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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“flat rejection of global warming was becoming increasingly hard to maintain in the face of mounting evidence”
Even as flat insistence on AGW is becoming increasingly easy to maintain in the face of mounting evidence.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/11/26/ecsparody/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/03/tcruparody/
Dr. Mann is actually right. Individual choices have no chance of meaningfully reducing atmospheric CO2.
People have to understand what is actually necessary to reach CO2 nirvana. We have to build one nuclear plant every day from now until 2050. Is that even possible?
If we can’t come up with the non-fossil energy, we have to reduce our consumption. What does that mean for the economy? I suspect that, when you run the numbers, it means mass starvation.
Here’s a link to a story about a guy who has come up with a working pv-hydrogen and nitrogen-ammonia tractor fuel. It cost him two million bucks to get a system that provides half what is required to run a 320 acre farm. He points out that if the stuff was mass produced it would be a lot cheaper. That’s true. Even so, it might cost a million bucks to get a system that could actually power the farm. Also, all that equipment is built using fossil fuels. What would it cost to use non-fossil energy to build all that stuff. Steel doesn’t smelt itself you know.
Lots of people have run the numbers and demonstrated that we have zero chance of weaning ourselves from fossil fuels over any reasonable time frame. Any attempt to do so will send us reeling into societal collapse. The few survivors will be cave people.
How much fossil fuel do all Silicon Valley products and services use? Weird how we’re talking about everybody’s bread and butter, but not people who mindlessly stare at screens all day long. Huh, I wonder why?
Silicon valley would be impossible without fossil fuels or nuclear power. The power for computers is approaching 20% of the world’s electricity. link That’s not counting the electricity necessary to manufacture the equipment. It’s also not counting the electricity necessary to maintain the tech workers.
Our advanced technology is only possible because of cheap abundant energy.
“Lots of people have run the numbers and demonstrated that we have zero chance of weaning ourselves from fossil fuels over any reasonable time frame. Any attempt to do so will send us reeling into societal collapse.”
I think that sums it up perfectly. “Zero chance” People! It’s an alarmist/green pipedream. It’s your average person’s nightmare. It’s an unattainable goal absent a future big technological breakthrough. Until that happens, the pipedream is unattainable and people pushing it are delusional or disingenuous, and dangerous either way.
All that building is going to generate a lot of CO2.
Whenever I see a picture of Mann I hear “Adibi adibi adibi That’s all folks”.
He does tell a lot of porkies.
Well it is true, professor Mann.( or doctor, or whatever) we sceptics will certainly make fools out of the fringe followers of your movement. and there are lots of fringes 🙂
Have you ever wondered why your one central message has accumulated so many fruit-loop fringes ?
Leftists must use force, or it doesn’t count.
Allowing individuals to take care of their own personal patch of the planet first, in whatever way they see fit (to in effect, “clean up your room”) is a right-wing way of looking at the world. And that will not be tolerated.
Good point damp. Are you channeling Jordan Peterson? I know I do.
Me too.
One thing Peterson and others rail against is the kind of parenting that produces the need for safe spaces in universities. That leads to all kinds of evils.
The pendulum may be swinging back to sanity. There is a growing Adventure Playground movement. Such playgrounds encourage kids to take risks and thereby learn how to manage risk.
I hope we have seen the last generation of wusses who need safe spaces and trigger warnings for everything. Life is risky. The correct action is to deal with it head on. Hiding under the bed is self-defeating and pathological.
Flicking through you tube yesterday I stumbled across some excellent presentations by Christopher Essex and others. Youtube being what it is it eventually cycled onto other speakers on the general topic of climate change and it ended up on one by the said Michael Mann.
Climate Change Denial in the Age of Trump | Michael Mann (March 2018)
I sat through it. What an ordeal.
I found him to be a completely insipid presenter, waffling, poorly organised, devoid of facts, heavy on opinions, hesitant and totally unconvincing. It was painful to watch. It was so bad it reminded me of my first attempt in a public speaking course. It was embarrassing. I almost felt sorry for him. I certainly felt sorry for his audience.
Can someone please explain why they think they will ever succeed in de-industrializing the global economy. They are effectively demanding that nearly 8 billion join what amounts to a cult.
Does anyone think that?
Not only have 8 billion join a cult, but a cult that demands most of them die.
The anti-capitalist social change crowd has always been around. So now Mann’s just ticked that his Climate Clown Bus has been hijacked by them — XR and the lunatic Leftists spouting their anti-capitalism agendas.
They’ve taken his climate clown bus and painted it up with alarmist graffiti to fit their their Social Justice, Marxist message, rebranded it as Climate Justice and other nonsense. Mann and the rest of mainstream climate clown community are the real enablers because they refuse to call out the alarmist messages (rapid SLR, 12 years to act nonsense, etc.) for the junk claims they are..
