State of Fear - Overview

Overview

State of Fear is, like many of Crichton's books, a fictional work that uses speculative science and technological innovations as fundamental storyline devices. The debate over global warming serves as the backdrop for the book. Crichton supplies a personal afterword and two appendices that link the fictional part of the book with real examples of his thesis.

The main villains in the plot are environmentalists. Crichton does place blame on "industry" in both the plot line and the appendices. Various assertions appear in the book, for example:

• The science behind global warming is so incomplete that no reasonable conclusions can be drawn on how to solve the "problem" (or if the "problem" even exists).

• Elites in various fields use either real or artificial crises to maintain the existing social order, misusing the "science" behind global warming.

• As a result of potential conflicts of interest, the scientists conducting research on topics related to global warming may subtly change their findings to bring them in line with their funding sources.

Crichton argues for removing politics from science and uses global warming and real-life historical examples in the appendices to make this argument. In a 2003 speech at the California Institute of Technology he expressed his concern about what he considered the "emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science—namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy."