Climate Thoughts with Brian

Kolbert, the Pulitzer Prize winning author, has gathered for her readers 17 celebratory  articles from the last 20 years of her writing career, to highlight and inspire others working for a better climate today and tomorrow.

With devastating climate events happening daily around the world, articles  on issues from ten years or over, may seem out-dated to some readers. The lesson here, however, is to acknowledge the journey towards climate action, that sometimes has happened slowly and other times has been revolutionary in nature. Many of the essays draw our focus towards solutions and how the impact of an individual’s work on conserving, communicating, rewilding and protecting our precious world and ecosystems, can motivate and inspire local communities to work together.

Kolbert reminds her readers that, ‘We live in an extraordinary time’ and that the alarming pace of climate decline we witness in the modern world, is a rare occurrence in the planet’s history and one which we are in danger of pushing past a point of no return. ‘But over the last four billion years, only very rarely has change rushed along at the pace it is moving today.’ Rising global carbon emissions and the resulting need for decarbonisation can become political footballs, which can delay helpful technologies which may play a part such as carbon dioxide removal initiatives. Kolbert is quick to note the challenges that need to be surmounted before any of these programmes could be feasible at large scale and suggests instead that these efforts may simply be a distraction from the need to turn the curve of global emissions back down to the steady and stable levels of the past.

Kolbert notes, ‘The amount of CO₂ in the air now is probably greater than it’s been at any time since the mid- Pliocene, three and a half million years ago, when there was a lot less ice at the poles and sea levels were sixty feet higher.’

‘Life on a Little- Known Planet’ is not by any means, a ‘doomist’ text. Instead, it profiles dedicatedindividuals, including more famous names like James Hansen and Christiana Figueres, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, along with their experiences and expert views.

It also focuses on the efforts of individuals around the world, who have a strong sense of place and connection with their environments. The moral and legal question of whether the natural world should have rights, is evaluated by Kolbert and is found to exist throughout human history. ‘From a certain point of view, granting nature a say isn’t radical or new at all. For most of history, people saw themselves as dependent on their surroundings, and “rivers, trees and land” enjoyed the last word.’

Witnessing how both our local and global environments are changing, transforming and collapsing, reminds us of what we are in danger of losing. Writers like Kolbert have been sounding the climate alarm for over 20 years now and this is brought into sharp relief when we read her prescient articles dating back to 2005.

When languages die out; when ecosystems die out; when insect colonies die out; we are not just in danger of losing connections, species and interconnected worlds- which we are still touching the surface of- no, instead, we are in danger of losing ourselves and our relationship with our world. How we respond to the climate crisis as the defining challenge of our times, means that we have to move beyond words, treaties and pledges. We need a response which is rooted in gratitude.

The Earth is not a capitalist commodity. 

It is our home.

Dr Marvel’s ‘Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet’ is a wonderfully balanced book. It offers clear and detailed scientific information, which logically ties all the climate clues together, while at the same being unashamedly and unapologetically a personal account of the range of feelings that the climate crisis brings.

Marvel’s writing is peppered with a sharp dry wit and crackles with a passion for climate action. She draws on the wonderful power of storytelling and compares the hubris of modern humans in their fossil fuel lives, with the classical figures of mythology to suggest that the lessons still haven’t been learned. The chapters of the book are entitled with major emotions, such as ‘Wonder’/ ‘Anger’/ ‘Fear’/ ‘Pride’ which read like mythological characters progressing on a quest. Marvel makes the powerful point that the humanity of climate scientists does not cloud their judgment, but rather enhances it with a love of what can be saved. “I’m sad, desperately so, when I think about all the things we’ll lose. I’m afraid of the disasters I know are coming. I’m proud and surprised and hopeful and utterly in love with our beautiful world, I feel so much.”

As a scientist well versed in using climate models to better understand the impact of climate scenarios, Marvel focuses our attention on our living model- one that is our home. “Scientists have used climate models for decades to see possible futures. Now these long-predicted changes are coming to pass…It’s not a toy planet burning; it’s our beloved Earth.” She compares climate scientists to modern day Cassandra- like figures: “We see the tragedy that awaits; we try to warn of it.”