All we have to do is to keep pointing to how ridiculous the whole scam is now.
Damn. Sprung. Off to the pub now for a mixed grill.
Seriously it’s just Mann trying to remain cutting edge and relevant, why even promote the junk from the narcissist.
It’s called ridicule.
Actually Mr Mann I’m decrying the infantilism of you and the climate changers with your perpetual fallacy of composition illiteracy-
https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/flights/qantas-to-slash-carbon-emissions-to-zero-by-2050/news-story/47c671d590545476d832c4dddba2721b
Normally authorities around the world ban pyramid selling schemes for the same reason but apparently Mr Joyce thinks they shouldn’t. I don’t listen to these Gretaheads nor try to psychoanalyse their intellectual shortcomings and besides I’m not licensed to prescribe their medications anyway.
But it has been my Childhood Dream to deflect attention! Ever since I was six and first discovered the joy of lying.
Now Mann has stolen my dream.
HOW DARE YOU!
Fine. You win Mann. Back to eating my body weight in bacon and buying myself a new turbo diesel.
First, I was there during Dr. Mann’s testimony on March 29, 2017 in front of the Committee of Science, Space, and Technology, where he compared himself to a oppressed Russian scientist from the Stalin era: As he put it, “Call people ‘deniers” all you want, use any name you want…beat them into submission, that’s a Stalinist tactic.”
Although, a careful reading of his Committee text shows Mann at his bullying, uncivil, and name-calling best. In fact, during the question and answer period, Mann denied calling fellow panelist Dr. Judith Curry a “denier” in several earlier interviews he gave to the media. In response, Dr. Curry quietly said Mann should read his own remarks.
Clearly, Penn State University’s Professor Michael Mann has no sense of humor, nor does he have a sense of irony.
Speaking at the “Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom,” Mann gave a speech preaching for the end of climate change debate at the University of Michigan, after Michigan’s President Mark Schlissel introduced guest speaker Michael Mann by saying that the University of Michigan will always be “an inalienable forum for discovery, debate, and discussion.”
This story is another reminder that “scientists” like Michael Mann are already using what he called “trench warfare” while claiming victimhood. Anyway, I hope that Dr. Mann will share disagreements with Dr. Curry with some kind of equanimity at the the upcoming “discovery, debate, and discussion.”
BTW, in case anyone still has respect for card-carrying, capital-S “Skeptics” organizations, CSI recently made Mann a Fellow (or some such position). Kendrick (sp?), the CSI-magazine’s main editor, is a rabid warmist.
I’m struggling against the “mounting evidence”. The struggle I’m having is finding it. The more I learn the less evidence there is.
Alarmists genuinely seem to think the evidence for global warming is utterly irrefutable, this is the basis of their belief that climate skeptics are fakes. A very strange belief system.
“Alarmists genuinely seem to think the evidence for global warming is utterly irrefutable,”
Yes, and they do this without having any of this evidence. We know this because when we ask them to provide their evidence, they NEVER do. That would be because they don’t have any evidence to provide, so they lie about it. Prove you are not lying about it, Alarmists. Show us some of this evidence. For once.
Well they have all the evidence, just as Schiff-for-brains insisted for years that he had all the evidence of Trump-Russian collusion and that it’d all come out with the Mueller report which would be so damning that impeachment for Trump-Russian collusion would follow. The Mueller report came and went, finding no evidence of Trump-Russian collusion, and Schiff-for-brains just ignored the big dud of the Mueller report and moved on to the next excuse he could find for impeachment.
That’s a good analogy. The Alarmists have about as much evidence that human-caused climate change is real, as the Democrats have evidence that Trump was colluding with the Russians. In both cases, the narrative is a lie perpetuated for political purposes, in an effort to gain power for the perpetrators..
Yes Paul the more you encounter these diehard alarmists you quickly come to the conclusion that 97% of them don’t have a clue about the science. My favourite one when they’re really emoting all over the place is to ask them how much the global sea level is rising annually at present according to the CSIRO and NOAA.
Don’t forget with the stunned silence and then the coughing and spluttering obfuscation to let them down a bit with- Well perhaps you’d care to hazard a guess if you don’t know exactly? Anyone? The guesses are bemusing and it’s a bit cruel but sometimes they really deserve shutting up.
So Mr Mann thinks we need a bit less carrot and bit more stick in order for the world to do as he says?
He’s probably right. I never heard of any self-respecting dictator wanting to subjugate the world, or even his own country, using anything less than large amounts of the stick option. I don’t see the global warming dictators as any different than their predecessors.
After some reflection, what Mann is really arguing for is an End to Free Speech here in the West, most especially the US.
Chinese-government style.
