Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to veteran climate conspiracy theorist Michael Mann, climate “deniers” are deflecting attention from large scale societal reform by deceiving people into focusing on climate friendly lifestyle changes.
Climate change deniers’ new battle front attacked
‘Pernicious’ campaign is unfair on well-meaning people who want to help – expertRobin McKieScience editor
Sun 10 Nov 2019 06.02 AEDT…
Mann told the Observer that although flat rejection of global warming was becoming increasingly hard to maintain in the face of mounting evidence, this did not mean climate change deniers were giving up the fight.
“First of all, there is an attempt being made by them to deflect attention away from finding policy solutions to global warming towards promoting individual behaviour changes that affect people’s diets, travel choices and other personal behaviour,” said Mann. “This is a deflection campaign and a lot of well-meaning people have been taken in by it.”
Mann stressed that individual actions – eating less meat or avoiding air travel – were important in the battle against global warming. However, they should be seen as additional ways to combat global warming rather than as a substitute for policy reform.
“We should also be aware how the forces of denial are exploiting the lifestyle change movement to get their supporters to argue with each other. It takes pressure off attempts to regulate the fossil fuel industry. This approach is a softer form of denial and in many ways it is more pernicious.”
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/nov/09/doomism-new-tactic-fossil-fuel-lobby
I’m sorry to confess that for once Michael Mann is right.
All these years the Vegan and other lifestyle change movements have been climate skeptic fronts, a secret attempt by skeptics like myself to distract attention from real climate action, an effort to make climate action seem so unpalatable, ordinary people give up and accept fossil fuel into their lives.
Now that the brilliance of Michael Mann has exposed our plot, there seems no point continuing the Veganism charade.
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Eric,
So funny.
Steve
I really would like to let a big fart, but sadly, Mr Mann ain’t here to smell it.
Do it just for the cause of greenhouse gases as often you might
“… deflect attention away from finding policy solutions …”
He apparently doesn’t get that the only viable policy solution is no policy at all, which implies that no changes to life styles are required either.
co2isnotevil
I suppose now that Mann has solved the scientific climate conundrum all on his lonesome, he feels empowered to dictate political policy to people.
There are an awful lot of people who have professionally perished going down that route. Even Mann isn’t as slippery as a single politician, never mind a shoal of them.
Well they didn’t give him the Nobel prize for nothing. Oh wait, they didn’t give him the Nobel prize. Nevermind.
deflect attention??….
They are the only ones doing that…..directing it at “we” have to do something..
…and ignoring China, India, and the rest of the developing world shooting the finger at the whole thing
because they know the developing world will tell them to go pound sand…..
..unless it involves “we” sending them money to increase their pollution
Once again Mr. Mann is deflecting the issue. As Mr. J F Kennedy almost said “ask not what you country can do, ask what YOU can do” and as Confucius is reputed to have said “the longest journey starts with a single step”. These two comments should be enough for any of the alarmists to take their own personal actions.
I think Mann’s message is much more clever than is seems on the surface. Most of the persons in a position to push the Climate Change narrative are the worst offenders of air travel, large/multiple homes, vacations, limos and so forth (UN, Decaprio, Al Gore & Mann himself). The credibility of the messengers and thus the message is at stake.
So what do you do?? You say individual contributions are not nearly as important or not important at all. It attempts to restore the do as I say, not as I do idiom with a basic attempt at justification. Painted with a wide brush, all these persons are off the hook (because he said so).
How can you have policy changes that won’t affect lifestyle and still somehow solve this imaginary problem? Mann should stay with Climate Science where he is a respected (cough, cough) expert on everything. When he strays from his “expertise” he sounds like an idiot.
Even when he sticks to his “expertise” he sounds like an idiot. The problem isn’t with the subject matter.
Travel behavior and other personal choices…well duh it is fair to criticize hypocrites. And isn’t changing human behavior the solution to any problem? Policy solutions work by…changing human behavior by force. Duh. This is changing human behavior by choice. Apparently Mann prefers force over choice.
The diet thing is real tinfoil hat stuff. Show me ONE example of a “denier” promoting changes in diet.
Sounds like Mann doesn’t like to be told to stop flying around to conferences, being such a heavy consumer, and eating meat…so it must be a climate change denier conspiracy!
Actually he is just trying to hide the decline in meat eating so he does not have to go along with it.
