The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet
By Michael E. Mann
PublicAffaris; 2021
Michael E. Mann is a scientist, author and climate activist who rose to some degree of prominence—infamy, in some circles—for his part in producing the so-called "hockey stick" graph, a 1999 graph showing the sharp, sudden and then steady increase in temperatures that accompanied the industrial revolution in a compelling visual. That is, it was shaped like a hockey stick, being relatively flat for a long time and then curving dramatically upward.
Given his years in the field, he's a veteran of the climate war, or, I suppose, a veteran in what he would now term the old climate war, as his new book heralds the commencement of a new climate war. It's relatively late in the book—page 231—that he defines the old climate war as a war on the science itself, in the form of outright denialism of global warming and a climate crisis of any kind, and the new climate war as the war on action to do anything about actually solving the climate crisis.
The war metaphor runs through the entirety of the book. "We are in a war," Mann writes, "but before we engage, we must understand the mind of the enemy," which he defines as "the forces of denial and delay." He talks of a four-point battle plan*, he reviews the war so far, he names various factions of enemies and their tactics, and he even addresses his continual talk of war: "The surest way to lose a war is to refuse to recognize you're in one in the first place."
It is an apt metaphor for Mann, as it fits the pugilistic tone of the book. In fact, despite his warnings of the enemy seeking to drive wedges into the climate movement wherever they see the smallest cleavage—say, for example, purity tests, like activists attacking climate scientists for flying in airplanes to get to conferences to give speeches, or the fight over carbon pricing, wherein some faction allow perfect to be the enemy of good—he spends an awful lot of time on engaging in internecine warfare himself.
Perhaps because Mann has been so deeply entrenched in the climate wars himself for so long, he has opinions and experiences with almost every element of it, and so he has opinions on everything. He doesn't hesitate to share these, and even though he warns of the dangers of climate activists fighting among themselves over relatively small matters, which only helps the forces of delay, he engages in quite a bit of seeming score-settling in the book, reliving Twitter battles in which he quotes his own tweets and quotes since-deleted tweets or tweets that he notes have a high likelihood of having come from bots.
He also attacks his fellow activists, not necessarily in the harshest terms, but a surprising amount of real estate seems devoted to criticizing other climate activists, usually on the grounds that they are doing it wrong, engaging in, for example, "doomism" (on the part of Vox's David Roberts in some tweets, for example) or overshooting in their calls for systemic change (Naomi Klein's identifying capitalism as a major problem in need of being addressed, for example).
Entire chapters are devoted to the need for the members of the climate movement not to fight among themselves, but, well, Mann does an awful lot of relitigating of minor friendly fire incidents in those chapters and some that follow.
One hopes that Mann doesn't lose too much of his audience in these sections, or distract from his own messaging. The more compelling parts of the book include those on the idea of deflection campaigns, in which corporations move the onus of action from themselves to the individual**, often quite effectively (Among the examples are the famous "crying Indian" anti-littering ad that deflected the responsibility for litter from those companies that produce all the disposable packaging to consumers who don't dispose of it properly, or the gun lobby's "guns don't kill people, people kill people" slogan).
So too are the sections on what he calls "the non-solution solution," like attempts to geo-engineer our way out of the worst effects of climate change, and his arguments against "doomism", in the chapter "The Truth is Bad Enough." Though that chapter too involves keeping some of his old Twitter fights going, it also effectively argues that there's no need to exaggerate the crisis we're in, which has the risk of paralyzing people with fear—as the title of the chapter indicates, no exaggeration is needed to paint a scary, hopefully action-motivating image of where we're at as a planet.
Mann seems to love alliteration when discussing the forces of inaction, the enemy armies in the climate wars, or, what he often terms "inactivists." His book details the transition from the old climate war to the new one:
The inactivists have been forced into retreat from "hard" climate denials to "softer denial: downplaying, deflecting, dividing, delaying, and despair-mongering. These are the multiple fronts of the new climate war. Any plan for victory requires recognizing and defeating the tactics now being used by inactivists as they continue to wage war.
That might seem like a victory, what with the enemy retreating metaphor, but we're a long way from a cessation of all hostilities. Still, Mann provides a hopeful note in his final chapter, "Meeting the Challenge":
Despite the challenges detailed in this book, I am cautiously optimistic—that is to say, neither Pollyannaish, nor dour, but objectively hopeful—about the prospects for tackling the climate crisis in the years ahead. The reason for that optimism is a confluence of developments, a "perfect storm," if you will, of eye-opening events that are helping to prepare us for the task ahead. First, there have been a series of unprecedented, extreme weather disasters that have vivified the climate-change threat. Second, a global pandemic has now taught us key lessons about vulnerability and risk. And finally, we've seen the reawakening of environmental activism, and , in particular, a popular uprising by children across the world that has framed climate change as the defining challenge of our time.
I certainly hope that's enough. If you were to read just one book about the climate crisis this year, I don't think I'd recommend this one, if only because of Mann's tendency to get sidetracked by his personal history and his own war stories (Jelmers Mommers' How Are We Going To Explain This?, reviewed in the previous post, is probably a better candidate). But The New Climate War has plenty of redeeming qualities too and heck, who says you only have to read just one book about the climate crisis this year...?
*If you're curious, the plan is: 1.) "Disregard the doomsayers", 2.) "A child will lead them", 3.) "Educate, educate, educate" and 4.) "Changing the system requires systemic change"
**I found this passage from page 61 particularly well-put:
There are plenty of lifestyle changes that should be encouraged, many of which make us happier and healthier, save us money, and decrease our environmental footprint...But consumer choice doesn't buld high-speed railways, fund research and development in renewable energy, or place a price on carbon emissions. Any real solution must involve both individual action and systemic change....So there is a delicate middle ground—which we must seek out—that encourages personal responsibility and individual action while continuing to use all of the lever arms of democracy (including voting!) to pressure politicians to support climate-friendly governmental policies.