Mann is like the medical “scientists” who practice… public policy, like https://twitter.com/ThisIsOurLane
The NRA has done more to discredit the mainstream medical establishment than any medical mega scandal.
From the article: “Mann told the Observer that although flat rejection of global warming was becoming increasingly hard to maintain in the face of mounting evidence,”
Such as?
Schmodels. Oh yeah, and weather.
Flat out rejection of global warming? Well I guess both of those guys are finding it tough. What about us sceptics who are questioning the science behind the alarmist claims of catastrophe?
Don’t you mean questioning the lack of science?
Mann doesn’t understand that skeptics will never go away and the reason is that the fake science he considers mounting evidence coming out of the conflict of interest at the UN/IPCC/UNFCCC is so incredibly wrong, calling it science is an insult to all legitimate scientists.
Although global warming alarmism is becoming increasingly hard to maintain in the face of mounting evidence, this did not mean climate change alarmists were giving up the fight.
Fixed it for you Mike.
I like your version better, Stony! And of course, your version has the added benefit of being the truth. 🙂
Has anyone ever met an actual climate change denier?
That is a serious question….
I am a climate change realist. I know the climate is in constant flux. I know it has changed, continues to change and will always be changing. What Mann is doing, is knowingly being evasive. He is hiding the truth by claiming those who argue against Man Made Climate Change (MMCC) are also refusing to accept the science behind climate change. That is clearly not the case, but by conflating the two, it opens up a gap in the debate, into which he can force his vested interest lever and then make public comment, no matter how bizarre.
The fact he is commenting in the Observer is also indicative of the political position the “Mann Made Climate” followers worship.
For those who visit this site, but who do not yet follow Tony Heller, can I suggest doing so. Pulling back the curtain on junk science is what he does.
“Has anyone ever met an actual climate change denier?
That is a serious question….”
What the alarmists are really saying is “human-caused climate change” denier. But they conflate human-caused with natural climate change, and then pretend that if you are denying “climate change” then you are denying a fundamental activity of the atmosphere.
What skeptics deny is that there is any evidence that humans are causing detrimental climate changes.
In other words, the alarmists are trying to confuse the subject as part of their propaganda effort.
Skeptics don’t deny that the climate changes. It changes continuously and has done so since the begnning of time on the Earth. What Skeptics deny is that there is evidence that humans are causing anything unusual to happen in the atmosphere. The Earth’s climate changes. It gets hot. It gets cold. It changes all the time within bounds. There is no evidence that human activity is pushing the atmosphere out of those bounds. None whatsoever.
Alarmists are invited to prove this wrong. I write that without *any* expectation that any evidence will be provided. They won’t provide any evidence because they don’t have any evidence no matter what they say. Put up, or shut up. Just saying there is evidence does not make it so.
Michael Mann is just a genious in manipulation and propaganda. His supporters, like the Observer/Guardian newspaper group just lap up any thing he says without question. Why? Because he always says the ‘right’ thing.
No-one is suggesting lifestyle choices should be a substitute for wider political action. We are just asking that those shouting the loudest about the climate change alarm need to show they practice what the preach, and are making the sacrifices that they demand others should make – eg. flying less or not flying.
Another one like him, is the UK’s only Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas. She has opposed new runways, and got her self arrested for opposing shale fracking. And yet, this week she admitted she flies ! – to see her son who lives in USA. How sweet. She’s prepared to put family love before saving the planet.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7669845/Green-Partys-Caroline-Lucas-admits-takes-long-haul-flights-America.html
Maybe she could beg a lift back on the same sail boat as Greta?
How is Mann still at liberty after committing fraud and how does he get away with constantly calling people ‘deniers’? Isn’t that the term for those who deny the Holocaust? If us normal types did this we’d be arrested before breakfast.
Every atom of carbon in food came from one place – the air. All food is therefore carbon neutral, diet has exactly zero influence on the carbon cycle.
My wife and I are completing our fourth year as vegans. The main reason we made the switch was the scenarios laid out in the documentary Cowspiracy. I will admit to feeling quite chagrined to discover that, the producer, Leonardo DiCaprio, was, all this time, merely a pawn of the climate skeptic movement! I have been duped!
Fortunately, even though I no longer consider the GHG output of the animal/agricultural industry to be an issue, there are still plenty of reasons to be vegan. Gotta watch out for the Skeptic/Vegan conspiracy though!
According to one article posted at WUWT not long ago, cows are actually a benefit to the Earth’s climate, and farmers should recieve a payment from environmentalists/alarmists for having the good sense to raise them.
Cows are carbon-dioxide neutral.
well, there’s CO2, then there’s the methane. I’ll see if I can find the ‘net benefit’ article. I did find some articles on the ‘net about converting cow manure into methane-biogas!
Mann is nothing more than an activist. Not sure he was ever a scientist.