Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Michael Mann, the upcoming US Presidential election is “a Tolkienesque battle between good and evil, and Sauron needs to be defeated on election day here in the United States.”. But Mann claims he is not being partisan.
A second Trump term would be ‘game over’ for the climate, says top scientist
Michael Mann, one of the world’s most eminent climate experts, says Earth’s future ‘is in the hands of American citizens’Supported by
Mark Hertsgaard Fri 2 Oct 2020 20.00 AEST
This article is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a collaboration of 400-plus news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. The Guardian is the lead partner of CCN.
Michael Mann, one of the most eminent climate scientists in the world, believes averting climate catastrophe on a global scale would be “essentially impossible” if Donald Trump is re-elected.
A professor at Penn State University, Mann, 54, has published hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers, testified numerous times before Congress and appeared frequently in the news media. He is also active on Twitter, where earlier this year he declared: “A second Trump term is game over for the climate – really!”, a statement he reaffirmed in an interview with the Guardian and Covering Climate Now.
“If we are going to avert ever more catastrophic climate change impacts, we need to limit warming below a degree and a half Celsius, a little less than three degrees Fahrenheit,” Mann said. “Another four years of what we’ve seen under Trump, which is to outsource environmental and energy policy to the polluters and dismantle protections put in place by the previous administration … would make that essentially impossible.”
…
Mann denies that it’s a partisan statement to say that four more years of Trump would mean “game over” for the climate.
“It is a political statement, because it speaks to the need to enact policies to deal with climate change,” he says. “But it isn’t partisan to say that we should act on this crisis.”
…
“The future of this planet is now in the hands of American citizens,” he says. “It’s up to us. The way we end this national and global nightmare is by coming out and voting for optimism over pessimism, for hope and justice and progress over fear and malice and superstition. This is a Tolkienesque battle between good and evil, and Sauron needs to be defeated on election day here in the United States.”
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/02/donald-trump-climate-change-michael-mann-interview
Last time I checked President Trump did not resemble an immortal wizard who is busy trying to recover his lost magical ring, which would grant him eternal dominion over the entire world.
But comparing President Trump to Tolkien’s premier villain probably makes as much sense as anything else Mann says.
To be fair, famous science fiction author Isaac Asimov once suggested in his essay “The ring of evil” that the One Ring represents technology:
“… it is the lure of technology, the seduction of things done more easily; of products in greater quantity; of gadgets in tempting variety. It is gunpowder, and the automobile, and television; all the things that people snatch for if they don’t have them; all the things that people can’t let go once they do have them. …“.
If Tolkien’s irrational yearning for a fantasy age of pre-industrial agrarian bliss is Michael Mann’s inspiration, this is not a vision I share. I choose the comforts of the industrial age, over the grim pre-industrial reality of back breaking toil, hardship, misery, bone chilling cold, disease, and an early death. It should be possible to enjoy a breath taking fantasy like Lord of the Rings, without confusing fantasy with reality.
Please remember though, Mann is not being partisan.
** OK, technically Morgoth is Tolkien’s premier villain. But you would have to be a real LOTR geek to know that.
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If by “game over” Mann means that he will shut up, that’s one more reason to vote for Trump!
(That is, besides the fact that Biden’s party will continue burning our cities to the ground if he wins, which is bound to have climate effects.)
If you deconstruct Mann’s diatribe he is saying that the world will be destroyed within FOUR years if Trump is returned. FOUR YEARS, Michael?? Even Hansen didn’t get that close. Think: how long since you brought your illegitimate child – your hockey stick – into the world? The place looks pretty much as it did then, more than 20 years ago.
I sometimes wonder how he gets that glossy shine. Shoe polish?
I agree with Mann, it’s game over for the climate if Trump wins as arsonists and protestors set fire to everything.
I am convinced that this President has the Armor of God and will recover and be as energetic as he ever was.
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/christian-terms/what-is-the-full-armor-of-god-how-can-i-put-on-the-whole-armor-of-god.html
That being said, for those so inclined, and who Love this country and our Republic as founded, I can think of no better time to pray for him than now.
But Mann is not about politics. He’s all sciencie or something.
