01/03/2021

Climatologist Michael E Mann: 'Good People Fall Victim To Doomism. I Do Too Sometimes'

The Guardian - 

The author and eminent climate scientist on the deniers’ new tactics and why positive change feels closer than it has done in 20 years

Michael E Mann: ‘It’s no longer credible to deny climate change because people can see it playing out in real time.’ Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Michael E Mann is one of the world’s most influential climate scientists. 

He rose to prominence in 1999 as the co-author of the “hockey-stick graph”, which showed the sharp rise in global temperatures since the industrial age. This was the clearest evidence anyone had provided of the link between human emissions and global warming. 

This made him a target. He and other scientists have been subject to “climategate” email hacking, personal abuse and online trolling. 

In his new book, The New Climate War, he argues the tide may finally be turning in a hopeful direction.

You are a battle-scarred veteran of many climate campaigns. What’s new about the climate war?

For more than two decades I was in the crosshairs of climate change deniers, fossil fuel industry groups and those advocating for them – conservative politicians and media outlets. This was part of a larger effort to discredit the science of climate change that is arguably the most well-funded, most organised PR campaign in history. 

Now we finally have reached the point where it is not credible to deny climate change because people can see it playing out in real time in front of their eyes. But the “inactivists”, as I call them, haven’t given up; they have simply shifted from hard denial to a new array of tactics that I describe in the book as the new climate war.

Who is the enemy in the new climate war?

It is fossil fuel interests, climate change deniers, conservative media tycoons, working together with petrostate actors like Saudi Arabia and Russia. I call this the coalition of the unwilling.

If you had to find a single face that represents both the old and new climate war it would be Rupert Murdoch. Climate change is an issue the Murdoch press has disassembled on for years. 

The disinformation was obvious last year, when they blamed arsonists for the devastating Australian bushfires. This was a horrible attempt to divert attention from the real cause, which was climate change. Murdoch was taken to task by his own son because of the immorality of his practices.

We also have to recognise the increasing roles of petrostate actors. Saudi Arabia has played an obstructionist role. Russia has perfected cyber warfare and used it to interfere in other countries and disrupt action on climate change. 

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has made a credible case about Russia’s efforts to hijack the 2016 presidential election and get Trump elected. Russia wanted to end US sanctions that stood in the way of a half-trillion-dollar deal between Rosneft and ExxonMobil. It worked. Who did Trump appoint as his first secretary of state? Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil.

Today Russia uses cyberware – bot armies and trolls – to get climate activists to fight one another and to seed arguments on social media. Russian trolls have attempted to undermine carbon pricing in Canada and Australia, and Russian fingerprints have been detected in the yellow-vest protests in France.

And WikiLeaks? Your book suggests they were involved?

I’m not an expert but there has been a lot of investigative journalism about the role they played in the 2016 election. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks helped Donald Trump get elected, and in doing that they did the bidding of Putin. 

Their fingerprints are also all over the climategate affair 10 years ago. UK investigators have evidence of Russian involvement in that too.

It’s an unlikely alliance.

Yes, it’s a remarkable irony. Who would think you would see a US republican president, a Russian president and Rupert Murdoch working together as part of the coalition of the unwilling, doing everything in their power to prevent action on the defining crisis of our time: climate change.

What is in it for Murdoch?

The Saudi royal family has been the second-highest shareholder in News Corporation [Murdoch’s company]. And apparently Murdoch and the Saudi family are close friends, so that is a potential motive.
It's frustrating to see scientists being blamed. We've been fighting the most well-funded PR campaign in human history
You say the deniers are on the back foot and there are reasons to be hopeful. But we have seen false dawns in the past. Why is it different now?

Without doubt, this is the best chance in the 20 years since I have been in the climate arena. We have seen false complacency in the past. In 2007, after the IPCC shared the Nobel peace prize with Al Gore, there seemed to be this awakening in the media. That felt to many like a tipping point, though at the time I was very apprehensive. 

I knew the enemy wouldn’t give up and I expected a resurgence of the climate war. That’s exactly what we saw with the climategate campaign [the leaking of emails to try to tarnish scientists]. This is different. It feels different, it looks different, it smells different.