“Yes, it’s real. Yes, it’s us. Yes, it’s bad. Yes, we’re sure.”

Repeatedly in the book, Marvel hammers home the point that the scientific information of climate change has been known for many decades and that we appear to be more interested in ‘watching Rome burn’, than in taking the action which will make us the heroes of our own story. “The evidence is overwhelming, the science unequivocal: The world is warming because of greenhouse gases.” She rails at the ignorance- oftentimes deliberate ignorance- of those who fail to understand scientific uncertainty and attempt to use it to delay further climate action. “I am angry at the cynicism, the lies, and the greed. I feel burning rage when I hear the same tired talking points, the falsehoods repeated credulously by people who should (and do) know better. And I’m absolutely furious when I see the uncertainty inherent in the scientific method twisted into something evil.”

Marvel’s writing style lifts the words off the page. Her command of the cadence and rhythm of language leads to arguments being well balanced and emphasised.

“We are more sure that greenhouse gases are warming the planet than we are that smoking causes cancer…To stop the planet warming, we simply have to stop emitting them.”

Marvel argues powerfully that we are the agents of change and the future that we hand to our children must contain the acknowledgement and apology that humans have been poor guardians of the planet so far. “When we accept our own responsibility, we gain a powerful truth: How bad it gets is up to us. The future is still in human hands.”

The future matters for Marvel and she argues that we have an immense and unprecedented challenge ahead of us, as the planet changes. “The future remains uncertain. But I’m sending my children there, and they are never coming back.” The political choices that humans make now to act cooperatively, will create this future world- whether it is a world of conflict, limited resources and fear, or whether it will be a peaceful world remains in our control. “We can’t predict what future climate disruption will do to geopolitics, conflict, or the risk of war. But it would be unwise to think it will make the world a more peaceful place.” Marvel continues this argument, that our future world depends on our choices now by saying, “It’s true we don’t know what future climate change will look like. And this is mostly because we don’t know what choices humans will make.” Unprecedented human action to fight against this all too real climate monster is a choice that we need to make so that compound climate events do not  continue to imperil us.

The world is not supposed to warm this quickly

Marvel negates the arguments from climate deniers and delayers that ‘climate change has always happened’ by adroitly pointing out that, “The planet’s temperature goes up and down irregularly, like many unsynchronised hearts beating together. What it does not do is rise consistently for more than a century.” This pace that we have caused and then witnessed rightfully causes concern. “The pace of recent climate change is stunningly, bewilderingly fast…The world is not supposed to warm this quickly, to change this suddenly. It never has, or at least not since humans (or anything like humans) have existed. It feels wrong. It is wrong.”

Marvel urges that in this climate emergency, we should be ‘throwing everything at the problem’, but cautions against the ‘silver bullets’ of geoengineering, which continue to hold unknown dangers. She acknowledges that, “Miracles are possible. But it’s a terrible strategy to bet the planet on one.”

We are urged not to be the ‘mad scientists’ of shock horror B movies, creating the golems of climate technological saviours, as we have no idea what climate chimeras we might unleash. 

Marvel asks instead that we act out of love and compassion- compassion for our world and for ourselves, so that future generations may look on us with pride and gratitude for a job well done. She quotes the great Carl Sagan, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” We are the writers of this new climate story- one which will be passed down generations, as the myths of the classical past have been gifted to us. Marvel describes this simple and powerful act- a journey that no one has gone on before, but a path which we all must chart.

“At bedtime we read stories about heroes and monsters, quests fulfilled against impossible odds. I tell him that to stop climate change, we will have to do something that no one has done before. But that, he knows, is what happens in any story worth telling.”

Leibniz’s words, popularised by Voltaire, bring Marvel’s ‘Human Nature’ to a close. ‘All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.’  We are reminded again by Marvel that the planet that we have damaged, and continue to damage, is our only home- our once and future home.

