Michael Mann Explains What “The New Climate War” Is

MICHAEL MANN, AUTHOR, “THE NEW CLIMATE WAR”: The old climate war was this assault, a decades-long assault on the basic science of climate change by fossil fuel industry groups, those advocating for them, advocating for their agenda, an effort to discredit the science, to discredit the scientists and convince the public and policy-makers that we don’t have a problem. Well, that’s no longer credible, right, because we can see the impacts of climate change now playing out in real time in the form of unprecedented extreme weather disasters, floods, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, superstorms. So, the forces of inaction, the inactivists, as I call them, can no longer claim that it isn’t happening or even that it isn’t due to our activity. But what they have tried to do is to introduce a number of other tactics in their effort to keep us addicted to fossil fuels. And that includes dividing the community of climate advocates, deflecting attention away from the needed policies, systemic solutions to individual behavior, and offering up false promises and false solutions. These are the various tactics in what I call the new climate war.

AMANPOUR: OK. So, the old one, I mean, you describe what we would call climate deniers. Now you’re talking about the inactivists. What sort of false solutions are they — give us what they’re telling people as a kind of — to again sort of draw the wool over their eyes, perhaps, in your view?

MANN: Yes, so deflecting attention, again, away from systemic changes, making it sound like all we have to do is to become vegans, and to travel less, use more fuel-efficient — fuel-efficient cars, change our lifestyle, that it’s just about lifestyle choice. And, look, we should do all those things. They decrease our environmental footprint. They often save us money. They make us healthier, happier, set a good example for other people. But what we can’t allow is for fossil fuel interests to make it seem like that alone is the solution in their effort to deflect attention away from the needed policies, because, look, you nor I can’t pass legislation, climate legislation. We can’t build renewable energy infrastructure or provide subsidies for renewable energy, put a price on carbon. All of the things that we have to — that we need at the policy level, we can’t do as individuals. We need politicians who are willing to do that. And the good news, as you noted earlier, is that now, with this new administration, with Joe Biden, John Kerry leading the international climate effort, there’s real opportunity for meaningful policy action.