Leer esta página en: Español
With bad science and worse intent, the climate denial traffickers have been winning the battle for the public mind—but Michael Mann’s legal victory is an invitation to the rest of us to help push back, Gunnar Schade writes for Deceleration.
Gunnar Schade
Last week, many in the scientific community celebrated a court decision in favor of climate scientist Michael Mann against two climate science deniers he had sued for defamation. Mann is an outspoken climate scientist known for his global temperature reconstruction of the last two millennia that resembled the shape of a hockey stick. While his win was arguably “good news,” it is unlikely to shift our society’s polarization or motivate people to act more cooperatively or effectively on the climate crisis we are facing.
The climate wars have been raging for decades. When they developed out of what felt to climate scientists like irrelevant skirmishes in the late 1990s, to the battles fought on blogs in the 2000s, it finally dawned on some climate scientists that this was not an ordinary scientific discussion.
Climate change deniers, as they became to be known, were and are not playing by the rules of scientific discovery and engagement. Their goal is to sow enough doubt to prevent climate action, not to contribute scholarship and peer-reviewed science in search of the truth.
Initially, many saw these outlier scientists like Fred Singer and Pat Michaels as an aberration as they fired intellectual blanks trying to shoot holes into the scientific consensus on climate change (that it was happening and humans are to blame). It turned out they were representing an organized movement deliberately set in motion and financed by the fossil fuel industry to discredit climate science. Some, of course, had recognized that early on, most prominently journalist Ross Gelbspan (who died last week), as captured in his book “The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, The Cover-up, The Prescription.”
By the time online platforms run by actual scientists, like RealClimate or OpenMind, came around in the mid-2000’s to counter the now widespread climate science misinformation, the deniers had already won the climate wars.
They had convinced a whole political party—and most importantly its leadership across all its institutions—that climate change was either not real, not man-made, or not relevant. For all political purposes, the war was over insofar as political action had been successfully delayed for over a decade.
Then two things happened: First, a political lightning rod named Al Gore had a movie made about his touring presentation called An Inconvenient Truth, which made use of Mann’s hockey stick graph. Then, just a few years later, the GOP put a presidential candidate forward who actually acknowledged that climate change was a problem. And finally, the American public had the audacity to elect a black man to the White House! One that accepted the consensus position on global warming, to boot.
That was too much for the Far Right. In response, they astroturfed the Tea Party movement, spreading lies about Obama and the climate science he supported. This was by no small means amplified by an event that came to be known as “Climategate,” the hacking of a UK climate science institution’s server, stealing thousands of email exchanges between climate scientists. Cherry-picking and subsequent public posting of snippets of the scientists’ correspondence maximized disinformation about the science while attacking climate scientists as “frauds.”
With the help of the Right’s omnipresent media outlet, FOX News, this manufactured scandal erased years of progress scientists had made in communicating climate science to the American public.
At the same time, the subsequent congressional election of 2010 put the final nails into the coffins of “moderate” Republican lawmakers who had dared to accept the science. Scientists were forced to once again defend basic climate science established decades ago.
Essentially, this is where we are still today. Despite small movements in public opinion toward a greater acceptance of climate change science, the climate counter-movement’s iron grip on Republican decision makers is preventing the nation from addressing what may be the most important issue of our lifetime.
So when the recent news came along that one prominent scientist’s defamation lawsuit against two deniers of climate science was finally going to trial, I merely shrugged. And that is what I felt even when said scientist surprisingly walked out of court with a partial win last week. The court system, for now, ended a battle. But despite the headlines it has gathered, Mann’s win alone won’t make a difference in the larger climate wars we are fighting in the U.S. The jury may have made a different point though.
When said deniers compared Michael Mann’s work in 2012 to that of a convicted child molester at the same university (Penn State), the online climate wars had truly reached a fever pitch. In the wake of “Climategate” less than three years earlier, verbal attacks on scientists had escalated, and even fewer scientists dared to publically stick their neck out. “Climate change” was a no-no during that year’s presidential election, regardless of party.
Mann’s filing of a lawsuit against Rand Simberg of the conservative think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute and far-right radio and television personality Mark Steyn was mostly symbolic for those of us in the scientific community. Enough was enough. In the years since then, attacks on scientists have ebbed, then flowed during the Trump years. While standard climate science denial enjoyed growth during the MAGA years, it recently pivoted more toward denying the effectiveness of technologies proffered as solutions to the climate crisis, a tactic called “solutions denial” or “new denial”.
The more fundamentalist denial practiced by Simberg and Steyn, insisting that the world was not, in fact, warming or that humans had nothing to do with it, feels almost antiquated, certainly yesterday’s news to those of us who have studied the nature of denialism. Were their opinions not so impactful in the political realm, you’d have to feel pity for such misguided individuals. Then again, their continued malice feels like the sign of our times, modeled by no other than the MAGA cult’s King Himself.
So you’d have to forgive me when I say that this one battle won in court won’t make any difference in the U.S. climate wars. A higher court, ultimately the Supreme Court, will reverse the defamation finding on appeal, and neither Mann’s nor the two deniers’ standing will change in any way. As you can witness on social media and the climate blogosphere any day, the denial of climate science is alive and well. It has many foot soldiers. Who cares about two of them receiving a slap on the wrist?
Is there no positive takeaway? Not for scientists, but maybe for society in general.
For most scientists, engaging with science denial is a lose-lose proposition. We do not advance the science, nor ourselves, when we engage online.
Though necessary, such advocacy is discouraged, unpaid, often frustrating, and can even be harmful to one’s career. But scientists must continue to educate the public how science is distorted, by whom, and for what reasons.
Disinformation has been undermining our society, and if we do not fight back, we may lose not only the climate wars but the very social cohesion underpinning our freedoms.
Mann’s long-time advocacy no doubt contributed to the jury’s decision. The jury’s award of $1M in punitive damages may reflect the general public’s growing disgust with people like Simberg and Steyn even more than a growing understanding of climate science. That would be a good thing.
We can build on that. The next time you come across a climate science denier, don’t throw the facts at him (yes, it is overwhelmingly men); facts aren’t the issue. Ask instead what motivates him to misinform others about the science. Ask whether he is aware that his antics have been debunked before, thousands of times over. Learn more about science denial and how to counter it by visiting crankyuncle.com and/or downloading the smartphone app of the same name.
Don’t be afraid to speak up about our warming climate. Mann and other scientists can play their part. But you are part of a growing majority of Americans who want their children educated and their representatives to act to reduce climate risks by phasing out fossil fuel combustion. Let them know you trust the science, like you trust your plumber (I do!), and that it may be a good idea for them to do so as well.
-30-
Gunnar Schade has taught and communicated about climate science for over 25 years. He is an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University who specializes in trace gas biogeochemistry, air pollution, and surface-atmosphere interactions. His current research focus is on hydrocarbons emitted by the oil and gas industry in both the Permian and Eagle Ford shale regions.
Like What You’re Seeing? Become a patron for as little as $1 per month. Explore ways to support our mission. Sign up for our newsletter (for nothing!). Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes. Share this story with others.