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Denialism Deciphered

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Denialism Deciphered and anthropogenic climate change (as well as second-hand smoke and the dangers of pest­ icides). We read of the tele­vision, radio and Internet ‘shock jocks’ who chase ratings by giving equal weight to The Madhouse Effect: How scientific consensus Climate Change and denialist rhetoric. Denial is The power of vested Threatening Our interests in US politics Planet, Destroying and implications for Our Politics, and state and federal action Driving Us Crazy MICHAEL E. MANN on climate change are AND TOM TOLES made abundantly clear, Columbia University with Mann an amiable, Press: 2016. if rather despairing, guide. He begins with an overview of the scien- tific method, the science of global warming and key uncertainties — such as feedback mechanisms, whereby warming can itself boost greenhouse-gas emissions and so CLIMATE SCIENCE cause even more warming. He and Toles then explore the “six stages of denial”, ranging from ‘it’s not happening’ through ‘it’s self- correcting’ to ‘geoengineering will fix it all’. Denialism Where this book shines is in its exploration of the debate in the United States, and a veri- table who’s who of denial. As the November presidential election looms, it’s useful to learn deciphered about key players’ stances. Unsurprisingly, most of the contenders for the Republican nomination when the book was finished back Dave Reay enjoys a wry history of US climate-science in July emerge as outspoken critics of climate obfuscation. science and international action. The party’s current candidate, Donald Trump, wants to renegotiate or leave the 2015 Paris climate s an iconic climate-change image, the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli- agreement joined by President Barack Obama ‘hockey-stick graph’ by geophysicist mate Change; and still elicits invective from in September, and has called climate change Michael Mann — showing global deniers (S. Lewis Nature 483, 402–403; 2012). a hoax. But Mann suggests that several can- Atemperature change over the past 1,000 years Who better than Mann, then, to explore the didates were influenced by cryptic political — is up there with the greats. Others include history of climate-change denial, and its poli- and financial forces in the fossil-fuel industry, the Keeling curve of changing atmospheric tics, personalities and implications? which apparently bankroll denialist activity carbon-dioxide concentrations and the ‘boil- The Madhouse Effect is a breezy, engag- and lobbying to protect their interests. ing frog’ metaphor from Al Gore’s 2006 docu- ing read, interspersed with wry illustrations The authors discuss how Republican sena- mentary An Inconvenient Truth. Mann’s figure courtesy of cartoonist Tom Toles of The Wash- tor Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma) is waging a “war” (from a seminal paper: M. E. Mann et al. Geo- ington Post. It offers many excellent insights on climate science by using hearings of the phys. Res. Lett. 26, 759–762; 1999) appears in into life on the front line battling US climate- Senate environment committee that he chairs ‘Climate Science 101’ lectures the world over; science obfuscation. We learn about the cadre to try and debunk climate change. Mann’s was a touchstone of the 2001 third assessment of contrarian scientists routinely rolled out to writing is subjective in places — such as when cast doubt on issues such as ozone depletion discussing former Virginia attorney-general NEW IN Richter’s Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man PAPERBACK Susan Hough (Princeton Univ. Press, 2016) Charles Richter’s eponymous, logarithmic scale of earthquake classification made Highlights of this him globally famous. In this illuminating biography, seismologist Susan Hough season’s releases describes Richter’s accidental arrival at the Seismolab of the California Institute of Technology, and the colleagues there who resented his fame. A surprising selection of Richter’s poetry surfaces, reflecting his sentiments on married life and mortality (see Gregory Beroza’s review: Nature 445, 599; 2007). 34 | NATURE | VOL 538 | 6 OCTOBER©20 201616 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. AUTUMN BOOKS COMMENT Ken Cuccinelli, an erstwhile alleger of data MEMOIR manipulation, now an oyster farmer on an island threatened by rising sea levels. But he generally manages to avoid score-settling. In 2009, Mann’s work was caught up in Love and uncertainty the ‘Climategate’ scandal (nature.com/ climategate). This was the unauthorized Werner Heisenberg’s wartime letters to his wife record release of more than 1,000 e-mails from the scientific and personal privations, finds Ann Finkbeiner. Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK — many con- taining private correspondence, some to or erner Heisenberg is a conun- My Dear Li: from Mann. Excerpts were published by cli- drum. He won the 1932 Nobel Correspondence, mate sceptics to smear scientists and cloud Prize in Physics for creating the 1937–1946 public and political judgement. Mann gives Wfoundations of quantum mechanics and his WERNER HEISENBERG AND this seismic event just a couple of pages. He uncertainty principle, which describes how ELISABETH HEISENBERG; explains briefly how the e-mails were taken it is impossible to know a particle’s location ED. ANNA MARIA HIRSCH- HEISENBERG, TRANSL. out of context and that references to a “trick” and its momentum simultaneously. During IRENE HEISENBERG used to “hide the decline” referred simply to the Second World War, directed by the Nazi Yale University Press: 2016. a trick of the trade: combining direct meas- government, he headed Germany’s unsuc- urements of global temperature with proxy cessful efforts to create an atomic bomb. estimates. Given that Mann was bombarded Why didn’t he succeed? Why did he try? with threats and abuse following Climategate, There are no unambiguous answers a fuller exploration — as in Fred Pearce’s The here, although clarifying Heisenberg’s Climate Files (Guardian Books, 2010) — motives is one reason that his daughter, would have been good to see. Anna Maria Hirsch-Heisenberg, gives for Despite the political tensions, Mann and publishing the letters between him and Toles strike a positive tone in the final section. her mother. What the letters do illustrate They highlight action being taken at com- is Hirsch-Heisenberg’s other reason for munity, city and state levels, and the poten- publishing (in German in 2011, and now tial of the Paris agreement to avoid the most in English for the first time): how a couple damaging effects of climate change. And they much in love lives through a war. find hope in the power of individual choice Werner begins his letters with “My dear to shift the most recalcitrant hangovers from Li”. Li is Elisabeth, née Schumacher; they our carbon-intensive history. Their key rec- met in 1937 at a musical evening. The two ommendations are for each of us to support talked — a conversation, Werner wrote, renewable energy and carbon pricing, to vote that seemed to have begun so long ago for politicians who do the same and to stop that continuing it for the rest of their lives equivocating on climate science. felt natural. Two weeks later, they were As Mann points out, denialists are not engaged; four months later, they began a likely to read this book. For climate research- 40-year marriage. But Heisenberg had to ers outside the United States, it is an eye- travel for research and was rarely at home, opening primer (despite its baffling references thus the letters. This collection spans the to baseball stars) on the vested interests with tumultuous years from 1937 to 1946. which their US colleagues must do battle. For The letters, necessarily discreet about a wider readership, it makes clear just how politics and the military, contain mostly unencumbered and jolly.” Werner makes a high the stakes are. If tackling climate change the quotidian — frighteningly so, this being long lecture trip to the United States, where is indeed a war, then Mann and Toles have Germany during that war. By 1939, Werner he finds the audiences receptive and the certainly earned their stripes. I salute them. ■ lives in Leipzig and Li has moved to their students bright. He tells his US colleagues safe country house in southern Germany. who offer him jobs that he needs to stay in Dave Reay is chair in carbon management Li has had twins; she will have four more Germany “so that I might also be here after- and assistant principal for global environment children in the next five years. The war has ward and help”; as he writes to Li, “we are & society at the University of Edinburgh, UK, started. “I get caught up pondering the dark just not at home here”. and author of Nitrogen and Climate Change. picture everybody is painting,” Li writes, Over the next few years, Werner alter- e-mail: [email protected] “how fortunate that the children ... are so nates between Berlin, where “it is quite How to Clone a Mammoth Future Arctic: Field Notes from a World on the Edge Beth Shapiro (Princeton Univ. Press, 2016) Edward Struzik (Island, 2016) Ecologist Beth Shapiro parses possible impacts Arctic journalist Edward Struzik compresses of the “unextinct”. Reintroducing mammoths to 30 years of circumpolar observation in this Siberia, for example, could restore grasslands portrait of a thawing world. As warmer oceans and keep carbon trapped in the permafrost induce powerful storms that hasten the ice’s (see Henry Nicholl’s review: Nature 521, 30–31; retreat, ecological anomalies surface, such as the 2015). grizzly bear–polar bear hybrid. ©2016 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri gh6ts OCTOBERreserved. 2016 | VOL 538 | NATURE | 35 .
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