EGU2020-22288
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-22288
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

How to Win The New Climate War: The Plan to Take Back Our Planet from the Polluters

Michael Mann
Michael Mann
  • The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16802-5013, USA

Human-caused climate change is arguably the greatest threat we face as a civilization. Efforts to attack and deny the scientific evidence have constituted a major impediment to action over the past two decades. At a time when we appear to be moving past outright denial of the problem, we face a multi-pronged strategy by polluting interests to distract, deflect, attack, and divide the climate activist community. This involves, among other things, (a) efforts to deflect attention from systemic change and regulatory policy solutions to personal behavior,  (b) doomist framing that disempowers us by exaggerating the threat in such a way as to make catastrophic changes now seem unavoidable, and (c) the promotion of false solutions that seek to enable the continued burning of fossil fuels that is at the very root of the problem. I will discuss what we can do to fight back, emphasizing the importance of both urgency AND agency in efforts to save our planet.

How to cite: Mann, M.: How to Win The New Climate War: The Plan to Take Back Our Planet from the Polluters, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-22288, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-22288, 2020