Michael Mann and the Climate Wars MARK BOSLOUGH

INTERVIEW] Michael Mann and the Climate Wars MARK BOSLOUGH Physicist and CSI Fellow Mark Boslough interviewed noted climatologist and geophysicist Michael Mann, who will be speaking at CSICon Las Vegas. Skeptical Inquirer | November/December 2016 17 cause deniers mistook you for easy pickings? MANN: That’s right. Interestingly, much of the focus was on me alone, rather than my two senior coauthors, Ray Bradley and Malcolm Hughes. I suspect the reason was twofold. I was the first author and was quoted in most of the media coverage, so I was the scientist most directly associated with the research. But additionally, I was viewed as far more vulnerable to attack, as I was only a postdoc at the time, a far cry from the job security of a tenured faculty position—which both of my coauthors had. The climate change denial machine wanted to bring me down, to destroy my professional Michael Mann career before it even got going, to make an example of me for other younger scientists who might too consider speaking MARK BOSLOUGH: To anyone who has followed the “climate out about climate change. In The Hockey Stick and the Cli- wars,” your name is a household word. Deniers even coined mate Wars , I refer to this as the “Serengeti Strategy.” the phrase “Mann-made global warming” in an attempt to make it synonymous with their belief that global warming is BOSLOUGH: Seems like this strategy backfired spectacularly an elaborate hoax. From my vantage point as a scientist and in your case. Have they successfully destroyed anyone else’s skeptic, you seem to be the person they love to hate more career? Are they still pursuing the Serengeti method, or did than anyone else except perhaps Al Gore. Why do you think they learn their lesson? they have singled you out from the scientific community as their poster child for sustained vilification? MANN: Well, yes—I like to think the hyenas tangled with the wrong zebra. MICHAEL MANN: Well—there are certainly other leading climate But unfortunately, this tactic continues to be deployed. scientists who have been frequent targets of climate change Over the past year, the Republican chair of the House deniers. But I suppose there are a few things that are differ- Science Committee, Lamar Smith of Texas, a recipient of ent in my case. For one, I am directly associated with one considerable fossil fuel money, has initiated a campaign of the most prominent graphs in all of climate science, the of persecution against leading climate scientists at NOAA “Hockey Stick” curve that my coauthors and I published back and elsewhere, abusing his authority by serving them with in the late 1990s. That curve became an icon in the climate vexatious subpoenas demanding their internal email corre- change debate. It told a simple story—that the warming of spondences and other such items, simply because he and the planet we’re experiencing is unprecedented. That made the fossil fuel interests who fund his campaigns don’t like it a threat to fossil fuel interests and, as I detail in my book the conclusions of their research. This has sent a collective The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars , it made me a direct chill throughout the entire climate science community, and target of the industry-funded climate change denial machine. it speaks to the fact that the Serengeti Strategy is very much The Eye of Sauron was fixed on me. Rather than shrink from still alive and well. the battle, I chose to fight back—by defending my work in the public sphere and by devoting myself to public outreach and education. That no doubt further antagonized climate change BOSLOUGH: You say deniers. Ultimately, they provided me a platform for inform- ing the public discourse over what is arguably the greatest challenge we have faced as a civilization. I consider that a blessing, not a curse. BOSLOUGH: As you say, you weren’t the only author of the 1998 Mann, Bradley, and Hughes “Hockey Stick” paper that made such an impact. You were just an up-and-coming postdoc and your coauthors were already prominent. I was Republican chair of the House taking a paleoclimatology course at the time and had never Science Committee, Lamar Smith. heard of you, but we were using Bradley’s textbook. A couple of years ago I attended a dinner for the Climate Science Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma. Legal Defense Fund, and two guests sitting at my table in- troduced themselves as “Et and Al.” They were Bradley and Hughes, and the joke was a reference to their having been they are still going after leading climate scientists. But as I eclipsed by you. Do you think you were the main target of pointed out in my NCSE review of your Hockey Stick book, Sauron’s initial wrath