“We can only live here, together. Here in the world that we have changed so much. Here, shining out into cold space where there is no darkness, only light we cannot see.”

When two world-class science heavyweights take the time to warn us about scientific endeavour being under attack by bad actors, it is incumbent upon us to listen. Doctors Michael Mann and Peter Hotez have spent much of their professional life being targeted by the political and ideological opposition to science at enormous personal cost and this book serves as a both a warning and a call to arms to recognise and fight against the orchestrated disinformation efforts of those who would focus on short- term profits over the threats to human life. In this very timely book, the authors identify the five forces that fuel this antiscience narrative. “In Science Under Siege we seek to provide a succinct yet detailed delineation of the five forces behind the modern-day antiscience movement (the five p’s, we’ll call them- the plutocrats, the petrostates, the pros, the propagandists, and our press).”

The authors stress that it is vital that these forces are recognised for what they are and that we do not allow them to fan the flames of division, especially at a time when our way of life is threatened by the twin crises of global pandemics and the climate crisis.

“The future of humankind and the health of our planet now depend on surmounting the dark forces of antiscience.” The disinformation tactics of attempting to isolate an individual scientist to discredit them can be seen as an attempt to quell the pursuit of science among younger generations, who then see science as a career where you are derided and reviled, rather than the industry of respect that it was in the latter part of the 20th century. Indeed, the authors go further here, and note the silence from the scientific community when one of them comes under repeated and targeted attack. The silence of friends- fearful of their own career reputation, or personal attack, can be a useful tool to isolate and ‘gag’ scientists.

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” So far, the silence has- in some instances, been deafening.”

Mann and Hotez argue that, “Mistrust in science is now escalating in certain demographics because of a targeted campaign against us- antiscience predation for someone else’s financial or political gain.” Instead of being seen as a significant social wedge issue, the attack on science to seed and sow state-sponsored disinformation, becomes a means of destabilising democratic societies around the world.

Mann and Hotez remind their readers that the fossil-fuel industry has been well aware of the dangers of the climate threat for almost 50 years and highlight that the delaying obstacles and challenges to government action are not physical or technological- but rather that they are entirely political. The ideological motivated efforts to deny the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic more recently follow this same pattern of political division and delay- sadly with human lives hanging in the balance.

“Meanwhile, the world’s largest fossil-fuel companies already understood the climate threat. In an internal report from 1982 that was eventually leaked into the public domain, ExxonMobil’s own scientists accurately predicted the increase in CO₂ concentrations and warming that would occur today in the absence of efforts to curtail fossil-fuel burning.”

Mann and Hotez make the repeated argument that we do not have to be passive receivers of this well-funded campaign of antiscience, but that by ‘knowing our enemy’, we can become armed into neutralising this threat and that metaphorically, sunlight can be the best disinfectant to this highly organised dangerous ideology.

“While there is urgency- unlike any we’ve ever known- there is still agency. We can still avert disaster if we can understand the nature of the mounting antiscience threat and formulate a strategy to counter it.”

A Candle in the Dark

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”- Albus Dumbledore. 

The authors then begin to turn the spotlight onto each of the 5 ‘ps’ in turn, those oftentimes defenders of the powerful special interests and political agendas which actively promote anti-science as their repeated mantra for their own culture wars. They begin with the plutocrats, where power is held and controlled by a small minority of high-net-worth individuals and name them as malevolent players. Names which are familiar to us, such as the Koch family, Rupert Murdoch, Zuckerberg, Musk and Bill Gates. The point is made that “Today’s malevolent plutocrats frequently operate through a complicated web of entities as they wage war against science and scientists” and note that this ‘dark money’ can be difficult to follow and its users are protected by a lack of accountability. The impact of the Koch family casts a long shadow. “Koch Industries is the world’s largest privately held fossil-fuel company, with an obvious financial interest in fossil fuels.” The importance of funding for the disinformation campaign has led to bad actors appearing ‘untouchable’ and appearing to have a disproportionate amount of power.

“Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, the tech bro of tech bros and cryptobro of cryptobros, has become a leading spreader of disinformation writ large.” As a result of the distractions and delay caused by these plutocrats, the necessary government action has effectively been nullified. When Musk bought Twitter, he then “converted Twitter into a forum for far-right extremism…which in turn, led to “[t]he evaporation of science from platforms like Twitter launched an exodus of science from the public conversation.” When there is a vacuum of communication, with scientists forced out by trolls and bot armies, only one narrative remains powerful, which sets humanity back decades. Very recently, we have seen the return of some climate scientists to this platform- scientists unwilling to yield large amounts of online space to bad actors for free. This might be the start of a reclamation of the space by the science  community, which would be welcome, as it has left those remaining active voices very marginalised. 

Who is standing up for science?

In the fight to discredit accurate and robust science communication, plutocrats can merge with another ‘p group’- that of the petrostate. “Petrostates are often run by dictators, plutocrats, and oligarchs who acquire political or economic power (often without accountability) through the wealth they derive from extractive industries.” Some petrostates are more well known than others, but there are commonalities- one of which is to choose not to lead on any concerted global action on climate, but to remain firmly in delaying action for as long as possible. Mann and Hotez understandably focus on events in the United States and ‘the American petrostate’ and are persuasive in their arguments that politics is not only divisive- it is deadly. There has been a long game strategy played by the fossil-fuel industry, to slowly move their policy makers into position, even if this takes years and decades- but now they are in place. “During the 1990s the fossil-fuel industry began to invest heavily in conservative policy groups, think tanks, and front groups advocating policies friendly to the fossil-fuel industry. Meanwhile, they funded conservative climate-denying politicians, most of who were from oil states.”

With President Trump’s second term as President, the attack on science has become more vitriolic and dangerous on a global scale. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has faced significant cuts, seen by many to be a malicious attack on climate science and climate partnership with other leading organisations. More recently, the Department of Energy published a report claiming scientific concern about the climate crisis is overblown and exaggerated. A hand-picked team of science contrarians were selected for this report, which was viewed as an attempt to replace legitimate science with pseudoscience and has been fact checked for misinformation. The respectable Carbon Brief organisation, counted more than 100 false or misleading scientific claims contained within this report. In the authors’ minds then, it is clear that this is just the latest in the concerted attack on science.“There is unquestionably, a coordinated, concerted attack on science by today’s Republican Party- the American petrostate, if you will- with climate and biomedicine as focal points of the assault.”

The authors powerfully argue that the end result is to halt science progress in the United States and then by extension, hold back meaningful global action on climate- at the least, disrupt any action. This chapter ends, and indeed this argument ends, by ‘calling out’ the political attack on science.

“The fact that antiscience has been embraced so fully by one of the two major parties in the United States is grave cause for concern.”

Pros and propagandists

Mann and Hotez next focus on the twins of ‘pros’ and ‘propagandists’- figures with huge social media presence who regularly appear as ‘experts’ on media platforms touting for the fossil-fuel industry. “Pros include individuals with scientific credentials who have been financially lured by polluters and plutocrats and weaponized into a force to attack mainstream science and scientists. There are also the paid propagandists with no scientific credentials but plenty of media savvy and access to wide platforms.” These players are linked to the science-denial machine and appear to be free from the same funding scrutiny that is applied by them to the science community and to science communicators. Dissemination of misinformation now reaches tens of millions of people, through the power of social media, with platforms taking little to no responsibility for the toxic content of propagandists. “The propagandists now benefit from the extraordinary amplifying power of social media, including a Musk-weaponized Twitter, disinformation podcasts with huge reaches, and now most recently, AI. Slowing or stopping them is a complicated endeavor that requires disrupting their weapon of choice, antisocial media and other high-visibility disinformation-promoting vehicles.”

