Do you remember how Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter was reported at the time? In particular, do you remember the complaints from climate scientists claiming to be on the receiving end of a resultant tsunami of anti-science disinformation and outright abuse; how they left in their droves to seek other social media platforms that were ‘properly’ moderated so they could safely resume their campaign to educate the masses on the perils of climate change?
A climate scientist who was particularly outspoken at the time was a certain Professor Mark Maslin of UCL, who said, “There’s been a massive change. I get so much abuse and rude comments now.” He added that Twitter had become the “wild west”. Not that he appears to have been in the least bit fazed by it all. He still has a very active X account that he uses to gun it out with those darn’d Injuns – sorry, climate sceptics – encircling the wagons of our heroic climate science frontiersmen.
Michael Mann was another scientist who, at the time, had a lot to say about it. His take was that the whole thing was “organised and orchestrated” by dark forces. He claimed:
I’ve seen a huge rise in trolls and bots. Many target tweets of mine for attack…The professional trolls manipulate the online environment with strategic posts that generate conflict and division, leading to a feeding frenzy.
And yet he is another one who has very much retained an appetite for the occasional Badlands skirmish. In fact, I have to say that if Maslin and Mann are still on the receiving end of online abuse, it has to be put down to the fact that they never lose an opportunity to poke the hornet’s nest. I offer as my evidence a recent article posted on The Conversation in which Maslin, citing Mann’s Five D’s of climate inaction, goes on the attack in a manner that was always guaranteed to provoke an angry response. I am here to provide that for you.
Warning – The remainder of this article contains strong language, sex and my opinions
The article concerned goes by the title “Five types of disinformation – and how to spot red flags that trigger climate inaction”, and if that title is not itself a red flag, I don’t know what is. The article was written by Maslin, but Mann is the genius who came up with the idea of there being a quintet of dastardly ways to spoil the climate action party. Let us take a closer look, starting with party pooper number one:
1. Downplay
Maslin and Mann do not like people who downplay the seriousness of climate change because, “Downplaying creates complacency. It dulls public urgency, delays policy action and makes the problem seem less immediate than it is”.
Jeez, these two guys have some brass neck to accuse sceptics of deliberately misrepresenting the scale of the risk. Consider instead the thousands of peer-reviewed papers that have previously pushed RCP8.5 as some sort of realistic “business-as-usual” scenario, as opposed to the purely fictional piece of scandalous scaremongering that it always was. When I think of the calamitous raft of regulatory initiatives that has been launched as a result of this violation of common sense and good judgement — perpetrated en masse by the climate science community I have to say – I really do think it behoves these people to think twice before questioning anyone else’s judgement.
As for Maslin’s supposed debunking of the ‘complacency’, he is going to have to do a lot more than simply point out that ‘science shows’ the Earth’s atmosphere has been warming, that CO2 continues to be emitted into the atmosphere and that there is a lot of extreme weather about. None of this is actually disputed. What is disputed, however, is the alarmist claim that the risk is existential, and that nothing less than the immediate decarbonizing of the entire economy will do. If Maslin wants to introduce some relevant science, then he needs to point out that the science actually shows there to be a wide range of possible scenarios, and that decisions are having to be made under uncertainty. This requires a mature debate between peoples of all persuasions, including those who may have formed a different risk calculus to that offered by Maslin and Mann.
2. Delay
If anything, this second accusation of disinformation is even more outrageous than the first. Maslin states that the disinformation is exemplified by statements such as “we should wait until the technology is better”, “let’s not rush into drastic policies” and “we need more research before acting”. He characterises anything that causes delay as “denial in slow motion”.
If I were to respond by calling him a moron, he would, with some justification, accuse me of being abusive and rude. However, I honestly don’t know how to better characterise an attitude that flies in the face of all good, standard best practice for risk management. Of course, the way in which today’s CO2 emission builds up problems for the future creates a sense of urgency, but that doesn’t obviate the need for a robust decision-making approach, i.e. there is still a need for flexibility that does not lock in regret associated with either action or inaction. Maslin’s simple-minded dismissal of such considerations is the sort of thing that makes me angry. I feel myself turning green as the buttons pop off my shirt. Best that we quickly move on to party pooper number three.
