It creates and sustains a false dilemma that helps get the fossil fuel industry lobby off the hook. According to Michael Mann, that’s dangerous. Making someone else look bad has become a kind of reward – proof of our own moral superiority. An attack on lifestyles serves well to divide society, as it is bound to identity.
We easily get more worked up about our neighbour’s personal failings than over systemic change. The battle is no longer about international financial markets and the commodity exchange – but rather diets and flights. The diversion campaign shifts responsibility from companies and industry to individuals, whose behaviour and personal decisions are critically scrutinized.
That Germany, too, is headed the wrong way became clear from an election campaign dominated by a debate around personal travel and meat consumption instead of structural issues. Mann’s illuminating survey of lobbying practices includes the story of how the climate debate in Europe has taken the wrong turn in recent years. For him, ‘ Russia Gate’ is synonymous with fossil fuels. As Mann sees it, fossil fuel’s self-interest explains Russia’s support for both Brexit and Trump’s presidential campaign. The meagre results of the latest COP show that Saudi Arabia, Australia, and Russia are keen to prevent implementation of climate change measures. Mann not only examines the interests of the fossil fuel industry, but also those of petrostates and governments. But we should indulge that from an author who has been subjected to personal attacks and defamation for decades. Sometimes, Mann seems to be personally feuding with the scientists who once helped the fossil fuel industry lie and now are guiding their deflection campaign. Michael Mann describes the earlier tactics the fossil-fuel lobby of industrial and oil-producing countries used – which has always taken their cues from the arms lobby, and the tobacco and beverage industries – and how they operate today. Today, the crisis is downplayed, deflected, and delayed – and doom mongering abounds. Having lost the war against science, fossil-fuel lobbyists are now doing their best to thwart decisive action.
While it is unsurprising that he takes to task the decades-long machinations of large energy companies and their backers, other actors also attract his attention here.Īlthough climate denial no longer convinces the wider population, the ‘climate war’ is not over. In The New Climate War, Mann defies expectations. He likes to provoke, which makes his new book downright entertaining. The well-known US climatologist Michael E.