Rob Honeycutt is famous for his many contributions, at Skeptical Science, in the comment threats on my blog, and elsewhere, in defense of climate science, where that defense is largely against the deniers of science and damagers of civilization. (He is also the guy who makes these famous messenger bags) He deserves a lot of credit for all the work he has done in this area.

Over the years, Honeycutt has developed a number of dialogs related to most, possibly all, areas of human caused global warming and climate change. Along with these dialogs, he has also developed some very helpful graphics.

And now, he has put them together in a book: 28 Climate Change Elevator Pitches: Short Explanations on the Scientific Basis of Man-made Climate Change.

Full disclosure: As noted in the book, I did help out as a reader of some of the chapters, but I hasten to add that I did very little to contribute to this book; when I first saw it, it was very far along and nearly a done project.

The premise of the book is:

If you stepped into an elevator and had 2 minutes to explain some aspect of climate science to someone, could you do it? Most people lack the time to become fully informed on this critical issue. The science is complex and varied. Here are 28 quick pitches to help you better understand this issue which we should all be concerned about.

Personally, I’m not sure if these, or most of these, 28 arguments are truly elevator speeches. For one thing, where graphics are used, you’d have to carry the graphics around with you! For another thing, as brief and concise as they are, a true elevator speech has to be one paragraph long and that’s it.

But, the arguments are carefully thought out, scientifically valid, and clear. Indeed, a true elevators speech is not supposed to be the convincing story, the discourse that causes someone to accept an argument. Rather, the elevator speech is designed to get the person with whom you are speaking to step off the elevator with you, walk slowly down the hallway towards their destination, and even be willing to stop for an extra minute to hear you out. That speech, that somewhat longer and full argument about a very specific topic, is what Rob Honeycutt’s book does at such a high level of excellence. This book, available in various formats including the Kindle, is an essential add on to your library (and the Kindle version is only 4 bucks!).

You may want the afore linked to Kindle version (or get an eVersion on iTunes, or wherever) because it will be searchable, which may be handy. But, because of the graphics, I’m thinking you will much prefer a print version. The print version, (CLICK HERE FOR THAT) because it has high quality graphics, is not quite as inexpensive, but I know from the author that this is about as cheap as he could make it. Honeycutt is so committed to making this widely available that he went ahead and made a cheaper lower res version, and a higher res version.