I am optimistic about a favourable shift in the political wind. The youth climate movement has galvanised attention and re-centred the debate on intergenerational ethics. We are seeing a tipping point in public consciousness. That bodes well. There is still a viable way forward to avoid climate catastrophe.

You can see from the talking points of inactivists that they are really in retreat. Republican pollsters like Frank Luntz have advised clients in the fossil fuel industry and the politicians who carry water for them that you can’t get away with denying climate change any more. It doesn’t pass the sniff test with the public. Instead they are looking at other things they can do.

Let’s dig into deniers’ tactics. One that you mention is deflection. What are the telltale signs?

Any time you are told a problem is your fault because you are not behaving responsibly, there is a good chance that you are being deflected from systemic solutions and policies. Blaming the individual is a tried and trusted playbook that we have seen in the past with other industries. 

In the 1970s, Coca Cola and the beverage industry did this very effectively to convince us we don’t need regulations on waste disposal. Because of that we now have a global plastic crisis. The same tactics are evident in the gun lobby’s motto, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, which is classic deflection. 

For a UK example look at BP, which gave us the world’s first individual carbon footprint calculator. Why did they do that? Because BP wanted us looking at our carbon footprint not theirs.

This leads to the second tactic – division. You argue people need to focus strategically on system change, but online bots are stirring up arguments over individual lifestyle choices. That said, you suggest there is too much emphasis on reducing meat, which is a relatively minor source of emissions compared with fossil fuels. Isn’t that likely to be divisive among vegetarians and vegans?

Of course lifestyle changes are necessary but they alone won’t get us where we need to be. They make us more healthy, save money and set a good example for others. But we can’t allow the forces of inaction to convince us these actions alone are the solution and that we don’t need systemic changes. 

If they can get us arguing with one another, and finger pointing and carbon shaming about lifestyle choices, that is extremely divisive and the community will no longer be effective in challenging vested interest and polluters.

I don’t eat meat. We get power from renewable energy. I have a plug-in hybrid vehicle. I do those things and encourage others to do them. but i don’t think it is helpful to shame people people who are not as far along as you. 

Instead, let’s help everybody to move in that direction. That is what policy and system change is about: creating incentives so even those who don’t think about their environmental footprint are still led in that direction.

Another new front in the new climate war is what you call “doomism”. What do you mean by that?

Doom-mongering has overtaken denial as a threat and as a tactic. Inactivists know that if people believe there is nothing you can do, they are led down a path of disengagement. They unwittingly do the bidding of fossil fuel interests by giving up.

What is so pernicious about this is that it seeks to weaponise environmental progressives who would otherwise be on the frontline demanding change. These are folk of good intentions and good will, but they become disillusioned or depressed and they fall into despair. 

But “too late” narratives are invariably based on a misunderstanding of science. Many of the prominent doomist narratives – [Jonathan] Franzen, David Wallace-Wells, the Deep Adaptation movement – can be traced back to a false notion that an Arctic methane bomb will cause runaway warming and extinguish all life on earth within 10 years. This is completely wrong. 

There is no science to support that.

Even without Arctic methane, there are plenty of solid reasons to be worried about the climate. Can’t a sense of doom also radicalise people and act as an antidote to complacency? Isn’t it a stage in understanding?

True. It is a natural emotional reaction. Good people fall victim to doomism. I do too sometimes. It can be enabling and empowering as long as you don’t get stuck there. It is up to others to help ensure that experience can be cathartic.

You also suggest that Greta Thunberg has sometimes been led astray.

I am very supportive of Greta. At one point in the book, I point out that even she has at times been a victim of some of this bad framing. But in terms of what she does, I am hugely supportive. 

Those I call out really are those who should know better. In particular, I tried to document mis-statements about the science. 

If the science objectively demonstrated it was too late to limit warming below catastrophic levels, that would be one thing and we scientists would be faithful to that. But science doesn’t say that.

Ten years ago, you and other climate scientists were accused of exaggerating the risks and now you are accused of underplaying the dangers. Sometimes it must seem that you cannot win.

It is frustrating to see scientists blamed. We also are told that we didn’t do a good enough job communicating the risks. People forget we were fighting the most well-funded, well-organised PR campaign in the history of human civilisation.

