The famous hockey stick is the graph that tells us we’re all screwed. Climate change is causing extreme weather turmoil, and the underlying average warming is going to cook the planet.
There have been several interesting pieces on the politics of climate change recently. Let’s start with the Mann behind the hockey stick himself:
The inside story on climate scientists under siege
Michael Mann reveals his account of attacks by entrenched interests seeking to undermine his ‘hockey stick’ graph
It is almost possible to dismiss Michael Mann’s account of a vast conspiracy by the fossil fuel industry to harrass scientists and befuddle the public. His story of that campaign, and his own journey from naive computer geek to battle-hardened climate ninja, seems overwrought, maybe even paranoid.
But now comes the unauthorised release of documents showing how a libertarian thinktank, the Heartland Institute, which has in the past been supported by Exxon, spent millions on lavish conferences attacking scientists and concocting projects to counter science teaching for kindergarteners.
Mann’s story of what he calls the climate wars, the fight by powerful entrenched interests to undermine and twist the science meant to guide government policy, starts to seem pretty much on the money. He’s telling it in a book out on 6 March, The hockey stick and the climate wars: Dispatches from the front lines. …
For most of his professional life has been at the centre of those wars, thanks to a paper he published with colleagues in the late 1990s showing a sharp upward movement in global temperatures in the last half of the 20th century. The graph became known as the “hockey stick”. …
He has been regularly vilified on Fox news and contrarian blogs, and by Republican members of Congress. The attorney general of Virginia, who has been fighting in the courts to get access to Mann’s email from his earlier work at the University of Virginia. And then there is the high volume of hate mail, the threats to him and his family. …
Those opposed to climate change began accusing Mann of overlooking important data or even manipulating the records. None of the allegations were ever found to have substance. The hockey stick would eventually be confirmed by more than 10 other studies. …
Across America, this is the third successive year of weird weather. The US department of agriculture has just revised its plant hardiness map, reflecting warming trends. That is going to reinforce scientists’ efforts to cut through the disinformation campaign, Mann said. …
“Those of us who have had to go through this are battle-hardened and hopefully the better for it,” he said. “I think you are now going to see the scientific community almost uniformly fighting back against this assault on science. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future but I do know that my fellow scientists and I are very ready to engage in this battle.”
The “Heartland Institute” leak is described here:
Leak exposes how Heartland Institute works to undermine climate science
Libertarian thinktank keeps prominent sceptics on its payroll and relies on millions in funding from carbon industry, papers suggest
The inner workings of a libertarian thinktank working to discredit the established science on climate change have been exposed by a leak of confidential documents detailing its strategy and fundraising networks.
DeSmogBlog, which broke the story, said it had received the confidential documents from an “insider” at the Heartland Institute, which is based in Chicago. The blog monitors industry efforts to discredit climate science.
The scheme includes spending $100,000 for spreading the message in K-12 schools that “the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science”, the documents said. …
If authentic the documents provide an intriguing glimpse at the fundraising and political priorities of one of the most powerful and vocal groups working to discredit the established science on climate change and so block any chance of policies to reduce global warming pollution. …
The tentacles of the denier industry reach all the way to little old NZ:
Kiwi climate sceptics get American funding
New Zealand’s most prominent group of global warming sceptics has received at least $84,000 from an American think-tank which has been backed by fossil fuel interests and accused of “climate change denialism”.
The Chicago-based Heartland Institute paid the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition grants of US$25,000 ($30,800) and US$45,000 in in 2007. The institute was once backed by corporate giants such as Exxon Mobil, but many donors have reduced their support in the past decade. …
Most dramas have an interesting villain to keep the plot ticking over, but the malefactor in our little tragedy is the most boring character of all, greed. An excellent piece by Bill McKibben, The Great Carbon Bubble: Why the Fossil Fuel Industry Fights So Hard, sets out the obvious argument – it’s all about money. Our collective future for the modern equivalent of thirty pieces of silver.
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