F. W. Holiday (1921–1979)

It's hard to believe this book is only 7 years old. With its constant repetitions that climate change is a slow process that will mostly affect future generations and which might turn out to be a not-very-serious problem and which will likely not have very serious economic impacts, it feels like it might as well have been written in the nineties.

That is one serious issue I had with the book: it is extremely out of date; practically obsolete. As well, it completely discounts any impacts to non-human entities of any kind, from ecosystems to non-human sentient animals. If your concerns re: the climate crisis relate at all to impacts to anything other than people, you will find no treatment of them here.

Thirdly, with rare exceptions, it doesn't include its sources. Only two of its economic sources are named (the Stern report and William Nordhaus's work); other economic claims, such as the above that growth will continue regardless, are to be taken on faith. An IPCC report is named as a source of climate data in one section, but in the rest of the book, predictions and forecasts are given without sources, so they can't be evaluated.

Fourthly, his assumptions about the solutions to the climate crisis appear totally unfounded; again, he doesn't give his sources, so it's impossible to know where he's getting this from, but in some spots (eg. p. 179) he states that decarbonizing would mean having "to close down immediately almost all the activities that make our lives good. We would have to live at a level that is just enough to maintain the propagation of our species." ...no? Seriously, I know the GND and Project Drawdown etc. were still in the future in 2012, but Planet B and other frameworks weren't; solutions for transitioning rapidly off fossil fuels were available even then that wouldn't knock us back to the paleolithic.

And lastly, I am not in any sense a fan of utilitarian philosophy, and you guessed it, that's the position he was writing from. So even the framework he was basing his arguments on was completely unpersuasive to me. You, on the other hand, may find it refreshing to be treated to pages contemplating whether the deaths of millions of people from climate impacts can be considered a bad thing. (I mean, he does end up concluding that it's bad; but to my knowledge we don't engage in extended navel-gazing about the badness or goodness of other things that kill millions of people.)

It isn't terrible. His argument for carbon off-sets was relatively persuasive and I'm going to look into that for myself. But I found it both deadly dull and frustrating, and that, in combination with how swiftly the state of knowledge on climate has changed since 2012, makes this book not worth a current reader's time.… (mais)

While steeped in Holiday's Catholic bias, and limited in scope due to his time, Holiday's The Goblin Universe is still a fascinating read. He makes tenuous, yet poignant, and cherry-picked connections to press his point - something he ironically accuses von Daniken of doing in this very book - and much of Holiday's hypothesis has since been disproven. It stands more as a theological or philosophical examination of reality by way of The Unexplained, and Holiday did not intend for it to be published. He ties UFOs to cryptozoological sightings, and dismisses them all as the work of The Devil -- meanwhile advocating for the belief of one or more higher intelligences directly interfering in human lives, and perhaps responsible for all Creation.

The Goblin Universe contains countless case studies, and Holiday's refutation of Darwinism is a must-read, no matter your beliefs. A lot of what Holiday discusses holds up well today, and should be of interest to everyone who enjoys the paranormal.… (mais)