Confronting the Climate Disinformation Campaign at Penn State: Video

Here is the video for the free presentation given on April 30, 2012 on Penn State's University Park Campus. Penn State professors Michael Mann, Donald Brown, Janet Swim and Rick Schuhmann, and graduate student Peter Buckland spoke Monday evening at “Changing the Moral Climate on Climate Change,” a talk that focused on climate change denial. Mann is director of Penn State’s Earth System Science Center and part of the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Susannah Barsom, with the university’s Center for Sustainability, moderated the event, which included a question and answer session.

Denialism, Hockey Sticks, Climate Wars, and Radicalism

Today I went to Dr. Michael Mann's talk at the Penn State Forum, "Confronting the Climate Change Challenge." It was a talk meant to prelude and outline his forthcoming book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars. In it, he laid out the scientific case for climate change, the validity of "the hockey stick" and climate change models since James Hansen's in the 1980s, and the subsequent valid predictions climate scientists have made. Depending on our fossil fuel choices, we will have different futures.

Already we have a world where gardeners, hikers, hunters, anglers, and farmers already see climate change in North America. Species of plants and animals are migrating north for warmer temperatures. Others, ill-adapted for a warmer world including polar bears and walruses, are being selected out. The world is changing and it's getting plainer and plainer to see. It's common sense for attentive people to see.

But common sense is exactly what seems to be lacking, especially by people who claim to be at the front of the The Common Sense Movement, a coal industry front group that bought ads on local radio attacking Mann's credibility and climate science (see here). This group joined dozens of other industry astroturf groups (fake grassroots movement) and public relations moves by the merchants of doubt to scientize politics. It is, as Mann noted today, a way to "wage politics as usual...to use science as a political football," including the climate denialism and sought-after political and professional persecution campaigns of current Republican presidential candidates, Senator James Inhofe (R-Ok), Representative Joe Barton (R-Tx), and the Republican Attorney General of Virginia. Mann, in short, has been the victim of a Republican War on Science. Climate science anyway. (David Frum and Kevin Silber have tried to point out that republicans aren't universally opposed to science.)

And it was interesting to hear Mann respond to questions. A lot about dealing with the "merchants of doubt" as Oreskes has called them and combating climate denialism. He dealt with being a political football. With education. With capitalism. Interestingly, he didn't attack capitalism but instead attacked the way we've structured our economy. Capitalism "has been stacked" he said. Toward what? Fossil fuel economics. In so many words, he was referring to sunk costs.

But what some of you might be most interested in was how he discussed shale gas drilling.

He talked about its lower carbon footprint as a burned fuel. It is "cleaner burning" with roughly one half the carbon footprint of coal per btu. However, and I think this might have stunned the powers that be, he cited a study released in the last week that showing that fugitive emissions from shale gas drilling might nullify the carbon benefits of burning natural gas. With 105 times the climate forcing potential over a 20-year span, methane leaked at 4% from shale gas operations demolishes the climate bridge fuel argument. As he seems to like to do, and many academics do for good reasons, he encouraged us to have discussions with evidence before us.

From a more radical sustainability view, some people would find Mann's talk a little disappointing. The personal steps he has taken (or at least the stated ones) were technological household fixes like changing lightbulbs and using lower-energy appliances. Don't get me wrong by any means, do it. But given our guest last week Richard Kahn, it seems that deeper and deeper transformations are needed. Mann certainly confronts the status quo of the big fossil fuel industry, but there was no call for a radical restructuring of all society right now. But...and it's a big BUT...he recognizes that climate change is a civilization-challenging issue.

Alarm? Yes. Alarmist? Maybe. Radical? Not really. I'd actually call him pretty calm.

Calm or not. You have to get a picture with a Nobel-Prize sharer.

Attacking the messenger is the coal lobby's favorite tactic

In case you haven't been following, Dr. Michael Mann is under attack by the merchants of doubt. Again. As if the manufactured extreme doubt of the odiously named "Climategate" scandal two years ago weren't enough, the climate ostriches have restarted a fullscale character assassination and attempts at blacklisting campaign.

Mann created one of climate sciences most enduring images, "the hockey stick." The image shows the unequivocal correlation between rising annual temperatures and rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It's the best visual out there showing us that humans burning fossil fuels causes climate change. Burning coal, oil, and natural gas releases CO2 into the atmosphere. It's very simple. But the ostriches and the industry-financed doubt mongerers who laughably call themselves skeptics are throwing their money behind propaganda campaigns to silence voices of reason.

