The book is written by Michael E. Mann, world renowned climatologist and geophysicist. I think that is a good start. The wonderful people of World Fund gave it to me, so I was bound to read it eventually.

"Disregard the Doomsayers: The misguided belief that “it’s too late” to act has been co-opted by fossil fuel interests and those advocating for them."

Now that is another good start, right from Page 6 and it’s good to remember that the “it’s too late” is now both used by climate people but actually mostly by climate deniers, which you probably, his words, do not even have to talk to as they are unconvincable.

“Changing the System Requires Systemic Change: The fossil fuel disinformation machine wants to make it about the car you choose to drive, the food you choose to eat, and the lifestyle you choose to live rather than about the larger system and incentives. We need policies that will incentivize the needed shift away from fossil fuel burning toward a clean, green global economy. So-called leaders who resist the call for action must be removed from office.”

This one is important to remember. Systemic change is important, but many of the disinformation people want to make it about your personal choice, because you might not want to, simply to avoid systemic change, so we have to or rather it makes economic sense.

“Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists in the minds of the general public. —Unnamed tobacco executive, Brown and Williamson (1969)”

We are in a world of feelings, not facts and moving closer to it. This has actually been said many years ago.

“Nearly two decades ago, in his book The Demon-Haunted World, Sagan presaged with some trepidation the world we now live in: I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

Deflection campaigns are long known, e.g. when something like the bottle bill in the us was going to be introduced, doing something like Pfand in germany (you get money to bring back a bottle, which ads a lot of financial burden to the producer), special interest groups tried to imply that it is all about individual action, as when kids would just pick up bottles and cans. It’s to deflect from the systemic change.

Individual action doesn’t fund high speed railways, climate research or build renewable energy. Not at scale. It requires both individuals doing it, but supported by systemic change.

“When the climate discourse devolves into a shouting match over diet and travel choices, and becomes about personal purity, behavior-shaming, and virtue-signaling, we get a divided community unable to speak with a united voice. We lose. Fossil fuel interests win.”

If you ask the average joe on the street what they can do for climate change, it is not lobbying politicians, asking for change, but rather to stop eating meat, not fly, and turn off the lights.

Did you know, Greensburg in Kansas, was leveled by a tornado and has been rebuilt 100% on renewable energy … imagine knowing that. All the “it’s not possible” would be a lie.

The simple thing is this:

“Boycoff has a T-shirt (inspired by the work of climate communication expert Ed Maibach of George Mason University) that reads: “It’s real; it’s us; experts agree; it’s bad; there’s hope.”4 Note once again the carefully calibrated balance of urgency (“it’s bad”) and agency (“there’s hope”).”

From then on it gets complicated. There are a lot of good examples in the book, so I highly recommend reading it to get a balanced view.

Oliver Thylmann’s Musings

Book Review: The New Climate War