Another development in the “climate war” is the entry of new participants. Bill Gates is perhaps the most prominent. His new book, How to Prevent a Climate Disaster, offers a systems analyst approach to the problem, a kind of operating system upgrade for the planet. What do you make of his take?

I want to thank him for using his platform to raise awareness of the climate crisis. That said, I disagree with him quite sharply on the prescription. His view is overly technocratic and premised on an underestimate of the role that renewable energy can play in decarbonising our civilisation. 

If you understate that potential, you are forced to make other risky choices, such as geoengineering and carbon capture and sequestration. Investment in those unproven options would crowd out investment in better solutions.

Gates writes that he doesn’t know the political solution to climate change. But the politics are the problem buddy. If you don’t have a prescription of how to solve that, then you don’t have a solution and perhaps your solution might be taking us down the wrong path.

What are the prospects for political change with Joe Biden in the White House?

Breathtaking. Biden has surprised even the most ardent climate hawks in the boldness of his first 100 day agenda, which goes well beyond any previous president, including Obama when it comes to use of executive actions. 

He has incorporated climate policy into every single government agency and we have seen massive investments in renewable energy infrastructure, cuts in subsidies for fossil fuels, and the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline. 

On the international front, the appointment of John Kerry, who helped negotiate the Paris Accord, has telegraphed to the rest of the world that the US is back and ready to lead again. 

That is huge and puts pressure on intransigent state actors like [Australian prime minister] Scott Morrison, who has been a friend of the fossil fuel industry in Australia. Morrison has changed his rhetoric dramatically since Biden became president. I think that creates an opportunity like no other.

The book provides a long list of other reasons to be hopeful – rapid take-up of renewable energy, technology advances, financial sector action and more. Even so, the US, like other countries, is still far short of the second world war-level of mobilisation that you and others say is necessary to keep global heating to 1.5C. Have the prospects for that been helped or hindered by Covid?

I see a perfect storm of climate opportunity. Terrible as the pandemic has been, this tragedy can also provide lessons, particularly on the importance of listening to the word of science when facing risks. 

That could be from medical scientists advising us on the need for social distancing to reduce the chances of contagion, or it could be from climate scientists recommending we cut carbon emissions to reduce the risk of climate catastrophe. 

There is also awareness of the deadliness of anti-science, which can be measured in hundreds of thousands of lives in the US that were unnecessarily lost because a president refused to implement policies based on what health scientists were saying. Out of this crisis can come a collective reconsideration of our priorities. How to live sustainably on a finite planet with finite space, food and water. 

A year from now, memories and impacts of coronavirus will still feel painful, but the crisis itself will be in the rear-view mirror thanks to vaccines. What will loom larger will be the greater crisis we face – the climate crisis.

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Why Aren’t We More Afraid Of Global Warming? The Psychology Of Procrastinating On Climate Change

The Independent - Natasha Preskey

Unlike reports of a stabbing or terror incident, information about the dangers of the climate crisis can leave some of us cold. Natasha Preskey asks climate psychologists why

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

“I don’t expect to die from old age,” Margaret Klein tells me matter-of-factly. The clinical psychologist-turned-climate-activist is talking to me over the phone from a New York City park, where she is walking her dog.

“It’s hard to know exactly how things are going to play out,” the 35-year-old continues. Klein is certain, though, that she won’t be around to succumb to natural causes, thanks to the escalating climate emergency. “Fifty years from now, when I would be 85? No, I do not expect that.”

Klein’s day job involves helping connect those who are feeling grief, fear and anxiety about the climate crisis with likeminded people through online guided group sessions - such is the weight of emotion they are experiencing. But many people in the general population, outside of these therapy groups, can struggle to conjure strong emotions about climate change - even if they believe the science and do not deny what is happening.

In fact, for vast numbers of people, “the environment” is just another phrase in a headline that isn’t enticing enough to click on. 

Research by YouGov published in 2019 found that just 27 per cent of Brits ranked climate change among the top three issues facing the country, with Brexit coming top (67 per cent) and health second (32 per cent).

A 26-nation survey by the Pew Research Center also found that people in eight countries including France, Italy and Russia saw terrorism as the most pressing international threat, ahead of climate change. In the US and Japan, cyberattacks from other countries were seen as the biggest cause for concern. 

