OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #133,
JUNE 26, 2023
Michael
Mann. “The
Fragility of Truth in the Existential Climate Crisis.”
Dick. Detective Dramas, US Aggression, US Passivity
Denial of climate danger continues using new methods and language
Michael Mann. “The
Fragility of Truth in the Existential Climate Crisis.” The
Humanist (Summer 2023). “…as I argued in
my book The New Climate War, we appear now to be moving past
outright denial of the basic science as the evidence becomes plain to the
person on the street in the form of the unprecedented heat waves, droughts,
wildfires, floods, and superstorms we are now witnessing.
We still, however, face a multi-pronged
strategy by polluters and their enablers in the media and pundit class to
distract, deflect, attack, divide, and delay. Among their preferred tactics
today is the promotion of risky, unproven strategies, such as geoengineering or
massive carbon capture and sequestration, and the promise of future action as
an excuse for business-as-usual fossil fuel burning today.”
Will you review this book for CMM?
Detective Dramas, US Aggressive Imperialism, and Failure to
Resist Global Warming
I’m a fan of PBS
crime fiction and documentary. At present
the final episodes of “Endeavor” are showing.
The subject of this episode and of all the detective programs is the
pursuit of truth. The detectives suffer
a wide range of stress and sometimes injury.
In “Endeavor” the detectives adhere to their purpose no matter the
personal cost. Chief Inspector Thursday
has been shot and Inspector Morse falsely imprisoned; still they investigate, still they endeavor.
They offer us an
unexpected parallel to the persistent research by the UN scientists of the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who since 1990, despite well-funded
opposition from the fossil fuels companies (like weapons, tobacco, and asbestos
companies before them) and although CC sleuthing is more complex and planetary
in significance, have told the truth about the increasing temperature, fires,
floods, melting glaciers, and rising seas.
You and I are like the detectives in
the dozens of dramas shown on PBS –Ridley,
Death in Paradise, Poirot, Lewis, Inspector Morse, and the many more--in
that we seek the truth about climate and nuclear weapons, our planet’s two
greatest threats, to slow the advance of the first and abolish the second. The detectives are not done; trials to
determine crime and punishment remain to complete the search for truth. The trials and the convictions, however, are
expected and justice restored.
In contrast, our climate and weapons scientist
detectives have found the truth, but little has been done on any level of
government to identify the malefactors—corporations and individuals, war monger
profiteers and warming deniers for profit—and hold them accountable. Few corporate
and government officials who chose commitment to armed violence or failed to
choose commitment to abolishing C02, are facing prosecution. And another
arduous struggle is ahead: to convince the
majority of the populace to demand action sufficient to compel the war and warmingmakers to take responsibility and act in the interest of the public—and
all species.
Everything has
been tried, still global temperature continues to rise and nuclear war danger
increases. People sometimes say to me,
what can I do? I’m only one person. My reply is: join successful groups working
for peace, justice, and ecology and give them the time and money you now expend
on distractions from manifest mutual danger.
Examples of the thousands of peace, justice, and ecology defenders: World Beyond War. Code Pink.
AFSC and FCNL. Locally: OMNI. Against nuclear weapons: ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize, Ground Zero, Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, Nukewatch Quarterly.
Against climate change: Nature
Conservancy, EDF, NRDC, World Meteorological Org. See advocacy of policy orgs: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2021/12/most-effective-nonprofits-fight-climate-change/621013/
Working with a group of striving peacemakers can be transformative personally, and
it models for others to create the mass movement needed to persuade our
governments to know and act for the truth.