Climate Optimism?

I find it regrettably easy to feel despair and hopelessness when pondering the ecological state of our world (let alone our political state). The impact of climate change is already disastrous; it’s hard to envision how the inevitable increasing warming won’t bring even greater damage, suffering, and waves of extinction. For decades, political leaders have done absolutely nothing, pretending the problem doesn’t exist; oil and coal corporations have prioritized profits over the planet, wielding fleets of lobbyists and targeting campaign donations so as to secure politicians’ votes against action. Even today, after the devastating drought, fire, floods and storms show irrefutable evidence of human-caused climate change, no Republicans are willing to vote for the president’s bill that promises the bold measures needed, Build Back Better. Most of the stuff I read about the climate, including the magnificent books and articles of Elizabeth Kolbert, leave me depressed at the slim and rapidly diminishing prospects of humanity’s ability and will to meet the challenges.

In this dismal moment, then, Michael Mann’s book The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet offers a bracing splash of a potion that concerned, sentient beings haven’t felt in some time: hope. Mann is a highly respected scientist who has taken upon himself the thankless role of explaining climate science to the public. He regularly accepts media invitations to counter varieties of anti-science propaganda regarding climate change, and jousts with dangerous and deluded crackpots on Twitter. He is a veritable climate Mann of La Mancha (who, like me, has a fondness for puns–or as my kids call it, “bad daddy humor”).

The message of The New Climate War is that a certain degree of hope is both warranted and necessary as we set out to address climate change. It is warranted because, despite the evident and growing damage of climate change, humans do have the power to avert the worst by taking action. In his expert view, we are already on the right path and just need to work together to accelerate the process. His optimism is sparked by the global youth movement, growing year by year, that calls for governments to take responsibility and grant them a future. Optimism is necessary because it alone is capable of leading people to believe in the efficacy of this work. People are not inspired to take action if they believe there is no hope. And he believes strongly that hope is justified.

He describes two main fronts to the “climate war”: denialism and doomism. Climate denialism is the pretense that climate change does not exist or the obfuscation that the science is inconclusive. This was the main tack taken by the fossil fuel industry and its political allies for decades; bogus think tanks like the Heartland Institute gave this movement a veneer of scientific legitimacy. To their eternal shame, some prominent scientists willingly lent their reputation to this cause. Recent journalistic exposés have shown that scientists in the coal and oil industries have known about the impact of their product on the climate for more than half a century, but the companies chose to hide their findings and claim the opposite to the public. Their roadmap was the same as the tobacco industry, but the result was even more devastating.

Fortunately, in Mann’s observation, denialism is in serious decline, owing to the annual extreme weather patterns that can no longer be written off as aberrations (“once in 500 year storms” now occurring several times a decade). Now, the greatest threat to climate action is what he terms “doomism,” the belief that the end is nigh and there’s nothing we can do to avert it. In just a few years, Mann found himself shifting from fighting people claiming “it’s not real” or “it’s not so bad” to “we’re a-goner.” In Mann’s view, doomism is a luxury we cannot afford. While things are certainly grim, we can and must do all in our power–and we do have the power to make a difference. We cannot restore the natural world of 200 years ago, but we can put the brakes on climate change and work together to create a better, more livable planet.

The prophet Jonah was optimistic, in his bizarre way: if people receive the message that they need to change, they will actually change their ways. Mann embodies this message. Despite the entrenched interests of fossil fuel companies, oligarchs and the politicians on their payroll, the rest of us are capable of fighting back and winning the climate war. We all need his vision and hope, and to heed his call to action.