A new book out by author and Professor of Atmospheric Science Michael Mann, titled The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet, takes a look at how governments and corporations can make a lasting impact when it comes to climate change.
Mann has taught Atmospheric Science since 1999 and has been at Penn State since 2005.
A leading voice in his field, Mann spoke with KPCW about his book, The New Climate War. He said in contrast to today, the old climate war was one fought to deny the existence of climate change all together.
“The old climate war is really the campaign, the disinformation campaign over the past several decades by the fossil fuel industry and those promoting their interests to discredit the science of climate change, to discredit the scientists,” says Mann. “We’ve arrived now at the point where the impacts of climate change because of that inaction, because we haven’t acted, the impacts are no longer subtle. We’re seeing them play out in real time in the form of extreme weather disasters, heat waves, wildfires, floods, super storms, droughts like we’ve never seen before.”
The new climate war, he says, is against those he calls ‘inactivists,’ who don’t necessarily deny the existence of a changing climate, but actively work to shift blame onto things like individual behaviors instead of implementing government policies to combat the crisis.
“They don’t care about the path that we take to inaction, they just care about the destination, so they’re more than happy to convince some environmentally aware people that in fact, it’s too late,” he says. “Things are so bad that there’s nothing we can do. The science doesn’t support that, but too many people now have been sort of caught up in this, sort of doom mongering.”
Mann’s book, The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet, was released on January 12th and is available wherever books are sold.
KPCW news reports on climate change issues are brought to you by the Park City Climate Fund at the Park City Community Foundation, an initiative that engages Park City in implementing local, high-impact climate solutions that have potential to be effective in similar communities.
