The New Climate War: The fight to take back our planet
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MOST people accept that climate change is happening, but that doesn鈥檛 mean the war against climate science is over. The denialists have just changed their tactics, argues Michael Mann in his book The New Climate War.
Mann should know. A climatologist at Penn State University, he has been a target since his 鈥渉ockey stick鈥� graph was published in 1999. The graph shows the rapid rise in temperature globally since industrialisation caused heat-trapping carbon dioxide to spew into the atmosphere.
This dramatic visual, featured in Al Gore鈥檚 film An Inconvenient Truth, earned Mann decades of harassment and death threats. This was part of a war against climate research that has been waged since the 1970s, first to cover up and then to contest the growing evidence that shows our planet is warming.
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However, as data about rising sea levels, higher temperatures and megafires mounted, the climate sceptics shifted to 鈥渁 kinder, gentler form of denialism鈥�, says Mann. They now mostly concede that, yes, there is some warming and human activity plays some role, but it鈥檚 not nearly as bad as those 鈥渁larmist鈥� scientists say.
This new effort (bankrolled by the same polluting interests that funded the old one) no longer disputes climate change, but tries to block the action needed to move towards a low-carbon future. It is being fought by the successors to climate change denialists, who Mann calls the 鈥渋nactivists鈥�. They lobby against effective carbon pricing programmes and subsidies for renewable energy that would imperil big energy鈥檚 bottom lines.
According to Mann, central to this strategy is a campaign to shift culpability for climate change from the corporations selling fossil fuels to those who use them. Fossil fuel companies aren鈥檛 to blame, 鈥渋t鈥檚 the way people are living their lives鈥�, Chevron argued in court in 2018.
鈥淒oomism and the loss of hope can lead people down the very same path of inaction as outright denial鈥�
Some environmentalists have bought into this argument. While Mann agrees it is good to eat less meat, travel less and recycle more, such actions alone aren鈥檛 enough. We need to decarbonise the economy, he says. Focusing on personal responsibility takes our eyes off that prize.
Another thing inactivists do, Mann says, is to support divisive films like Michael Moore鈥檚 recent documentary Planet of the Humans that purported to show that renewable energy is ineffective and polluting.
The film was condemned by environmental activists and climate scientists. But the pro-fossil fuel American Energy Alliance spent thousands to promote a film it hoped would take the wind out of the sails of the push for clean energy.
鈥淒oomism and the loss of hope,鈥� writes Mann 鈥渃an lead people down the very same path of inaction as outright denial. And Michael Moore plays right into it.鈥� Despair is counterproductive.
Fossil fuel interests also cynically push 鈥渘on-solution solutions鈥� like natural gas, carbon capture and geoengineering, whose inadequacies Mann details. Again, the effort is to distract from the real task of weaning the world off fossil fuels.
But in the end, Mann says he is optimistic, heartened by the upswell of youth activism and the rapid development of green technologies. Even investors are beginning to flee from fossil fuels. Moreover, botched responses to covid-19 underline the peril of ignoring science and failing to act.
With the major COP26 UN climate summit due to be held later this year in Glasgow, UK, Mann鈥檚 call to get serious about climate change couldn鈥檛 be more timely. Let鈥檚 hope he is right that the tide is finally about to turn.
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