Sounds like Mann is a devious , disingenuous, hypocrite. But I guess we knew that already.
You should probably add sociopath to the list. He clearly has no respect for humanity (only for his own smarmy self).
Mann didn’t get to be a porker by eating just vegetables.
Don’t forget cheese, bread and beer!
Sugar and grains are all it takes.
Billy
I’ll testify to that. Just lost 20lbs in the last month by cutting them out, as well as any other carbohydrate.
Oh!…….And by eating lots of meat!
At 60% over my proper body weight and having been raised a vegetarian and now past social security age by more that a decade I can assure that you can become a porker without meet. I went on a diet to feel better and hopefully think better. Perhaps Mr. Mann missed the Mid Evil Warming Trend and the Little Ice Age as well as a few other independents in climate history because he was over weight. Note to yirgach: I eat cheese and pasta. Hate beer.
The medieval warming was not evil, in fact, the resulting nice warm climate was the spark that kicked humanity out of the dark ages and into the renaissance.
I don’t know. This is Mann at home, notice the fruit bowl:
Also notice all the lights on for no reason. Personal lifestyle choices indeed.
It seems that Mann is confusing ridicule by skeptics of those who make life style choices based on their belief in corrupt science with promoting such choices as a substitute for unnecessary policy.
You really have to admire the Mann,just think of the sleepless nights he must have had to turn that around!
I think you mean “aluminum-foil hat stuff”.
To be green and vegan it can’t be mined.
It must be harvested from aluminum foiliage.
(It grows on trees.)
Damn, I’ll have to get that big fat slice of mutton out of the fridge and eat it in the open tomorrow. The game’s up. No sense in hiding it any more and pretending to all my friends I’m a strong, healthy vegan.
Maybe we can start a new front saying we are enlightened beings and we don’t eat at all and feed on the light and energy from that. We can tell everyone that we all need to stop eating to save the planet.
I just hope this damned genius Mann does not catch us out again before we’ve convinced half the world to starve themselves as part of our cunning denialist plot.
Hang on, I’ve lost track, I’m not sure that makes sense. How does this work again.
The smartitude of mann defies rational description.
A scientist so sh!t that his research missed the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, and he’s still calling other people climate deniers?
Jeeeez, most such people would have gone round the back with a pistol and one bullet by now …….
An honorable man would have done the honorable thing, when faced with disclosure of his obscene fraud. Mann is not an honorable man….
I will give up my carrot when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
By my reckoning, Mikey is now 54 years old.
So, only 11 years to go to reach the usual 65 retirement age.
His main worry at this stage would be –
“can I milk this lucrative CAGW schtick for another 11 years?”
Should be doable – the doomsters assert that this planet will only sustain humanity for another 12 years, so Mikey should be able to just sneak over the line into financially comfortable retirement.
(Even easier if the doomsters hold true to form and push out the CAGW apocalypse by another 10 years or so before this next prediction period reaches maturity)
Send him to Africa to talk to them about giving up their lifestyle without oil!
Be sure to send him by sailboat, rowboat or raft.
Lets make sure he gets there; send him by rocket.
He’s so full of his own importance that he “knows” he can just walk there.
Make him swim.
He can go by hot air balloon, as he’s supplies plenty of hot air every time he open his pie-hole.
Doesn’t have to be about oil. Tell them to give up any aspect of their lifestyle and see what reaction you get.
According to Greta, it’s now 8.5 years so he loses like the rest of us plebs.
Michael Mann, meet Greta Thunberg. You two duke it out, but please wait for me to get the popcorn.
Greta would make mincemeat of him – she really believes!
I always thought Michael “Piltdown” Mann was a bit of a crackpot.
Now I know it.
There LiarMann goes again, just making stuff up.
Chicken soup. Red beans and rice with smoked sausage. Slow cooker pot roast w/veggies. Quiche Lorraine for breakfast. Stuffed meatloaf, like my grandmas used to make it.
With every bite I take, I think think of Mann’s desperate need for the spotlight… and start giggling. He almost makes my a- – twitch.
I’m going back to my small but pleasant wines and talk to them. As I understand it, it soothes their souls.
Chuckle!
Sara,
OK, my mouth is watering. What do you use to stuff your meatloaf? I’ve never thought of stuffing it before. Michael Mann be d@mned! That sounds great.
