Michael Mann – “Doom-mongering has overtaken denial as a threat and as a tactic. … they are led down a path of disengagement. They unwittingly do the bidding of fossil fuel interests by giving up.”
Doomist or realist? Meet the scientist who says the climate collapse has already begun
By Nick O’Malley August 23, 2024 — 5.00am
…
Just shy of 40 years old he was made a full professor. He was publishing papers in prominent journals and his two books had been well received.
“I was living in a beautiful part of the world, the Lake District in the UK,” he recalls, speaking from his new home in Bali as he prepares to travel to Sydney for this weekend’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas. Then, while preparing for his inaugural professorial speech, Bendell dived back into the scientific literature to check in on how quickly the climate was heating, and how well our efforts were going at cutting emissions to slow the process on rates of habitat and biodiversity loss.
What he read shattered him. “I’d always thought, you know, we had the rest of the century to change, otherwise we would be in a pickle.” He began to tuck the scientific papers and new stories that bothered him most into a folder. These were the sorts of stories many will remember. Stories about ancient frozen gasses burping from the Arctic tundra decades before scientists predicted such a thing might happen, weird heat spikes in Pacific. They were stories about events he had read about, but not expected the world to see during his lifetime.
He came to believe that the scientific data was being downplayed, minimised or misunderstood.
…
Read more (paywalled): https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/doomist-or-realist-meet-the-scientist-who-says-the-climate-collapse-has-already-begun-20240820-p5k3wj.html
A fascinating narrative battle appears to be heating up between people who think climate doomsday is unstoppable, and those who want governments to stop the climate apocalypse.
Michael Mann has doomers firmly in his sights. From 2021;
… 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. …
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/27/climatologist-michael-e-mann-doomism-climate-crisis-interview
Jem may have made millions of dollars from climate doomsday book sales, though to his credit he offers a free ebook version of his latest work, so its difficult to tell how many of the sales or downloads registered on Amazon were the free version. His current efforts appear to be focussed on translating his climate doomsday book into as many European languages as possible.
Jem Bendell currently lives in the tropical island tourist paradise of Bali according to his Wikipedia article, which strikes me as a strange place to ride out the global warming apocalypse. One of my favourite books, “Snowing in Bali”, details how South American cocaine traffickers turned Bali into a drug crazed party town and a drug transhipment point for imports into Australia and the rest of Asia, kind of an Acapulco in the West Pacific.
Jem’s Wiki entry claims he is in Bali trying to establish a school for regenerative farmers, so perhaps he sees his new life in Bali as a way of helping the most vulnerable people in the world survive on the front lines of the climate apocalypse.
I have no respect for Bendell or Mann.
Maybe you just need a positive song. /s
I listened but it didn’t really help.
OMG…. why hasn’t this guy slit his wrists already !!
AFAIK, “regenerative farming” is but the latest iteration of biodynamic/organic farming, which is a melange of antiscientific mysticism and buzz words.The Theosophy or Scientology of rural hobby gardeners.
How did organic farming as practiced by Vedanta Shiva work out for Sri Lanka?
I have listened to the climate alarmists insists that we only have “10 years to act” for the last 35 years! I find it hilarious that Bendell proclaims with astonishment and dread in the summer of 2024 that: “It’s already happening!”
Already? The more wrong they get, the more right the pretend to be!
re: ” “10 years…” for the last 35 ”
ALMOST the same note for -wait for it- FUSION reactors …
There are gross structural and fundamental misconceptions at work here for this to be continually the case, and w/o revision.Applying to AGW and CC too, of course.
Fusion reactors will arrive long before any climate apocalypse.
No, fusion has always been 30 years away
35 years? It’s been going on since at least the mid-70s.
Jem Bendell…. “emeritus professor of sustainability leadership”
Whatever the **** that is.
He should of course be totally ANTI-wind and solar, which are not sustainable in any way, shape or form.
Adding CO2 to the carbon cycle is the most sustainable action energy companies can do, because it sustains all life on Earth.
‘Sustainability’ is another word for ‘death’. ‘Life’ is constant change and adaptation. Life learns every day. We will know more tomorrow than we do today, if we are allowed to live. Sustainability is the idea that we will decide today what is required for the future, and ration today’s resources to make sure there is enough for the future. It is linear, Malthusian thinking in a non-linear, chaotic world, and therefore, a recipe for certain failure, suffering and death.
I would encourage all of humanity to completely ignore anyone with a degree in “Sustainability Leadership”.
Life finds a way.
— Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)
Bendell is drunk on the kool aid! Is he walking or swimming from Bali to Sydney to preach his tales of woe?