because you were first author or be- even hyenas know to attack the smallest and weakest mem- 18 Volume 40 Issue 6 | Skeptical Inquirer bers of a group. Is Smith really trying to destroy these sci- cally motivated attacks. It’s unfortunate that this is now part entists, or is he just trying to waste their time and discredit of the job description of doing science, but it’s a good thing them in the eyes of his campaign donors and scientifically that scientists are recognizing this and rising to the occasion. illiterate constituents? The stakes are simply too great—we cannot lose the battle against the forces of unreason and inaction. The silver lining MANN: Evil is as evil does. The motive, in the end, is personal is that we are now creating a whole generation of scientist destruction. It is to make cautionary examples of individual communicators who are not only doing great science but are scientists for others who might think about playing a promi- effectively communicating the science and its implications to nent role in the public discourse over climate change. Here’s the general public. what will happen to you if you too put your head above the parapet! Now, whether it is the politicians like Lamar Smith, James Inhofe, or Ted Cruz themselves who are driven by this BOSLOUGH: Did I hear that you have motive, or whether they are just being loyal foot-soldiers of another book coming out? the fossil fuel interests who have this motive is, in the end, MANN: The Madhouse Effect represents a collaboration be- in my view immaterial. We must judge them by their actions, tween myself and the Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoon- and we must recognize them for the threat that they repre- ist of the Washington Post, Tom Toles. We attempt to use sent to society. humor and satire, as embodied in Tom’s cartoons over the years (and a number of new cartoons exclusive to the book) BOSLOUGH: Maybe there’s a selection bias involved in my to ridicule the absurdity of modern day climate change deni- perceptions. Am I only aware of the fittest survivors whose alism. There is no better tool than satire to expose hypocrisy, reputations within the scientific community were actually and nowhere is there greater hypocrisy than the ongoing enhanced? Are there examples of climate scientists who campaign by fossil fuel interests and their hired hands to couldn’t take it and quit? Or is it more subtle, with young deny the well-established science of human-caused climate scientists dissuaded from entering the field or keeping their change. Indeed, climate change denial would be humorous heads down in a way that makes them invisible? if the stakes weren’t so great. The book takes the form of an annotated compendium of Tom’s cartoons, which we use to MANN: I suspect the real impact of the attacks is more diffi- explore everything from the fundamentals of science and how cult to detect. On the one hand, scientists coming into the it works to the scientific evidence behind climate change, the field now appear to be more mobilized, more willing to con- predicted impacts, the campaign to deny climate change, front misinformation and disinformation head on, more will- the hypocrisy of denialism, the dangers of geoengineering, ing to engage in the public discourse, whether through social and, finally, the path forward. Ironically enough, we end on a media or other means. But what I worry about are the young cautiously optimistic, forward-looking note. scientists we are losing to other fields, scientists confronted by a choice between those areas of science perceived as “safe” (e.g., dark matter, quarks, and black holes) and “un- BOSLOUGH: Since this interview is for skeptics, I have to ask safe” (e.g., climate change and other areas of environmental one more thing. Why do some members of the media still research) from attacks by vested interests and the politicians refer to individuals who reject the scientific method and who do their bidding. mainstream climate science as “skeptics” even though they embrace the pseudoscience of denialism? How can we edu- cate the general public about what skepticism really means? BOSLOUGH: I’m guessing you had no formal training in how to deal with political assaults on your science and had to learn MANN: Yes—this continues to irk many of us. We need to it on the fly. Can those skills be taught to young scientists restore the term skeptic to its rightful place in the scientific who are working in fields that make them vulnerable to discourse. In The Madhouse Effect, we mock—with a great attack? new Tom Toles cartoon exclusive to the book—the laughable manner in which climate change deniers attempt to claim the MANN: Indeed, I did not.

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