Fiction Scribe

Hello everyone. Today I am welcoming Professor Holly Fretwell to the site to talk about her controversial book The Sky’s Not Falling! Why It’s OK to Chill about Global Warming. I hope you’ll join me in welcoming her and enjoy the interview as much as I have.

Hello and thank you for stopping at Fiction Scribe, Ms. Fretwell. Tell the readers a bit about yourself.

I am an adjunct professor at Montana State University where I teach The Economic Way of Thinking, Microeconomics, Natural Resource Economics and Environmental Economics. I also attended Montana State University as a student where I earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and master’s degree in resource economics. I am a research fellow at PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center. My research focus of the last decade has been on forests, parks, and public lands policy. I have examined the state of our national forests and parks on which I have spoken as an expert witness for Congress. Only in recent years have I taken on the study of climate change and its policy implications.

My interest in global warming came from an economic policy investigation that was scaring me as I realized the implications and huge costs that would arise if we were to attempt to prevent global warming through government intervention and regulation on CO2 emissions. My expertise is not in climate science, rather in the economic and policy implications of a warmer earth.

Think about it, if we assume that the earth is warming, it is human caused, and we can do something about it, the potential actions, as we’ve seen in many proposals, are extremely costly. The real catch, however, is that the benefits from those costly actions are tiny. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the many ideas I address in The Sky’s NOT Falling.

What brought you into the world of writing? When did you start?

I have been writing journal articles, Policy Series, and Public Lands Reports for PERC for over a decade. I have been published in professional journals and the popular press including the Wall Street Journal, Journal for Environmental Economics and Management, Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum, Journal of Forestry, and Consumer’s Research. I have published a number of book chapters as well, including The Untouchables: America’s National Forests, in Government vs. Environment. Eds Donal R. Leal and Roger E. Meiners. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, MD in 2002 and a forthcoming chapter in the Fraser Institute book, A Breath of Fresh Air.

I enjoyed writing as a student. I had a lot of opportunities to write in undergrad as a political science major and, of course, wrote a thesis to obtain my master’s. It was not, however, an area I thought I would pursue. Rather, it is the value of the communication through writing that has motivated me as an author. I research and I teach. In order to better help people understand the big picture of the world we live in I also began to write.

You are currently on virtual tour for your book The Sky’s Not Falling: Why it’s OK to Chill About Global Warming. Could you tell us a bit about the book?

Have you ever thought ‘I have heard so much about global warming I am not sure what is right?’ This is exactly what I thought when I started to study the issue. I was teaching a natural resources economics course and looking at the policy implications of global warming; they were scary.

When you are reading chapter 1 of The Sky’s NOT Falling, you’ll learn what global warming really means, you’ll learn what effects actually create a warming trend on the planet, and, most important, you’ll have a measuring stick, a barometer, to know for yourself the condition of the world you call home.

For example, the earth has warmed and cooled many times in its long history; long before the industrial revolution that brought increased CO2 emissions and long before humans were even on Earth. The evidence of this is found in proxy measures because, of course, humans were not on Earth to measure the temperature hundreds of thousands of years ago. Such proxy measures include an examination of air bubbles found in ice cores, tree rings, corals, ocean and lake bed sediment layers, and pollen. Additional evidence is showing that not only are temperatures on Earth rising but they are also rising on Mars and perhaps even on Jupiter and Pluto.

Chapter 6 of The Sky’s NOT Falling will teach you how to analyze the information provided to you. Don’t trust just one person, idea, or article. Learn for yourself how to decipher fact from fiction and teach your kids how to be critical thinkers. The Sky’s NOT Falling will help you learn how to do this.

The value you will gain is that by following the easy to read and understandable chapters in The Sky’s NOT Falling, you’ll experience a road map of targeted examples and compelling stories that highlight and dispel the dangerous myths about global warming. You’ll experience eye opening and informative results coming from years of research and conclusions that will give you the peace of mind gained from having the true insights about climate change. And you’ll learn, not only about climate change, but how to evaluate all the information you receive so you can make up your own mind about what is good or bad, fact or fiction.

I challenge you to read The Sky’s NOT Falling and come away not being changed.

What inspired you to write The Sky’s Not Falling? Where did the idea begin?

Like so many other people I was confused about the information I was hearing about global warming. The popular press says it’s human caused, there is far less consensus in the scientific journals where a multitude of factors that influence climate are examined. That confusion followed by the costly policy recommendations encouraged me to look further. In that search I found lots of great material, and some not so great. I wrote The Sky’s NOT Falling to try and dispel some of those myths. It also gave me a really good excuse to continue my research on the issue.

The Sky’s Not Falling has a bit of controversy surrounding it. Did you anticipate controversy?

My perspective on the world is different than the perspective many people hold. Hence, controversy is expected. Any time you write a book that is somewhat politically incorrect you will get controversy.

In addition, there is a lot of inaccurate or misleading information that I have tried to dispel in my book, The Sky’s NOT Falling. For example, many students are being asked to watch Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” This has been a real inconvenience because, as the High British Court has stated, they are many non-truths and misleading statements in the movie. One of the most brazen examples is demonstrated with the graph that shows atmospheric CO2 levels and temperature change. The two variables are correlated; they move together. Gore and one of his producers Laurie David who just wrote a children’s book on global warming, both assert that increases in CO2 levels cause temperature to increase. They have missed something really important here; one correlation does not mean causation, and two the data show that on average temperature changes 800 years before CO2 levels. Yes, read that again, temperature changes lead the changes in CO2 over the last 650,000 years.

With controversy in mind, don’t expect to find my book on the front shelves of your local book store — or Barnes & Noble or Borders. While many local bookstores are carrying the book and so is Barnes & Noble and Borders it is usually tucked in the far back corner of the kids section. I can’t even find my own book in my local bookstores!

You wrote the book for kids, correct? Why did you decide to go with that audience? Did it dramatically change how you wrote things?

Writing for kids was a challenge, but since I have two children, 8 and 10 years old, I had a lot of help. I decided to write a kids book, rather than an adult book for a couple of reasons. First there are a couple of really good books about global warming for the general audience, including Bjorn Lomborg’s, Chill It, and Patrick Michael’s, Meltdown. But kids seem to be the new target for indoctrination, such as the example above. In fact, In David’s book she has inconveniently mislabelled the two lines in the CO2/temperature graph, reversing them. It is just this type of propaganda that scares children into making uninformed choices. There is so much information available today, via internet, TV, radio, etc., that I think it vitally important to teach our children how to think critically and be able to decipher fact from fiction. That is why I wrote The Sky’s NOT Falling, and that is why I wrote it in simple enough terms for children, parents, and all adults to read.

I dare you to not just read my book but also pick up one of the more typical books about global warming, read them both and discuss the ideas to determine for yourself the real state of the Earth.

Are there any authors who have inspired you in your writing?

I am almost embarrassed to admit that I was not much of a reader until the last decade or so. I have found an incredible fondness for reading now, both classics and contemporary, but find myself reading factual and informative pieces more than anything; though I do have a bed headboard overflowing with a plethora of books. Though no specific author jumps out, I greatly admire those that have the ability to take technical or tedious ideas and put them in laymen’s terms. I have been fortunate at PERC and in many of my other writings to have really good editors to help me do that.

What are you working on now?

I am currently working on a set of High School curriculum that will coincide with my book, The Sky’s NOT Falling. I have been working with an associate that has a background in science. Our lessons address the science side of global warming, teach a bit about economics, and, just as important, teach kids how to analyse data and information enabling them to determine for themselves what to believe. The Fraser Institute will be publishing this set of curriculum.

What are your dreams for your writing?

I write, not because to be an author is my dream, rather because I want to educate; writing is an excellent means of communication. My dreams for the future are to continue to educate myself and gain a better understanding of the world around us and to share that information. My dream is to help make a better world in whatever way, even if minuscule, I can.

When you’re not writing novels, what do you do? How do you find time to write?

I am an adjunct professor at Montana State University, I am a research fellow at PERC, I work with the Foundation for Teaching Economics and the Montana Council on Economic Education to teach teachers, and I am a mom. I have no idea how I find time to write! But my research is only valuable if I can communicate it.

Do you have any advice for writers?

Stick to your guns, write from the heart, give yourself more time than you expect it will take, and hold onto your integrity!

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. I hope everyone enjoys the book and shares it by instigating more discussion about what is really happening in our world and the possible responses to those constant changes. It is freedom and markets that help spark the innovative ideas that solve the many problems we meet.

*If you liked this interview, check out my interview with Dennis Griffin