Summary of Michael E. Mann's The New Climate War

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The origins of the climate wars lie in the past climate wars, when the findings of science began to conflict with the agendas of powerful vested interests. These campaigns were aimed at obscuring public understanding of the underlying science and discrediting the scientific message.
#2 The late nineteenth century saw the birth of the science-denier-for-hire, in the form of Thomas Stockmann, an amateur scientist in a small Norwegian town. He was attacked by the townspeople when he tried to warn the town’s residents about the dangers of its medicinal hot springs being polluted by chemicals.
#3 The environmental movement was sparked by Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, which exposed the dangers of DDT. The pesticide was eventually banned, but not before causing irreparable damage to bird populations.
#4 The work of Carson and other scientists studying the effects of industrial toxins on humans and the environment led to awareness of other threats, such as lead pollution.

Sujets

• Environmental policy
• Public policy

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 04 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669350156
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Michael E. Mann's The New Climate War
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The origins of the climate wars lie in the past climate wars, when the findings of science began to conflict with the agendas of powerful vested interests. These campaigns were aimed at obscuring public understanding of the underlying science and discrediting the scientific message.

#2

The late nineteenth century saw the birth of the science-denier-for-hire, in the form of Thomas Stockmann, an amateur scientist in a small Norwegian town. He was attacked by the townspeople when he tried to warn the town’s residents about the dangers of its medicinal hot springs being polluted by chemicals.

#3

The environmental movement was sparked by Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, which exposed the dangers of DDT. The pesticide was eventually banned, but not before causing irreparable damage to bird populations.

#4

The work of Carson and other scientists studying the effects of industrial toxins on humans and the environment led to awareness of other threats, such as lead pollution.

#5

The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of truly global environmental threats, which were quickly dismissed by industry groups who stood to profit from the dangers.

#6

The Republican Party, led by President George H. W. Bush, signed the 1990 Clean Air Act, which required coal-fired power plants to scrub sulfur emissions before they exited the smokestacks.

#7

Despite the many scientists who have spoken out about the dangers of climate change, there are still many in power who deny it.

#8

Carl Sagan was a cultural phenomenon as well as a scientist. He had an unparalleled ability to engage the public with science. He made me realize it was possible to spend a lifetime satisfying one’s scientific curiosity by posing and answering such fundamental existential questions.

#9

The late astronomer and scientist Carl Sagan helped raise awareness about the nuclear winter threat. He was a prominent critic of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which many cold war hawks and military contractors supported, because it might lead to an arms race and a dangerous buildup in nuclear arms.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The field of climate science was a great opportunity for me, as it allowed me to pursue my interest in natural climate variability. However, I was closer to Barry Saltzman, the scientist who played a key role in the discovery of chaos, than to Hansen, who believed that human activity was warming the planet.

#2

There was a significant amount of scientific debate about whether or not humans were causing climate change, but there was a general agreement that burning fossil fuels and increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would result in a warming planet.

#3

The fossil fuel industry joined forces with other conservative think tanks and front groups in 1989 to create the Global Climate Coalition, which sought to discredit the scientific evidence for climate change.

#4

Also among the invited speakers was Richard S. Lindzen, a scientist who has argued that climate models overestimate the warming effect of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations because of processes he believes are missing or underrepresented in the models.

#5

In 1991, Revelle passed away, and Singer added him as a coauthor to a paper he had written for the journal Cosmos, published by the Cosmos Club, a Washington, DC, intellectual society. The paper was nearly identical to an earlier dismissive article by Singer.

#6

By late 1995, the scientific evidence for human-caused climate change had grown ever more compelling. Yet, there was still a fierce debate among scientists about whether or not human activity was contributing to climate change.

#7

The attacks on Santer continued even after his work was taken out of the next IPCC report.

#8

In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted, which would commit countries to reducing carbon emissions. The forces of denial and delay found common cause with some increasingly odd characters to undermine the scientific evidence for climate change.

#9

The so-called hockey stick graph, which showed the dramatic rise in global temperatures over the past century, was a key piece of evidence used to support the notion that human activity was causing climate change.

#10

The Hockey Stick, as well as other climate change research, was subject to attacks from fossil fuel interests and their hired guns to try and discredit the scientists.