However, Mann and Hotez highlight that the playbook of antiscience has shifted now that the impact of climate change has become too obvious to deny outright. “Climate denial is untenable today with the vast majority of our population because they are witnessing profound impacts already playing out…They have instead largely turned to other tactics- delay, deflection, division, and so forth.” The resurgent weapon of choice is now the use of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories run rampant and there is an overlapping Venn diagram of anti-vaccine posters and anti-climate science posts online, which are amplified disproportionately to create the impression that they are the majority. This would come to no surprise to the average online user- even sheltered in their own echo chambers. Online trolls and misinformation impacts all of us and with algorithms constantly pushing targeted material onto us all, it can be difficult to take the time to sift through the overwhelming quantity of media information.

The partisan press?

There has been a manufactured campaign against the media, with partisan media groups gaining access and those promoting science being sidelined, especially by US politicians, with President Trump famously demonising news outlets as being ‘fake news’. We are all aware that press outlets will cater to their target audience and that how the public consumes their news is very different from a world of even 20 years ago. Capturing attention and holding the attention of the public has become the sensationalised strategy, rather than a ‘golden age’ quest for truth. The press undoubtedly have a part to play in good science communication, though as an industry, they appear to be excoriated by Mann and Hotez. “The press, as we have already seen, has engaged in widespread attacks on both science and scientists. Beyond the usual suspects- Fox News, the rest of the Murdoch media empire and other conservative media- even mainstream outlets like the New York Times have in recent years miscommunicated the science behind climate change and COVID.” They argue that creating the false equivalence between robust science and conspiracy theories and allowing “bothsideism” has built the illusion of equal weight to competing arguments. They are clear that there are some networks which act deliberately to attack science, while others can sometimes act unwittingly to create ‘doomist narratives’ that misrepresent the science, whether this is regarding the climate or global pandemics. The concern of the authors is that the framing of science stories can lead to the support and promotion of untested technological ‘silver bullets’, most of which allow for ‘business as usual’ for the fossil- fuel industry. “How doomist framing has led to support for potentially dangerous geoengineering schemes as desperation measures.”

“Fellowship of the Planet”

Mann and Hotez then lay out their ‘battle plan’ to push back against the tide of antiscience, arguing, “We need to restore the rightful role of science in our political and societal discourse if we are to maintain the capacity to address the major challenges we face, including the climate crisis and worsening pandemics.”

They acknowledge that ‘the hour is late’ for a new found faith in science, but argue that as we can see the actions of the ‘antiscience industry’ in delaying meaningful action, are we just going to allow them to destroy our way of life without putting up a fight? “We wish that humanity had followed a more enlightened path decades ago when the climate crisis had clearly emerged, or back in 2020 when we were given a golden opportunity to implement pandemic policies- guided by the best available science- to ensure the health of both our species and our planet.”

Mann and Hotez urge that by: communicating constructively; defeating disinformation; and supporting scientists, we can be led in our actions, not by partisan politics, but by the best scientific understanding at this given point.

Mann and Hotez close their book by referring to the powerful story and imagery of “The Lord of the Rings”. They connect with the repeated analogy of the industrial fossil-fuel furnace rooms of Sauron and Saruman, and offer the stark warning that if we don’t act, then we risk losing ‘The Shire’.  [I]f humanity fails to combat the great global crises we face today, there won’t be an Earth- at least not the one we’d recognize. Yes, there will still be a large spherical planet rotating around the sun. There will be life, but we will lose the welcoming planetary home we know today, with its rich forests and oceans and ecosystems teeming with diverse, interconnected life forms.”

Science disinformation is a plague which threatens to destabilise us all. We must make a stand, to push forwards. To say that we will take the first step against the forces of disinformation, even if we ‘do not know the way’, and even if we do not know how that story finishes. We know the ending of the story if the fossil-fuel industry and anti-pandemic responses continue their stranglehold on science education, policy and action. We don’t know the ending if we fight for a pro- science tipping point, but we do know that if the fossil- fuel industry and agents of geoengineering miracles come for us, then we must be doing something right.

“We fight for a livable planet, for us, our children, and future generations. Because it’s worth fighting for.”