The tone for what is to come is set in the introduction.  Christianson describes the Ice Age the planet has endured for the past 2 million years and quickly moves on to the warming of the past century, which he claims is accelerating, as "the 1970s were warmer than the 1960s, the 1980s were warmer than the 1970s and the 1990s have been warmer still."

In actual fact, the early 1970s were cooler than the 1960s, causing concerns about a coming ice age in environmental circles.  Furthermore, global temperatures dropped
0.15°C between 1945 and 1970, a period that saw the greatest gains in CO2 emissions ever, an essential fact that is nowhere to be found in Christianson's account of history.  The narrative does not mention that, on average, global temperatures have been in a decline for 6,000 years; and by focusing exclusively on the past 200 years, it becomes possible for the author to imply that a slight, natural warming trend is something ominous, unprecedented and directly linked to the emergence of "massive smokestacks of brick and stone" that have "spewed their burden into the atmosphere 24 hours a day."

At the outset, it is a foregone conclusion that something is going terribly wrong on our planet and the Industrial Age is directly to blame.  The uninformed reader is likely to accept the rest of the narrative, never questioning the exceedingly selective presentation of fact, the unsupported assertions that fit the premise established but do not necessarily correspond to reality, and the occasionally outrageous discussion of scientific issues.

The book is divided into three parts.  In part one, the reader is treated to a lengthy description of the life of Jean-Baptiste Fourier, culminating in his discovery that earth's atmosphere maintains livable conditions on its surface.  An explanation of the carbon cycle follows, with the assertion that, on a global scale, a balance is maintained between atmospheric CO2 and CO2 absorbed in the oceans: "If the concentration of CO2 in the water is less than that of the atmosphere it is diffused into the water" and vice versa.  Details aside, the author cleverly omits mention of any effect of temperature on this balance.  And having eliminated temperature as a factor, he goes on to assert - without references - that only one half of the total CO2 emissions since 1850 were absorbed in the oceans with the rest accumulating in the atmosphere, resulting in an atmospheric CO2 concentration increase from 280 to 365 ppm.  This is so, Christianson says, because the oceans "can only absorb a finite amount of the gas."

The reader must conclude that Man has overpowered Nature.  An ever-increasing percentage of every ton of CO2 emitted will invariably accumulate in the atmosphere, leading to a warming disaster unless, of course, the engines of industry and all our cars are turned off.

Part two briefly mentions the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age - with no substantive comment on why they occurred - whereupon the narrative swiftly settles on a detailed history of the Industrial Revolution from the loom to the automobile.  This section covers almost a quarter of the book and ends, not surprisingly, with the assertion that Man has begun "feasting on the sky."

Part three weaves the web further, using carefully selected facts, modified facts, unsubstantiated assertions and innuendo, as well as careful avoidance of facts that might unravel the web.  Nineteenth-century scientists Svante Arrhenius, John Tyndall and Samuel Pierpoint Langley are given credit for being the originators of the idea that CO2 emissions might cause increased temperatures on the surface of the planet.  The notion that this concept was the thrust behind their work is erroneous.  The second half of the 19th century saw the introduction of the idea that at least one ice age had preceded the current warm period, which was met with considerable resistance.  Arrhenius, Tyndall and Langley were chiefly engaged in finding the causes for such cold periods - as witnessed by a paper at least in part based upon their findings published by the American geologist Thomas Chamberlain in 1899 entitled "An Attempt to Frame a Working Hypothesis of the Cause of Glacial Periods" (Journal of Geology).  The fact that Arrhenius noted that whereas a thinning of the CO2 concentration would cause a temperature drop, the reverse would also be true, was hardly sensational.

Next, the author highlights the work of Guy S. Callendar, who in the late 1930s speculated that the minor CO2 emissions of his day actually influenced climate.  When he discovered that global temperatures had increased slightly since 1880, he jumped to that conclusion and in 1938 published a paper entitled "The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and Its Influence on Temperature."  It did not occur to Callendar that there might be other reasons for the slight temperature increase since the Little Ice Age than CO2 emissions, since this was the subject of his study.  Christianson adopts Callendar's view, despite the fact that intellectual honesty would have demanded a mention of the fairly drastic temperature drop that followed two year's after Callendar's publication, as the rate of CO2 emissions began accelerating towards today's levels.  Temperatures fell for three decades as emissions more than tripled.  Callendar could not have foreseen that circumstance, but Christianson knew it.

In an unexpected twist, the narrative takes a detour from CO2 after Callendar and introduces Thomas Midgeley, the inventor of CFCs.  Of these chemicals, the author thinks little - "year after year, decade after decade CFCs drifted into the stratosphere where they accumulated by the millions of tons and attacked the ozone," he asserts.  It matters not that no traces of CFCs have ever been detected in the stratosphere; Christenson has the chemicals accumulating there by the millions of tons.  The chapter on Midgeley concludes with the remark that his premature death in 1944 "spared him the pain of learning [that] what he had done contained the seeds of great harm."  This minor outburst of ecological fervor seems oddly misplaced, but is generally in keeping with the style and philosophy of the work.

The rest of the book fails to rise above the level set with the comments on Midgely.  The narrative conforms with the ecological advocacy theme selected: "the wild can drastically be altered at the hands of humans."  The narrative deteriorates into a diatribe on rising sea levels, tropical diseases and disappearing species, at the general level of Sierra Club propaganda.  As if to give legitimacy to the work, the penultimate chapter includes several quotes from remarks made by Albert Gore at the 1997 Kyoto summit, one of which needs to be highlighted:

"Right now we are wasting two thirds of all the energy we burn [sic] to produce electricity. It's turned into pollution not useful energy...with competition and new technology this is going to change...utility bills can come down and will come down."

Such disregard for the second law of thermodynamics (and general ignorance) on the part of someone urging us to embrace the Kyoto protocol and aspiring to determine our energy policies is more than chilling.  Yet Christianson fully endorses this statement as common sense.

'Greenhouse - the 200 Year Story of Global Warming' is a curious blend of historical fact, misstated facts, poorly understood and presented science and a will to show the present warming as a result of Man's deeds leading to disaster.  It is far removed from objective reason and reality.

The New York Times Book Review found the book compelling, since "whereas science may be objective, interpretation of science clearly need not be".  This remarkable oxymoron needs no further comment.

The book demonstrates how a politically correct and emotionally compelling story can impress the unaware reader as a work of science, presenting a real view of the world.  In true politically correct fashion it combines a few grains of truth around which it weaves an enthralling but deceptive web by modifying truth and ignoring relevant, inconvenient facts.  Christianson's book has a substantial following, which shows that opinion, belief and fact may have attained equal worth in assessing the world around us.  This is intellectually dishonest science, characterized by its ability to mislead.

The New York Times Book Review referred to Christianson's book as a "poetic" work, as every chapter opens with a poetry quote.  It is therefore altogether fitting and proper to end this review with a famous quote as well:

'Up fly the words, thought remains below/Words without thought never to heaven go'