The Death Penalty = Enviro Activism

"If you oppose the death penalty, does it also mean you are in favor of doing nothing at all about crime?"

This, I think, was my favorite passage in the book, though it specifically says nothing about "climate change." I think that it was great analogy to draw that can be used in many cases. It also did a lot to help Kenner become my favorite character in the book.

That said, I'll back track a little. I set out to read Crichton's book with an open mind and vowed to not look up anything about Crichton or the book because I knew it would bias my opinion. I still haven't researched it at all, but am planning to immediately after I finish writing this post. Anyway, I set out to keep track of how I "felt" about the book. About 100 pages in, after I abandoned the initial thought that it was going to be an "apocalypse"book about how we're going to die from global warming (I WAS SO WRONG WRONG WRONG), I felt entirely uncomfortable. My thoughts mirrored Evans' exclamations and snarky roll of the eyes. Everyone knows global warming is real. I've known it since I was a pre teen. I've been walking around in my I Am A Liberal Granola shoes telling everyone they should bike instead of drive.
For the next 50 pages or so I continued with this discomfort until I looked at the facts objectively and realized that maybe... I was wrong. And that I've been influenced by big media campaigns whose intentions are probably good... but that they, too, are generating millions of dollars by perhaps exaggerating the "dire" conditions that we as a global community are faced with.

SO, it was the analogy (quoted above) that Kenner said (calmly) to Ted Bradley (who, let's be honest, no one missed after he died- least favorite character right there, not gonna feel bad about it) in one of the many plane rides. The conversation that led to it was also, I think, an extremely important part of the book. Kenner lays down hard, proven facts about the climate and the environment. Facts that should lead any self respecting human being to question their beliefs. Am I saying I've been wrong to tell people about global warming? No. I still might believe it. But only after I look into some more facts about it. What Kenner was getting at was that all the "facts" that are coming from Envir-O-rganizations are JUST AS BIASED as the ones coming from the Industry. YES, maybe the Envir-O ones are biased in a way that makes people pick up their damn trash instead of leaving it on the sidewalk, but you (and I) have to remember that these organizations ARE MAKING MONEY from these facts, too. My liberal background is screaming at me right now to justify it by saying that the Enviro-O's are non-profit and their money goes to helping animals and ecosystems, but the truth is that I don't really know that. And I don't really know how much the founder and organizer of the World Wildlife Fund makes a year. I don't know.

This is what Crichton was trying to get at, I think. I think his book was partly an effort to make people look at what they "know" and realize that they actually... don't. That my information is coming from somewhere and it's biased beyond belief. He wants me to see that and take it into account. He doesn't want me to just accept the circulating references that are happening in the Enviro Arena right now.
All in all I think I enjoyed it. I enjoyed this book (exception: ending. Terrible. Hated it. Stupid.). I like science. And that's news to me.