Why, though? 2020 tied for the hottest year on record. The previous year, 33 people died in the Australian bushfires, which also killed or harmed over three billion animals. The destruction of natural habitats is poised to cause more and more pandemics.

According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if we don’t meet the aims of the Paris Agreement and keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees, 10 million more people will lose their homes to rising seas.

This month alone, almost 80 people have died in a winter storm in Texas, a freak weather event scientists say is linked to heating in the Arctic, as it pushes cold air from the north pole further south. What is it about the demise of humanity as a result of the climate crisis that, somehow, doesn’t sufficiently frighten us? 

It’s not that we’re actually not scared, Caroline Hickman, a psychotherapist and social work teaching fellow at the University of Bath, tells The Independent. In fact, she says those who believe in climate change - but just aren’t feeling the fear - are likely being defended by an automatic response in their brain. 

“When we face a threat, it triggers a defense against the anxiety that that threat will generate in us,” she explains. “It happens automatically, and it happens outside of awareness, unconsciously. And then we go into a defensive mode of fundamentally fight, flight or freeze.”
We go into a defensive mode of fundamentally fight, flight or freeze
Caroline Hickman
“People who appear to not be frightened are very defended, they’re not allowing that anxiety to penetrate,” Hickman, who is part of the Climate Psychology Alliance, continues.

As well as suppressing difficult emotions about climate change, Klein says many people aren’t aware of the “stakes” and human cost attached to the climate emergency.

“I don’t mean to sound heartless but people can’t get too worked up about polar bears,” she says, adding that it can be difficult for people to be emotionally affected by things happening geographically far from them, or due to happen in the future. Instead, we are hardwired to react to events right in front of us - like a terror incident unfolding or someone being attacked. 

Our brains are programmed to look for “evidence of threat”, says Hickman, using the example of a cave man being faced with a saber-toothed tiger or a man with a spear and making a snap assessment about which he could fight off more easily. “We’re still fundamentally fairly basic animals psychologically,” she explains. “Which way are you going to run?”

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

People can engage with a “fighting narrative” around something like Covid-19, which has solutions we can observe taking effect, she says. “‘When we beat this, when we get back to normal, the vaccine will defeat this, we can fight this’,” Hickman says, invoking the language politicians use to talk about the pandemic. “That gives us this sense that we have agency, we have power, we can do something about this. And it’s immediate.”

For example, people witness coronavirus case numbers falling after following restrictions - there is a direct action and consequence in real time - but are unlikely to see immediate rewards from making lifestyle choices around sustainability, she explains.

“If you stop flying, or stop driving, or recycle your plastic, you don’t see the immediate feedback of the impact that’s having on the bigger threat, which is climate emergency,” Hickman says. “So the whole feedback loop gives us information that says you’re not making any difference.”

Our perception of the threat posed by climate change is also skewed by how it’s presented to us, says Klein, who points out that climate stories often aren’t written in such a “visceral” way as news stories about stabbings or cases of coronavirus.
People just aren’t getting the full story
Margaret Klein
“People just aren’t getting the full story, which is that the food system is going to collapse. civilisation is going to collapse,” she says. “Billions of people are going to die, you could very well die, your family could die, the stakes could not be higher. But we just don’t hear that.”

While the consequences are likely to be “absolutely horrifying”, Klein continues, two degrees of global warming and the loss of polar bears can sound “distant” in a way that doesn’t evoke the justified response.

Rare events like terrorism, which present a lightning-strike risk to most people, inspire far more emotional responses in many of us. Ideas of proximity are key here, says Dr Patrick Kennedy-Williams, a clinical psychologist and co-director of Climate Psychologists. 

“Terrorism, by its very nature, is designed to create a widespread, yet highly personal impact on people. You are supposed to think, ‘that could be me, that could be my kid’,” he explains. “The problem with climate change is the distance of its direct impacts on most of us is still too abstract to engage with.”

As well as making an individual assessment of personal risk, we also use the reactions of our peers to gauge how scared we should be feeling. Klein says this can lead to what is known as pluralistic ignorance.

“Humans evaluate risk socially, not rationally,” she tells me. “Why did we know coronavirus was serious? Well, the media told us and also everyone started to act differently. And people are very influenced by that. If your friends and family are taking it seriously, you’ll probably take it seriously. If they aren’t, you probably won’t.”