Bendell “to believe that the scientific data was being downplayed, minimised or misunderstood.”
There is always the possibility that they linger on this thread since their name is mentioned.. so
Bendell misunderstood that data, if something happens outside the expected behavior caused by anthropogenic CO2 (as inflated this role is by the alarmists), anthroogenic CO2 very likely has nothing to do with it, he got it wrong, but he is not alone in that.
Mann “This is completely wrong. There is no science to support that.”
Mann might as well describe his own work here! Using proxies in paleo-reconstructions without factoring in the selection bias is not bad science, it is just wrong.
Wyner called is p-hacking and Mann named it: “This is completely wrong. There is no science to support that.”
“Using proxies in paleo-reconstructions”
tree rings are not thermometers- I ordered a few text books on tree ring studies- no mention of them measuring temperature
No science. Hmmm….
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/geomatics-04-00017-with-cover.pdf
huh.. yes, no science.. oh look there is a paper about water on mars or similar..
Does your citation anythign to do with Bendell´s claim
“Stories about ancient frozen gasses burping from the Arctic tundra decades before scientists predicted such a thing might happen, weird heat spikes in Pacific. They were stories about events he had read about, but not expected the world to see during his lifetime.”
Nope? Then I am still right and you are wrong!
It’s hard to reconcile all of these leftist climate change ideals. So you think climate change is a problem, and you claim we need socialism and no fossil fuels to fix that, but you also think it’s too late, so I guess you’re nihilist and think f it, it’s ok for you yourself to jetset around the world, bang asian chicks, head to australia to hold court, etc…so then why bother with an energy transition? And you think capitalism is bad, but you are ok with profiteering off your grift. Oh and by some strange coincidence, 99% of them are Hamas supporters. Weird.
The hubris that humanity can precisely control the climate when we can’t even devise a thermostat that works better that +/- 3 F.
“I’d always thought, you know, we had the rest of the century to change, “
I’m sure Greta** told him otherwise. He must be a slow learner.
** her odyssey began on 20 August 2018, at age 15,
This one was my fave:
weird heat spikes in Pacific.
What kind of psychiatric disorder do you have to suffer from to tell people you’re a scientist and somehow also think that atmospheric CO2 does this?
My theory – it’s a new millennial disease – SSD, Sh!t Scientist Disorder.
I believe there is a lot of ‘snow’ in Bali. I am sure that has an effect and has created some imaginative thinking about climate in the South Pacific…..
Oh dear another would be planetary Savior to put up with, narcissists who can’t stop being a fool over a nonexistent doom.
The flaw in Bendell’s ever more complex fantasy is that what he calls Deep Adaptation is what all societies do naturally all the time.
All he does is produce ever increasing reams of verbiage to boost his own ego and take advantage of vast swathes of taxpayer money swishing about in international organisations.
He and all like him are the greatest danger to continuing civilisation.
Such people will create the destruction that they bang on about.
A face begging for a big smack.
STORY TIP
A giant Corryvreckan Whirpool did it
https://www.earth.com/news/experts-solve-the-mystery-of-a-giant-hole-in-antarctic-sea-ice/
They may be earth.com but they got the Coriolis acceleration wrong for the southern hemisphere.
Suggest Michael Mann see a shrink, a psychiatrist, if this is the biggest thing going on in his life.
Perhaps maybe he needs an exorcism instead? In any case, an unhealthy focus or intererst in things outside his control (and above his head in terms of value and complexity) has taken over, seized, his attention in this life.
Learned this a long, long time ago. Please forgive the religious overtones.
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannon change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Mann is trying to put the genie he conjured up with his magic hockey wand back into the bottle.
Good luck with that.
He’s just jealous that somebody, anybody, picked up his fumble and advanced it down the field!
So, the “Doomers” and the “Alarmists” are getting in each other’s teeth?
As ‘somebody’ once said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Pass the popcorn.
Was it The Duke of Wellington or Napolean?
Napolean.
“A fascinating narrative battle appears to be heating up between people who think climate doomsday is unstoppable, and those who want governments to stop the climate apocalypse.”
July was dam hot here in Wokeachusetts. Not comfortable for we homo sapiens. But, my trees, shrubs, lawns, garden, flower beds, bluebirds and many other species never looked so happy.
Inactivists?
Article quotes Mann as saying:”There is no science to support that. …”
Possibly the most ironic thing said by anyone. Of course there is no science to support that just as there is no science to support what you claim.
The current generation have been taught in school that that there is no future. They are foregoing children without realizing this itself is their extinction event.
Why do we even have climate scientists? Why teach climate science? Gore already told us the science was settled. He even got a medal for this finding.