Jeff,
I would go with the “or something”. Someone once described him as “a real piece of work” I believe that means, something less than desirable in American jargon….
From https://grammarist.com/idiom/a-piece-of-work/
I would have added that it likely was originally used sarcastically often enough to become an idiom.
Well, at least he isn’t wishing for Trump to become incapacitated or die! That is a considerable step up from what a good portion of the Hollywood and Washington media types have been saying and openly wishing for.
“Mann, 54, has published hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers”
hundreds? I doubt it.
How many times has he visited the toilet?
Who does the peer review on those papers?
So the “Science is Settled”, “Inconvertible Proof” “97% of All Scientists Agree” can all be overturned by one man. Crikey!
Wishing Donald and Melania and everyone all the best.
As usual, Mikey PantsOnFire Mann gets it completely backwards. It is he who is working on the side of Evil, the side that wants to both enslave and make us all poorer. His is the side which if successful, will actually kill people, as it will lower standards of living. There are parallels with the Climate Campaign Mann is involved with, and Nazism. Joseph Goebbels said: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Like him or hate him, Trump stands as perhaps the last bastion against the Biggest Lie in the history of humanity, that we in fact control climate, via our CO2 emissions.
I’ve never seen such a gross misuse of the word ‘EMINENT’ before.
I can’t think of a single thing Trump has done which would negate the silly “solutions” that many states have enacted. And the Feds are still providing subsidies for useless “solutions” (wind/solar) and also large electric car subsidies.although finally the DOE is meting out some (relatively small) subsidies for advanced molten salt nuclear reactors, which anyone who understands power generations can tell you, will be the dominant power generation technology in the near future. Michael Mann is just plain DUMB, and I mean DUMB.
Apparently no brains are required to be a “Distinguished professor” at Penn State. As I recall, his last university employer kicked him out the door.
It is becoming increasingly clear where Dr. Mann resides.
See the official London House of Lords government policy report :
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldintrel/250/250.pdf
British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World, Paragraph 39 (my bold) :
39.However, the difficulty the UK and its allies have faced in trying to influence the US demonstrates the challenge of working with the Administration. How damaging this will be to what has hitherto been the UK’s most important international relationship will depend on whether the current approach is an enduring trend. Should President Trump win a second term, or a similar Administration succeed him, the damage to UK–US relations will be longer lasting; and the Government will need to place less reliance on reaching a common US/UK approach to the main issues of the day than has often been the case in the past.
This UK Government policy paper makes it perfectly clear, no Trump Second Term.
How very charmingly Dr. Michael Mann reads from the British script, what?
We already know Mike Pompeo takes his orders from the British Henry Jackson Society at the In and Out Club, led by Sir Dearlove, ex-MI6 chief, the source of the Russiagate hoax, and now lately the Chinagate hoax. Pompeo has isolated the US beyond belief, to whose benefit?
“We already know Mike Pompeo takes his orders from the British Henry Jackson Society at the In and Out Club”
How do we know that?
The US isolated?
India 120 thousand fans gave President Trump numerous long standing ovations. President Trump is quite popular in Japan. Many European nations, resistant to global government and the unelected burecrats if the EU, support President Trump. Mexico has come a long ways to embracing the President’s economic plan. South Korea as well.
Who hates President Trump. Those that want global government, power over others, and the global business corporations that want monopoly powers. In short, fascism on a international scale, Wall St vs Main Street) As President Trump said, trillions are at stake.
Once again, bonbon, please keep up with your meds
Climate change is not about climate; it’s about the people who promote it. Here’s an example: ““The future of this planet is now in the hands of American citizens,” he says. “It’s up to us.”
Once again Mann proves he only reads the cliff notes version of any story. Eh, who am I kidding, he probably only saw the movies.
From the article: “The future of this planet is now in the hands of American citizens,” he says. “It’s up to us. The way we end this national and global nightmare is by coming out and voting for optimism over pessimism, for hope and justice and progress over fear and malice and superstition. This is a Tolkienesque battle between good and evil, and Sauron needs to be defeated on election day here in the United States.”
Michael Mann says: Black is white, and white is black.