One local radio station WBUS has been airing an ad asking listeners to ask Penn State to cancel an upcoming talk by Mann. Who's behind it?

The Common Sense Movement, a coal industry front group with a PAC called Secure Energy for America Political Action Committee (SEAPAC). They have a stock letter-writing campaign that sews doubt where there is a great deal of certainty on climate impacts.

On February 9th, the Penn State Forum Speaker’s Series is featuring
Professor Michael Mann in a speech regarding global warming. This is the same
professor who is at the center of the ‘Climategate’ controversy for
allegedly manipulating scientific data to align with his extreme political
views on global warming. Join us in calling on the administrators of Penn State
to end its support of Michael Mann and his radical agenda.

It attacks Mann's credibility, calling him "disgraced." Mann was cleared of all alleged scientific wrongdoing by Penn State and National Academy of Sciences and other investigations. So if by disgraced they mean one of the most decorated climate scientists at Penn State today and one of the most distinguished scientists in the world, I guess that's accurate. Somehow, I suspect they mean something else.

No doubt the laughably named Common Sense Movement is upset because Mann has a new book coming out called The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars that takes the denial machine to task and explains very clearly that climate science shows us we are in a very bad place regarding climate stability. The summary reads:

The Hockey Stick became a central icon in the “climate wars,” and
well-funded science deniers immediately attacked the chart and the scientists
responsible for it. Yet the controversy has had little to do with the depicted
temperature rise and much more with the perceived threat the graph posed to
those who oppose governmental regulation and other restraints to protect our
environment and planet. Michael E. Mann, lead author of the original paper in
which the Hockey Stick first appeared, shares the real story of the science and
politics behind this controversy. He introduces key figures in the oil and
energy industries, and the media front groups who do their bidding in sometimes
slick, bare-knuckled ways to cast doubt on the science. Mann concludes with an
account of the “Climategate” scandal, the 2009 hacking of climate scientists’
emails. Throughout, Mann reveals the role of science deniers, abetted by an
uninformed media, in once again diverting attention away from one of the central
scientific and policy issues of our time.

The worst of the worst are the polluting fossil fuel industries are hellbent on maintaining their grip on government, policy, regulation, and the market. If they leash the other powers that be, then renewables will be delayed and the CEOs of the corporate kleptocracy can keep us leashed.

This is a perfect example of Don Brown's arguments about ethics in climate change messaging. These include:

Lying Or Reckless Disregard For the Truth
Focusing On Unknowns While Ignoring The Knowns.
Specious Claims Of "Bad" Science
Creation of Front Groups
Manufacturing Bogus Climate Science
Think Tank Campaigns
Misleading PR Campaigns
Creation of Astroturf Groups
Cyber-bullying Scientists and Journalists

Lying, specious claims, and cyber-bullying accounted for. Definitely a front group using a misleading PR campaign. It's hogwash from beginning to end. Unethical is the nice way to refer to this kind of bile. I prefer to call it toxic "bullshit" meaning it is both lying and nonsense.

Interestingly, people have been taking the Common Sense Movement to task. They've attempted to hijack the letter-writing campaign. They've gone to the group's Facebook page (which has apparently stopped fans from leaving comments). They've urged WBUS to yank the commercial. Others are calling Penn State President Rodney Erickson and telling them they support Mann.

The blogosphere is up in arms about it too. Andy Revkin and Joe Romm have pieces up.

What is a university if not a place for challenging ideas and practices? By the Common Sense Movement's actions it's a place for corporately controlled speech and the unfettered pollution and bought speech.

Not at my university.

Michael Mann on the climate dust-up

Michael Mann is a peer of Richard Alley from last week's show. They both study climate and have come to the conclusion that industrial humans have induced climate change. Mann has been on the receiving end of some pretty horrendous accusations in the past months, accusations we have dealt with on Sustainability Now with students, with Ed Perry of the National Wildlife Federation, and the ethical implications of which we have tackled with Don Brown.

For various reasons, we haven't been able to get Dr. Mann on the show (though we will still pursue it). In our stead, we provide you with an excellent link to his conversation with Chris Mooney at Point of Inquiry. Mooney is the author of the excellent books The Republican War on Science and blogger at The Intersection. Enjoy.