3. Deflection
Well, that didn’t work. Now I am reading that failing to accept Maslin’s myopic view of the world’s problems is somehow disinforming. Apparently, saying things like “aren’t there more urgent problems to focus on?” offends his sensibilities. So, I must forget about the imminent collapse of Europe, or the genuinely existential threat posed by nuclear war, or even AI. Or perhaps it is Trump’s megalomania or Putin’s paranoia that I need to ignore. What else is there? How about attacks on freedom of speech that now extend even to the denial of basic biological facts. Believe me, I can think of plenty of things that are currently concerning me more than climate change and I’ll be damned if I am going to accept an admonishment from the likes of Maslin because I refuse to obsess over his pet preoccupations. The conceit of the man makes my blood boil. Oh dear, there goes another button.
And then there’s “what about China?”
Indeed, what about China? Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the UK’s emissions are basically irrelevant when viewed in the context of China’s economic and industrial activities? Are we to ignore the extent to which net zero policies are placing increasing reliance upon the ongoing support of a basically hostile nation?
Finally, he finishes with “The science clearly shows that the world must decarbonise the entire economy and reach a point by 2050 at which no additional greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere”. No, it f**king well doesn’t! I am sick to death with people telling me what the science clearly shows. This is what you get when scientists start to believe they have the right to dictate policy.
4. Division
Apparently, it is wrong to see climate change activism as part of a broader political movement. This despite the obvious synergy existing between those who would want de-industrialisation for purely scientific purposes and those who have been long demanding it for ideological reasons. Also, we are supposed to ignore the fact that seeing globalisation as a critical element of effective climate action happens to coincide with the general push for a global approach to all politics. It is, in fact, impossible to detach the dynamics of climate change activism from those of the broader political stage. But, apparently, we must do so since “Division undermines trust in science, institutions and each other”.
I’m not going to deny that political partisanship plays a huge role in how people approach the subject of climate change, but can we drop this rubbish that it is only those who challenge climate activism who are guilty of sowing division? This is the sort of naivety that I would have hoped was restricted to the sixth form debating club. I don’t want to see prominent climate scientists wallowing in it.
But then we have the following: “The latest approach involves blaming climate scientists for not communicating effectively and not making the public and politicians aware of the true risks”.
My God! I don’t believe it, Rodney, I don’t believe it. You would have to be totally blind not to see that the proponents of climate action have been pulling out all the stops from day one to ensure that the ‘true risks’ have been communicated. The IPCC dedicated a full chapter on this in their AR5; the behavioural science profession has been putting its oar in for years, showing how nudging and gaslighting can be an effective strategy. Nevertheless, it has been a well-established opinion within the scientific community itself that more should be done to effectively communicate the risks (and if you don’t believe me, just look at this). Yet here we find someone claiming that climate sceptics couldn’t see any of these obvious efforts and were the ones saying that not enough had been done. Furthermore, they had said this to sow division! God give me strength.
5. Doomism
At last, we are on the final party-poop; which is a good thing because I don’t know if my blood pressure can take much more of this.
According to Maslin, “Doomism promotes the idea that the climate crisis is already beyond saving, leading to apathy instead of action”. It’s as bad as denial, according to him. And he’ll have you know that it is so uncalled for: “Yet there are so many positive solutions that exist which not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also make peoples [sic] lives better”.
And yet, not two minutes earlier I had read him saying “So every country and every company has to change”.
We’re doomed.
Conclusion
I’m quite sure that, in the unlikely event that either Maslin or Mann were to read this, they would dismiss it as the sort of trolling that they have to put up with on a daily basis. But I think it is only fair to say that, if they insist on continuing to write such unadulterated drivel, then they have to accept at least some responsibility for the abuse they receive. I don’t doubt that Michael Mann and Mark Maslin believe that, between them, they have painted a masterly critique of the sceptic’s shortcomings, but they haven’t. This is no Rembrandt; it’s just tainting by numbers – a simplistically quilted argument created from five colours when they might as well have stuck to the black and white inside their heads. Colour me unimpressed.
Footnote:
Sorry about the lack of sex in my essay, but I had to come up with some way of ensuring you read it to the end.
