The Hockey Stick Illusion by A.W Montford

 

The Hockey Stick Illusion is a term used by climate change sceptics to describe the graph that shows global temperatures have risen higher in recent years than they have in world history, as a result of global warming. It’s like a hockey stick in that (broadly speaking) it has a long straight part, then a blade that juts upwards at one end (it's reproduced on the book's cover). The counter argument (again, broadly speaking) suggests that it should be more like a series of hills, because global temperatures have risen and fallen cyclically over history. Montford’s book is an exhaustively researched look at the examination of ‘the Hockey Stick’ (as it is consistently, and sometimes irritatingly referred to throughout) by sceptics. Montford deserves a lot of credit for refusing to talk down to the reader here, but this also means that there’s a huge amount of statistical and scientific concepts to grasp along the way. This leads to a certain - unavoidable - dryness, though the author smartly introduces a number of personalities involved in the argument to humanise the story too. It’s best suited to readers who are already versed in same of the concepts involved, and it isn't definitive - it couldn't be, because the argument still, inevitably, rages on. Nonetheless, Montford's account of the development of different scientific arguments on both sides of a very complicated argument is extremely well handled, and as such it’s hugely impressive. [Nat Smith]