Get a box of stuffing at the grocery store (saves time, already seasoned). Put a one inch layer of ground beef in the bottom of your pan, then add the stuffing, and then pat the remaining ground beef into place around it and on top of it.
There are several recipes online for this, all from someone’s mother or grandmother. Good stuff on a cold winter day.
I forgot to include the obvious here: Follow the package directions when preparing the stuffing for use.
My bad! Duh!!
Mann is right, there is still a hard-core of ‘Deniers’ attempting to convert people to insect-eating diets!
I’m trying to convince all Leftists to become lifelong Breatharians
Damn.
This is getting so confusing,I thought THE MANN, was a sceptic’s conspiracy to mock Climatology.
Especially the second raters who demand we address them as “Scientist Most Supreme.”
Which side is he on?
The success of the Hockey Stick Curve was on par with that other great hoax,Piltdown? Man.
The Mann exposed climatologists as fools and bandits.
Now he says mocking the Cult of Calamitous Climate distracts them from their stated intent to control all?
Who can take seriously a religious cult that bases its theology on man controlling the weather?
Surrender all your worldly goods,surrender to my madness and all will be well with your weather?
So speaketh The Mann??
I’m going on the Marmite-only diet effective immediately. Straight out of the jar. It’s the only way the planet can be saved.
Are marmites the critters on marmal fur?
They are sea-mites. Mar is Spanish for sea.
Ma might, but Pa WILL!!!
Stick to Vegimite. Not only is it veg (tis in the name – natch!) but can be effective in some situations as Drop Bear repellent.
Craig from Oz
Marmite and Vegemite are the same stuff, made from beer brewing waste products.
Other than a tweak to the recipes, they taste much the same until a decade or so ago when the makers made Marmite into a runny goo……..disgusting. I much prefer Vegemite which has a traditionally firm texture. Difficult to get in the UK these days.
the latest stunt from Kraft was?
to label Vegemite as suitable for vegans
seems they found reading labels too hard, so the company made it easier for them..
might be due to IQ issues due to lack of vitamins that Vegemite has;-)0
they might then use the newfound brain n stop the climate protest crap
meanwhile raging bushfires and we have the greens whining agw what dunnit
people arent impressed
lot of Nat Park roads were allowed to grow over and closed off
no burnoffs done
bit like Cali
NSW swallowed the green memes readily.
Vegemite… that’s the ticket… Vegemite sammiches.
Marmite / vegemite is the black stuff left in the bottom of the keg after you pour out the beer, partially dried and mixed with salt. A surprisingly delicious spread.
Or you hate it, which I do, as Marmite (and its carnivore twin Bovril) is/was made in my home town as there was a ready supply of brewers yeast from the local breweries, and the smell perveded everywhere, disgusting.
Vegemite is a similar product from Australia, British Marmite is marketed as “Our Mate” in Australia as there is another product called Marmite, which apparently is the New Zealand version.
Im new here, but is this the same michael mann that, XR quoted on national television?
What evidence is he talking about? The 11 thousand scientists, including mickey mouse? Al gore? The vile greta? Ocasio and her love of uber and planes? Obamas ocean front mansion? Leonardo DiCaprios 8000 mile plane trip to pick up a environmental award? Or maybe its the greening of the earth and the cooling effect?
Yes Sunny, it’s the same guy. Very much the comic relief around here. Type his name in the search box at the top of this page and you’ll have entertainment for days.
OK Mike, please detail the logical link between those of us who are not taken in by your special brand of a catastrophic future to the “useful idiots” on your side who think they can assauge their consciences by going vegan or cutting their transatlantic vacations from two one per year.
Who do you think is coordinating this “campaign”?
He presumably has lecturing duties. Many lecturers in UK and US nowadays publish their lecture notes, at least in summary form, online. Obviously only available in many cases to the relevant college registered staff or students, but some slip through to the general public. Has anyone experienced his formal university lecture course or read through his notes?
Oddly , and of couse I may have missed it , for such a distinguished scholar he does not seem to have published a textbook. Most senior lecturers I have known and worked with have at least attempted to do so, not necessarily for the money , although they might have a captive , paying , audience if they make their book the course book , but for status and to establish on the academic world their own way of seeing the physical world.
But Prof Mann seems to have leapt into the stratosphere without that initial step. Must be good then (if I seem a bit bitchy put it down to envy).
mikewaite
You have nothing to be envious of.
It’s one thing to get to where man has on merit. Quite another getting there by fraud.
