Update: I think I like Michael Mann's book, though it's not defending the science, it's all about the politics, which is fine that needs to be covered, and it's Ok despite how he unfairly stereotypes "the left." Thoughtful leftists believe in principle a carbon tax would be better than nothing, more of a real solution than Obamacare, for example. (Cap and Trade would be more on the same level as Obamacare.) And a carbon tax could be made fair. BTW the best solution, from a leftist-communist POV is nationalization of the energy and transportation sector, eco Communism, or at least a free national grid and storage system and electric rail. I think the popularity of eco Communism will have to grow over another decade or two, especially if nothing else is done we'll be in terrible shape, so I'd favor a "fair" carbon tax now if one could be squeezed out of Congress and passed by whoever happens to be President in the meantime.
Anyway, the NewClimateWar is packed with interesting stuff on every page, and many of my friends are hard to convince to even my POV on the carbon tax. I see Jacobin has 4/5 articles against the Carbon Tax.
But I think the politics of Carbon Tax are so terrible, with virtually everyone in USA except centrist intellectual elite opposing it, it seems unlikely, and effort should be put into other things, as "ineffective" as they might seem.
A recent highly touted website allows you to calculate the effects of changes to improve the trajectory of global warming. If you play with it, you will quickly discover that ONLY a carbon tax does a large amount of good, most other changes do very little. A careful examination of what's going on will reveal this has to do with the calibration of the sliders, and how much change is applied, and in in what form. Some of these calibrations can be adjusted, but only within strict limits of +/- 15% of projected values. Meanwhile, the carbon tax slider goes from zero to more than Norway's, which has had carbon tax for 30 years, and has wealth an renewable energy in abundance and a highly equal and rich society...you're going to need eco Communism to get that level of carbon tax anywhere else.
I am a believer in radical birthing limits and population reduction to 1800's levels over 100 or so years. No model is going to show that, and no neoliberal model is going to show eco Communism.
Anyway it looks like an interesting book.
I too am critical of Michael Moore's environmental movie based on synopsis, and I refuse to buy it to add to my large collection of Michael Moore movies which I've begun to disparage as sensationalistic (though I especially enjoyed Where To Invade Next).
End Update
I've long respected Michael Mann (a leading and distinguished professor of climatology) as a fighter against climate change denialism. For that reason, have been following him on Twitter. IIRC, he was the one who came up with the "hockey stick" graph showing temperature increase. On Twitter he's hitting back at denialism every day.
He's now written a book about climate change, denialism, and what we must do now. (I decided to buy it, despite what I'm about to say.)
He lays it heavy on the fossil fuel companies whose own scientists were verifying climate change even as their PR flacks were denying it. And many other denialists like that.
BUT, he also is said to lay it heavy on "doomers" and what he considers "leftists."
I just had a little interchange with him today on Twitter. He was having an argument with "doomers" who say we're already over the hill.
He said that there is no "climate lag," and that as soon as we can achieve net zero, the climate will begin...improving!
(This completely contradicts the "junk" scientists I had been reading previously, which described a 30-40 year lag, and many potential tipping points that will lock in even more CO2 and climate change if we get past them.) So I fired a comment:
"What about global ice continuing to melt, permafrost continuing to release methane, forests continuing to burn, and other "tipping points" already "nearly" tipping? My SOP says 1000's of years for "stabilization." For sure sea level will keep rising."
He responded:
"Much of that is wrong. All this stuff is discussed in The #NewClimateWar. But see this thread:"
"There is no evidence for projected warming <3-4C of any "tipping points" that significantly change the warming trajectory (e.g. methane feedbacks). The most plausible tipping points (e.g. AMOC slowdown, ice sheet destabilization) don't significantly impact global mean temps."
https://twitter.com/charlesp210/status/1495457706479702022?s=20&t=gWw6_Ua2WbKYWxvWrZtQpw
OK, so he says why this is wrong in his book, but not hear really. "There is no evidence." I'm not sure I find that convincing.
Here's what one reviewer said about the book
"I am giving this 3 stars because I believe in the importance of the science Mr. Mann studies and the necessity to ignore the climate doomers and inactivists.
However, I did have a major issue with the book. When talking about the left side of the political spectrum he mentions how infighting is a problem and how we need to stop tearing each other down to make some real progress. Which is all well and good, except he doesn’t even follow that rule in his own book. His criticisms of those on the left is almost entirely about progressives. He brings up:
-the ways the progressives go about advocacy wrong
-how they often fall for climate doomism
-about how they were fooled by an inaccurate Michael Moore documentary
-how their criticism of capitalism isn’t helping
-several times it is mentioned that Hillary lost the election because progressives were tricked into not liking her by Russian bots.
Good luck finding many criticisms of liberals who talk a big game on climate rather than act on it, in fact he’s often found defending them because at least they are better than the republicans on this issue (talk about a low bar).
There are certainly valid criticisms to be made about how progressives go about climate advocacy. But the same can be said for moderate Democrats, and yet their flaws were barely brought up. This book did not give me the “unity” vibes the author was claiming climate activists needed."
END QUOTE
So, you can see I'm buying the book not entirely because I agree with it, but because I want to hear this alternative "anti-doomism" and "anti-leftism" POV.
I do agree with Mann that Carbon Capture is not feasible in the near future and we must get completely off fossil fuels instead. It worries me that some who seem more pessimistic than Mann, like the one I posted here last week, seem to be pushing these non-solutions like Carbon Capture in part BECAUSE they don't share Mann's optimism about fast return to baseline. Or maybe they're just using that pessimism to push these impossible "Solutions."
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