Michael Mann (and the entire Left) lives on Bizzaro World where everything is the opposite of the real world. On Bizzaro world the Left are he good guys and the Right are the bad guys.
The real danger to the world is if Trump is not re-elected.
Trump seems to be doing ok at Walter Reed Hospital. Trump is getting treated correctly: They are trying to reduce his viral load right from the day he tested positive. This is what should be happening to everyone who tests positive for the Wuhan virus. The sooner the virus can be eliminated from the body the better it is for that body. That should be the focus for treating the Wuhan virus.
Trump’s White House doctor said about an hour ago that Trump no longer had a fever.
That’s a good sign when you have a fever and it goes away. Maybe Trump and all his fans will get lucky and he’ll either have a mild case of the Wuhan virus, or the drugs they are giving him will keep it mild.
Michael Mann: “A second Trump term is game over for the climate – really!”
Game over for the climate Mikey, game over!
From the movie “Aliens”….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsx2vdn7gpY.
We’re all doomed! /sarc
Very well said ” That should be the focus for treating the Wuhan virus.” !!!
Why are these climate wroughters one trick ponies? Twenty years ago he fashioned the climate hockey stick which then immediately bent back down flat for 18yrs and poof most of his career has gone by. Trenberth made a model of the earths atmosphere heat budget, opined it was a travesty they couldn’t explain the “Dreaded Pause” and then 18yrs went by with him searching for the “missing” heat. Hansen had to postpone the inundation of the Westside Hwy in Manhattan from 2000 to 2020 and he still rails on about 20ft above the highway by 2100.
How much have we paid these guys for their ‘single minded’ careers and pensions?
“How much have we paid these guys for their ‘single minded’ careers and pensions?”
Too much! They ought to be paying us back. Restitution, I thinks it’s called.
A perfect example of how idiocy is no impediment to receiving doctoral university degrees.
@Eric – ah, another one who struggled through the Silmarillion. (In a few hundred years, that will have the same place in the hearts of Lit majors as Beowulf and Canterbury Tales.)
In any case, I have suddenly realized how lucky we are that The Mann elected to become a climate “scientist.” Imagine this paranoid nutcase with a solid grounding in nuclear physics or genetic engineering. Shudder…
What he said (Dodgy Geezer).
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/10/03/covid-boosts-private-vehicles-over-sustainable-mobility/#comment-3096384
Regarding the added note at the end about Morgoth, you know his actual name was Melkor right?
Changed his name, Pat, when he fully went to the dark side. (IIRC, that was right after he killed the Two Trees.)
I read “The Silmarillion” a few decades ago. Tolkien’s son complied it from notes he found after his father died. (Might explain why it’s tough reading.) Tolkein had invented an entire mythology behind “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of The Rings”.
The two trees were sources of great light which the “High Elves”, who had travelled from middle to Valar, had captured in three jewel called “The Silmarillion”. (Galadrial was a High Elf.)
Several chapters after the tree were killed by Shelob’s great, great, great …. something, a man named Elendil, with his elf wife, recovered one of the three jewels.
To make a long story short, for those who have only seen the movies, he was sent to sail the sky with the jewel on the bow of his ship. “The light of Elendil” captured is in the vial Galadriel have him.
Another side note.
The Riders of Rohan always struck me as Vikings on horseback.
(The Harvard Lampoon’s, “Bored of the Rings” is a fun read.
Some of the jokes are dated. (The Riders of Rohan are called “The Riders of Roi-Tan”, a cigar brand at the time.)
Mann is such a polarizing figure. Does it actually matter what he says about anything?
The introduction says he is the be all and end all of climate science
Which is an accurate indication of his fraudulent nature.
As the public face of this, he should most closely ponder what Tommy Wils said in a climategate email
In a world full of useful idiots,who look good dressed up in a suit,how come “The Mann” is all these publicity hounds have?
Poor fellow is the mockery of Climatology,encapsulated in one round bodied prat.
Time must be very tough over at Team Headquarters,shunted from media attention by The Dread Covid and swept from most taxpayers attention by the poverty imposed by the Panicked Covid Shutdowns.
And now desperately trying to hold some media attention,they trot forth Michael Mann?