I suspect you wouldn’t care for being a famous fraudster.
mikewaite: Thank you, I was just about to give up saying something fresh and funny re: this goofball, but you opened a door……
Prof Mann evidently thinks making money the old-fashioned way (selling textbooks to students who must buy them and must attend your lectures) is for chumps. The big money he sees is grants for research. Since the science is settled (i.e., he settled on software that must bend up unless it bends down, then flip), he can focus on climate catastrophe communications. Writing a textbook? That is so 20th century. And a textbook would consume a lotta grad student time that is better spent scrubbing emails and data.
Policy changes?
MM: Hello India and China, glad I got you both on the phone. We need you to stop funding those 1500+ NEW coal burning plants inside and outside your countries.
India: What are we supposed to do? Rely on intermittent sources?
MM: Well we can work out the details later. Right now we need you to stop.
China: Will you give us more money?
MM: Sure we can send you trillions.
Xi to Modi on a private text: Lets agree, take the money and then F’em we use whatever we want.
Modi to Xi on private text: LOL. You are my kind of person.
Michael Mann totally misrepresents by far the most prevalent of denier’s views – that they admit some man-made global warming, but reject Mann’s deniers who deny that man made warming is not excessive, and not only can, but will be lessened by the switch to gen 4 nuclear reactors and electric cars, which will oddur because of economic and other factors that have nothing to do with CO2 emissions.
Nuclear is great but maybe not electric cars. Not so great after all, it seems.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES EMIT MORE CO2 THAN DIESEL ONES, GERMAN STUDY SHOWS
* Date: 23/04/19
http://bit.ly/2ZYdUXJ
I’m confused. The warmists are opposed to the greening of the Earth because CO2 is good for plants, but plants absorb more sunlight because they’re darker and both simultaneously increase precipitation while leading to droughts. The people who want to exclusively eat plants (vegetarians) should be lauded, but are to blame? I, myself, kill two birds with one stone, by eating herbivorous animals that consume grasses and grains, like those pesky bovines and fowls, which with the right sauces have actually made a pleasure out of necessity…
“First of all, there is an attempt being made by climate clowns to deflect attention away from exposing their fraud.”
Typo fixed.
Well, when I read this latest mental gymnastics from Mann, I have to confess, you could have knocked me down with a hockey stick…..
I am sure there are some climate realists who are vegan, but to claim the climate realist movement is driving the case for universal veganism, is clearly the working of a deeply disturbed mind.
I then remembered this is the opinion of Michael Mann, and as is the case these days, when reading anything from him, I regard it as complete nonsense.
She’s hardly a climate realist but …
https://vegnews.com/2019/2/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-urges-kids-to-save-the-planet-by-ditching-meat-and-dairy
I guess Mann is calling AOC a denier?
Or he’s accusing the us of what the those promoting “The Cause” are doing?
(He’d prefer they waited till after the masses have voted away their freedoms.)
Or he’s just got things upside down again.
Well AOC didn’t condemn the suggestion that we should eat babies when it was brought up by a Larouche troll during a town hall.
troll: We need to eat the babies
AOC: One of the things that is very important to us is that we need to treat the climate crisis with the urgency that it does present
It appears that Mann does not yet accept that we have emerged from the Little Ice Age as there is only “mounting evidence” of the increase in temps, not fact.
As I have read, there is only one point five degree warming since the little ice age,have we just adjusted or does that make that much difference?
Robert
Humankind adapted, and invented the Bikini.
Oddly enough, the bikini was invented during a cooler period, you know with the impending ice age and all.
And we should take into consideration that the globe has cooled off by about 0.4C since 2016, so that rise of 1.5C they are referring to is now about 1.1C. It might go lower still.
Really? Is this published anywhere? I’d love to be able to upset the local XR druids….
Here you go, Andy. This is the UAH satellite global temperature chart. It clearly shows the globe has cooled since 2016.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_October_2019_v6.jpg
Don’t pay any attention to those bogus Hockey Stick charts. They are political documents, unfit for climate purposes.
Short term nonsense. Just like the warming since the LIA.
Cheers Tom
A faction of a fraction and their predictions do not conform with observation, and the models exhibit a lack of skill to hindcast, let alone forecast, climate change, or weather outside a limited frame of reference, forward, backward, and in space, without regular injections of brown matter to force a preferred outcome.