Fallen Angels by Niven, Pournelle & Flynn

I recommended "Fallen Angels" by Niven, Pournelle & Flynn a couple of weeks ago.
Whilst on Samizdata's excellent site today he also recommended it, and supplied a link so that you can read a chapter of it for yourself.
As I said before, you'd need to be a sci-fi fan to get all the nuances of the plot, but it's a great read all the same.
One of the authors, Larry Niven in another book came up with the concept that excess heat is a by-product of civilisation. The temperatures are always higher where large populations of humans live. It's called the "heat island effect".
Industrialisation brings heat in the form of chimneystacks and heat exchangers. I leave my computer on all the time and it keeps this part of the room nice and warm.


Here's an idea for the fans of Gaia; could the global cooling of the last ten years be the planet's response to the heat caused by our civilisation?


The global warming fanatics tell us that one can't say that AGW isn't happening because we've had a couple of cold winters. The opposite is as true, of course. They can't insist that the planet is warming just because we had a heatwave or two about ten years back.


We can't all be right. BUT we can all be wrong.