Wind mills and solar panels are proof positive that climate scientists have no practical means to solve the climate crisis they promote. So of course this dooms the future because the cure is worse than the disease. Anyone with half a brain can see this.
MODs!
Sorry, ferdberple, for interrupting here.
For some reason the comments have been split into a “page 1” one and a “page 2” setup that don’t interact with each other.
Probably just a one time “glitch” since that hasn’t happened on later or earlier post.
Just “a test” to see if this comment under my name is a “trigger” and/or to call the MODs attention to it if they haven’t noticed
(There were good comments on “Page 2” that don’t show up here on “Page 1”.
Nothing says you believe in global warming like moving to Bali.
Sounds like the perfect place for a shadow puppet fighting epic battles agains imaginary foes to the clanging of cymbals and screeching of weird string instrumnets.
TIP
While looking for something else, I came across a WUWT post of 2020/May/15. Anthony put up info reported by Dr. Tony Phillips with text and image about entering the weakest solar cycle in 200 years. The historic report on the May 1921 solar storm is worth a read.
Reports of a solar minimum and low sunspot counts, and doom, were in the NY Post.
In fact the “Solar Cycle Progression”, here:
Solar Cycle Progression | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center
and “spaceweather dot com” show sunspot numbers near a 20-year high.
I’ve no insight about this, just thought it interesting.
“weaponise” … another cool word destroyed by overreliance and lack of creativity. It’s existential threat is eminent.
imminent, eminent, imminent, either one works.
My favorite word pairing of the decade: “Immanentizing the eschaton”
Mann: “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.”
Translation:
“The Cause” is change we want, not the climate. We’ve only been using “climate” to get people to willingly do what we want. Tell people it’s too late and they won’t buy into what we’re selling anymore.
PS MODS, what’s with the 3 boxes saying “« Previous 1 2″ at the end of the comments?
Is it related to different subscription levels?
I’m betting it was a random WordPress update. I would like to see it go away – there MIGHT be a setting for the site admins, but with WP, who knows?
I just tried to copy/paste the above comments into “page1” from “page 2”.
It didn’t work as is evidenced by them showing up again on “page 2” but not on “Page 1”.
I’d guess it was just a “glitch” outside the mods control or WordPress’s intention.
Oh well.
Mods!
For some reason the comments for this post were “split” in half, a “page 1 and a page 2”.
I’m going to try a copy/paste “Page 2” to end of this, “page 1”.
Feel free to delete if I just screwed up and/or it doesn’t paste correctly.
Here goes.
ferdberple
August 23, 2024 7:06 am
Nothing says you believe in global warming like moving to Bali.
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Reply
Bill Parsons
Reply to
ferdberple
August 23, 2024 10:45 am
Sounds like the perfect place for a shadow puppet fighting epic battles agains imaginary foes to the clanging of cymbals and screeching of weird string instrumnets.
1
Reply
John Hultquist
August 23, 2024 7:37 am
TIP
While looking for something else, I came across a WUWT post of 2020/May/15. Anthony put up info reported by Dr. Tony Phillips with text and image about entering the weakest solar cycle in 200 years. The historic report on the May 1921 solar storm is worth a read.
Reports of a solar minimum and low sunspot counts, and doom, were in the NY Post.
In fact the “Solar Cycle Progression”, here:
Solar Cycle Progression | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center
and “spaceweather dot com” show sunspot numbers near a 20-year high.
I’ve no insight about this, just thought it interesting.
0
Reply
KevinM
August 23, 2024 8:35 am
“weaponise” … another cool word destroyed by overreliance and lack of creativity. It’s existential threat is eminent.
0
Reply
KevinM
Reply to
KevinM
August 23, 2024 8:36 am
imminent, eminent, imminent, either one works.
2
Reply
Gunga Din
August 23, 2024 10:07 am
Mann: “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.”
Translation:
“The Cause” is change we want, not the climate. We’ve only been using “climate” to get people to willingly do what we want. Tell people it’s too late and they won’t buy into what we’re selling anymore.
2
Reply
Gunga Din
Reply to
Gunga Din
August 23, 2024 10:12 am
PS MODS, what’s with the 3 boxes saying “« Previous 1 2″ at the end of the comments?
Is it related to different subscription levels?
0
Reply
Tony_G
Reply to
Gunga Din
August 23, 2024 10:44 am
I’m betting it was a random WordPress update. I would like to see it go away – there MIGHT be a setting for the site admins, but with WP, who knows?
0
Reply
« Previous 1 2
Multiple pages are common in many forums. Once a page is “full” anything added goes to the next page. It is new for WUWT and is quite obnoxious.