-34.

David B. Sandalow

In the following excerpt, Sandalow suggests that Crichton's State of Fear is an accessible tool for readers and the public to learn about the possible effects of global warming, and could possibly have a broad impact on the public's understanding of the issue.

How do people learn about global warming?

That—more than the merits of any scientific argument—is the most interesting question posed by Michael Crichton's State of Fear.

The plot of Crichton's 14th novel is notable mainly for its nuttiness—an MIT professor fights a well-funded network of eco-terrorists trying to kill thousands by creating spectacular "natural" disasters. But Crichton uses his book as a vehicle for making two substantive arguments. In light of Crichton's high profile and ability to command media attention, these arguments deserve scrutiny.

First, Crichton argues, the scientific evidence for global warming is weak. Crichton rejects many of the conclusions reached by the National Academy of Sciences and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—for example, he does not believe that global temperature increases in recent decades are most likely the result of human activities. In challenging the scientific consensus, Crichton rehashes points familiar to those who follow such issues. These points are unpersuasive, as explained below.

Second, Crichton argues that concern about global warming is best understood as a fad. In particular, he argues that many people concerned about global warming follow a herd mentality, failing critically to examine the data. Crichton is especially harsh in his portrayal of other members of the Hollywood elite, though his critique extends more broadly to the news media, intelligentsia and general public. This argument is more interesting and provocative, though ultimately unpersuasive as well.

1. Climate Science

Crichton makes several attempts to cast doubt on scientific evidence regarding global warming. First, he highlights the "urban heat island effect." Crichton explains that cities are often warmer than the surrounding countryside and implies that observed temperature increases during the past century are the result of urban growth, not rising greenhouse gas concentrations.

This issue has been examined extensively in the peer-reviewed scientific literature and dismissed by the vast majority of earth scientists as an inadequate explanation of observed temperature rise. Ocean temperatures have climbed steadily during the past century, for example—yet this data is not affected by "urban heat islands." Most land glaciers around the world are melting, far away from urban centers. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, using only peer-reviewed data, concluded that urban heat islands caused "at most" 0.05°C of the increase in global average temperatures during the period 1900–1990-roughly one-tenth of the increase during this period. In contrast, as one source reports, "there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers" to support the view that "the heat island effect accounts for much or nearly all warming recorded by land-based thermometers."

Second, Crichton argues that global temperature declines from 1940–1970 disprove, or at least cast doubt on, scientific conclusions with respect to global warming. Since concentrations of greenhouse gases were rising during this period, says Crichton, the fact that global temperatures were falling calls into question the link between green-house gas concentrations and temperatures.

Crichton is correct that average temperatures declined, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, from 1940–1970. Temperature is the result of many factors, including the warming effects of greenhouse gases, the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions, changes in solar radiation and more. (Think of a game of tug-of-war, in which the number of players on each team changes frequently.) The fall in Northern Hemisphere temperatures from 1940–1970 reflects the relative weight of cooling factors during that period, not the absence of a warming effect from man-made greenhouse gases.

Should we at least be encouraged, recalling the decades from 1940–1970 in the hope that cooling factors will outweigh greenhouse warming in the decades ahead? Hardly. Greenhouse gas concentrations are now well outside levels previously experienced in human history and climbing sharply. Unless we change course, the relatively minor warming caused by man-made greenhouse gases in the last century will be dwarfed by much greater warming from such gases in the next century. There is no basis for believing that cooling factors such as those that dominated the temperature record from 1940–1970 will be sufficient to counteract greenhouse warming in the decades ahead.

Third, Crichton offers graph after graph showing temperature declines during the past century in places such as Puenta Arenas (Chile), Greenville (South Carolina), Ann Arbor (Michigan), Syracuse (New York) and Navacerrada (Spain). But global warming is an increase in global average temperatures. Nothing about specific local temperature declines is inconsistent with the conclusion that the planet as a whole has warmed during the past century, or that it will warm more in the next century if greenhouse gas concentrations continue to climb.

Crichton makes other arguments, but a point-by-point rebuttal is beyond the scope of this paper. (A thoughtful rebuttal of that kind can be found at www.realclimate.org.) Climate change science is a complex topic, not easily reduced to short summaries. But a useful contrast with Crichton's science-argument-within-an-action-novel is the sober prose of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The opening paragraph of a 2001 National Academy report responding to a request from the Bush White House read:

Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century. Secondary effects are suggested by computer model simulations and basic physical reasoning. These include increases in rainfall rates and increased susceptibility of semi-arid regions to drought. The impacts of these changes will be critically dependent on the magnitude of the warming and the rate with which it occurs.

Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, National Academies Press (2001).

Time will tell whether this report or Crichton's novel will have a greater impact on public understanding of global warming.

2. Climate Fad

This raises the second, more interesting argument in Crichton's novel. Crichton argues that concern about global warming has become a fad embraced by media elites, entertainment moguls, the scientific establishment and general public. In Crichton's view, many assertions are accepted as fact without critical analysis by the vast majority of those who have views on this issue.

On the last point, fair enough. There are indeed fewer people who have sorted through the minutiae of climate change science than have opinions on the topic. In this regard, global warming is like Social Security reform, health care finance, the military budget and many other complex public policy issues. As Nelson Polsby and Aaron Wildavsky once wrote, "Most people don't think about most issues most of the time." When forming opinions on such matters, we all apply certain predispositions or instincts and rely on others whose judgment or expertise we trust.

Of course this observation applies as well to the economics of climate change. The perception is widespread in many circles that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be ruinously expensive. How many of those who hold this view have subjected their opinions to critical analysis? Crichton never musters outrage on this topic.

Crichton's complaints are particularly striking in light of the highly successful efforts to provide policymakers and the public with analytically rigorous, non-political advice on climate science. Since 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has convened thousands of scientists, economists, engineers and other experts to review and distill the peer-reviewed literature on the science on global warming. The IPCC has produced three reports and is now at work on the fourth. In addition, the National Academy of Sciences has provided advice to the U.S. government on this topic, including the report cited above.

Crichton's view that the American media provides a steady drumbeat of scary news on global warming is especially hard to fathom. Solid data are scarce, but one 1996 analysis found that the rock star Madonna was mentioned roughly 80 times more often than global warming in the Lexis-Nexis database. Certainly one could watch the evening news for weeks on end without ever seeing a global warming story.

Furthermore, the print media's "on the one hand, on the other hand" convention tilts many global warming stories strongly toward Crichton's point of view. As Crichton would concede, the vast majority of the world's scientists believe that global warming is happening as a result of human activities and that the consequences of rising greenhouse gas emissions could be very serious. Still, many news stories on global warming include not just this mainstream view but also the "contrarian" views of a very small minority of climate change skeptics, giving roughly equal weight to each. As a result, public perceptions of the controversy surrounding these issues may be greatly exaggerated.

Crichton's most serious charge is that "open and frank discussion of the data, and of the issues, is being suppressed" in the scientific community. As "proof," he offers the assertion that many critics of global warming are retired professors no longer seeking grants. Whether there is any basis for these assertions is unclear, but if so Crichton should back up his claims with more than mere assertions in the appendix to an action novel.

David B Sandalow, "Michael Crichton and Global Warming," in Brookings Institution, January 28, 2005, pp. 1-4.