Novel take on global warming

Michael Crichton's latest novel, State of Fear, is an action-packed thriller in which the hero is a scientist who discovers that climate change is all a fraud. The novel has sold well, but it was still something of a shock to find its author as an expert witness testifying on global warming in front of the United States Senate. Crichton had been summoned to give evidence by Senator James Inhofe, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, who recently called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people". Some scientists speculated that Crichton might be the best witness Senator Inhofe could find. A 2004 survey of 900 peer-reviewed and published scientific papers on climate change failed to find a single one who went against the belief that man-made change is happening and is dangerous.