Global warming is a hot topic. Many books have been published the last few years on this about global warming, some of them strongly defending the greenhouse hypothesis and others criticizing it. Most of these books were written by climate scientists, presenting their personal view on the debate. This book’s perspective is that of an independent journalist, who investigates whether criticism from skeptics and critics of the IPCC are valid and if so, what the IPCC did with this criticism.

This book addresses the question of whether the latest IPCC report (2007) provided us with the best available knowledge about our climate. It turns out that the IPCC authors failed to write a report that in their own words is “comprehensive, objective, open and transparent.” The authors of the IPCC report seem so obsessed with proving that the recent warming is due to greenhouse gases that they ignore counter evidence that could lead to different ‘stories’ about the recent climate change that are just as plausible as the greenhouse hypothesis.

Marcel Crok has a degree in physical chemistry from Leiden University, The Netherlands, and since then has worked as a science writer, freelance, and also a writer for the Dutch monthly popular science magazine NWT Magazine. Crok’s cover story in that magazine about the so called hockey stick graph was awarded the Glazen Griffioen, a prize for Dutch science journalism, in 2005. Since then, Crok has followed the global warming debate closely, and in 2008 he began to write full time, dedicating all of his time to this book.