According to Dr Kennedy-Williams, the likelihood of your peers taking environmental issues seriously, and of you feeling proximate to the threat of climate change, can be affected by factors such as your age and whether you’ve been directly affected by it already (for example, as the result of a natural disaster).
For some, there are simply other issues that require urgent action, like ‘Where is my child’s next meal going to come from?
The other threats and pressures that already exist elsewhere in your life are also a factor, says Megan Kennedy-Woodard, climate coaching psychologist and co-director of Climate Psychologists. Socio-economics, culture and education are all important factors to consider when observing how people engage with ecological issues. 

“We are dealing with a variety of audiences who are receiving information about climate change,” she says. “For some, there are simply other issues that require urgent action, like ‘Where is my child’s next meal going to come from?’ or ‘Will we make rent this month?’”

While recognising the reality of the threat we face is key to taking action, the psychologist notes that, at a certain point, climate anxiety can become “too big” to allow us to act usefully.

“We really want people to strike the balance between their mental wellbeing and committed sustainable action,” she explains. “There is a saying, ‘When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time’, and this is the mentality we need.”

Being the right degree of scared is a tricky balance. Tackling climate apathy is a non-negotiable requirement but, if we allow ourselves to constantly feel the high-adrenaline type of fear we’d experience, for example, while witnessing a crime, we may end up being little use in the fight against climate change. 

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A Huge Iceberg That's Bigger Than New York City Broke Off Near A UK Base In Antarctica

CNN - David Williams
An airplane flies over the North Rift crack in the Brunt Ice Shelf in January.

A giant iceberg broke off the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica on Friday, not far from a British scientific outpost.

The 490 square miles (1270 square kilometers) chunk of ice is bigger than New York City and broke free in a process called calving, according to a statement from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

The BAS's Halley Research Station, located on the Brunt Ice Shelf, is closed for the Antarctic winter and its 12-person staff left earlier this month.

Scientists have been expecting a large iceberg to break away for years because of vast cracks that have formed in the 150-meter-thick floating ice shelf, according to the BAS.

A new chasm, known as the North Rift, started moving toward another large crack in November and grew a kilometer a day in January.

Aerial video taken in mid-February shows the North Rift stretching as far as the eye can see.

Brunt Ice Shelf - North Rift flyover (16 February 2021)

The crack widened to several hundred meters on Friday morning -- freeing it from the rest of the ice shelf, the BAS said.

"Our teams at BAS have been prepared for the calving of an iceberg from Brunt Ice Shelf for years," said BAS Director Jane Francis in the statement.

She said they get daily updates on the ice shelf from an automated network of high-precision GPS instruments as well as satellite images.

"All the data are sent back to Cambridge for analysis, so we know what's happening even in the Antarctic winter, when there are no staff on the station, it's pitch black, and the temperature falls below minus 50 degrees C (or -58F)," she said.

Satellite imagery showing the cracks in the Brunt Ice Shelf as of Feb 12. (European Space Agency)
The BAS moved the Halley Research Station farther inland in 2016 as a precaution and staff have only worked there during the Antarctic summer since 2017 because evacuations would be difficult during the dark winter.

"This is a dynamic situation. Four years ago, we moved Halley Research Station inland to ensure that it would not be carried away when an iceberg eventually formed. That was a wise decision," BAS Director of Operations Simon Garrod said in the statement. "Our job now is to keep a close eye on the situation and assess any potential impact of the present calving on the remaining ice shelf."

An even bigger iceberg broke away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in 2017 and floated into the open ocean late last year.

There have been six Halley Research Stations in place on the Brunt Ice Shelf since 1956 to make atmospheric and space weather observations.

The ice shelf flows toward the sea at a rate of about 2 kilometers per year and icebergs break off at irregular intervals.

"Change in the ice at Halley is a natural process and there is no connection to the calving events seen on Larsen C Ice Shelf, and no evidence that climate change has played a significant role," according to the BAS.

Scientists are now watching the iceberg to see what it will do next.

"Over coming weeks or months, the iceberg may move away; or it could run aground and remain close to Brunt Ice Shelf," Francis said in the statement.

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