I have to admit that a few years ago I believed that Dr. Michael Mann was a fraud and that his Hockey Stick curve was bogus. I did believe that human caused Global Warming probably was real because it simply made too much sense based on the physics, but that it was exaggerated and there are always some bad apples even among scientists taking advantage of a good scare. As I started digging more into the topic, which included reading peer reviewed articles on the topic I began to change my mind. My educational background makes digging deeper into a topic like this easier for me. I found that not only was the evidence for human caused Global Warming overwhelming, but that those who argued otherwise often were doing so dishonestly, and I also came to realize that Anthropomorphic Global Warming is a very serious and underappreciated problem. In addition I came to realize that Dr. Michael Mann was certainly not a fraud and that he also most likely is right. I knew all this before reading this book. After reading this book I am outraged about the dishonest abuse that he and his colleagues have been subjected to and I have come to admire him for his courage and integrity.
The Hockeystick is a long term global temperature graph (600 or 1000 years) showing a recent prominent temperature spike. It was derived using tree rings and other proxy data, such as coral records and ice cores. According Dr. Mann the Hockeystick was a by-product, almost like an afterthought resulting from research on why Europe cooled more than other regions during the “Little Ice Age”. Dr. Mann was always careful not to claim that the Hockeystick would firmly establish human role in the warming. However, it incidentally challenged the prevailing myths surrounding the medieval warm period, which is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented topics in all of paleoclimatology. To climate skeptics (or often more accurately climate deniers) MWP was a holy cow, and Dr. Mann killing it made him the target of powerful corporations, media outlets and organizations, politicians, and enraged citizens. The messenger had to be shot.
The Hockeystick was also criticized by some scientists, and it is nothing wrong with that per se. A paper by McKitrick and McIntyre claimed that the Hockeystick was an artifact by bad data, but this claim was readily refuted, and the authors quietly dropped the claim. A paper by Baliunas and Willy Soon came to a conclusion contradicting the Hockeystick but this paper had several serious problems including misrepresentations and mischaracterizations and probably should not even have been published. Yet it was immediately promoted uncritically and widely by those with a policy ax to grind. As a side note (not in book); Willy Soon was later investigated for failing to disclose (to article publishers), the $1.2 million in funding over 10 years that he had received from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and other fossil-fuel interests. At the same time more than a dozen other independent studies confirmed the Hockeystick. Despite this the Hockeystick was claimed to be wrong and even a fraud (as I said, I once believed that too) and there were aggressive calls for investigations, which was ridiculous but they were still done, and they cleared Dr. Mann of any wrong doing.
I should add that this book explains some of the science related to the Hockeystick and anthropomorphic global warming, as well as some of the typical areas of climate change skepticism/(or denial). However, the main focus of this book is on what Dr. Mann refers to as the climate wars. This war features massive corporation funded disinformation campaigns, attacks on climate scientists, large scale defamation campaigns, threats, death threats, the media wars, the media glorification of charlatans, bogus lawsuits, etc. Climate Scientists received death threats via emails or phone messages, some of them credible, and dead rats at their door steps. As an example, Dr. Mann was told “you and your colleagues who have promoted this scandal ought to be shot, quartered and fed to the pigs along with your whole damn families.” However, a lot more troubling in my opinion was the ridicule, disinformation, and threats from established organizations, public figures, and prominent politicians.
A video defaming (lying) and ridiculing Dr. Mann created by Koch and Scaife funded groups was widely promoted and distributed. Right wing provocateur Andrew Breitbart had tweeted “Capital punishment for Dr. James Hansen” (James Hansen is a famous climate scientist). Commentator Marc Sheppard called climate scientists “lying perpetrators of fraud”. Glenn Beck listed bogus allegations against IPCC. Attorney General of Virginia Ken Cuccinelli demanded that the University of Virginia turn over every email, record, or document it had related to Dr. Mann from his time there from 1999 to 2005. Organizations such as Global Climate Coalition, Koch Industries, Scaife, ExxonMobil, American Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, Cato Institute, and Citizens for Sound Economy, the Telegraph in the UK, National Review, Fox News, Washington Times, etc, misrepresented the science and defamed scientists. I should add that long before I read this book I had detected dishonest distortion of the science in many of the publications mentioned. I cannot trust the Telegraph or National Review and I’ve stopped watching Fox News.
Since I am from Texas the case involving Representative Joe Barton was especially interesting to me. In 2005 Joe Barton sent a letter to Dr. Mann that started out by ironically grossly misrepresenting Dr. Mann’s own research and then demanding extensive materials stretching back throughout his entire career for a congressional investigation. However, curiously, Joe Barton had no such subpoena power, that required congressional approval, and most of Dr. Mann’s data was available on the internet. This was an obvious attempt to intimidate and silence a scientist or perhaps create a “phony scandal”. However, Dr. Mann still had to prepare to defend himself and luckily the European Geophysical Union stepped up to protest the abuse of power.
In my opinion the most interesting chapter in the book is chapter 14 “Climategate: The Real Story”. I have to admit that I once thought that this was a real scandal. The truth is that the so called Climategate is a manufactured/phony scandal created to defame certain scientists and to cast doubt on climate science. In November 2009 a server at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) was hacked by an external attacker. Thousands of private emails were stolen and scanned for juicy content that could implicate the climate scientists in something. Words and phrases in twenty of the emails were picked and taken out of context in an effort to malign Dr. Mann and a few other climate scientists. As an example, by cherry picking a couple of words and by deleting 23 words in between the often repeated phrase “trick to hide the decline” was created. However, the “trick” and “hide the decline” had nothing to do with each other, and was not referring to recent warming, but rather the far more mundane issue of how to compare proxy and instrumental records. Someone (falsely) called it “Dr. Mann’s dirty laundry” and the Telegraph and National Review had a field day with this issue. Fox News called it Global Warming’s Waterloo. The issue was investigated and the climate scientists involved (Dr. Mann and a few others) were cleared of all wrong doing. I wonder how many of us could be made out to be terrible people if all our emails were hacked and phrases were selected out of context to show wrong doing? The perpetrators of this illegal cyber attack have not been found. I wonder who they were.
One thing I like about the book is that it has extensive end notes with lots of references for further reading and backup of claims, including references to peer reviewed articles. You can really dig in as deep as you wish. The book is very interesting, well organized, and intelligently written, but I have to say that I still found this book difficult to read. That is not because it is boring, or because the science is too complex. It was difficult to read because it was so troubling. How does Dr. Mann keep himself from exploding in rage? After reading this book I feel sorry for climate scientists. I could possibly have ended up as one since I started out with an interest in physics (Masters Degree) but I switched to computer/robotics engineering. I certainly don’t want to be intimidated and defamed for just doing my job with diligence and integrity. This is scary stuff. A couple of my kids are interested in science. Should I discourage them? Well I won’t discourage them. I am just glad to be aware of what is going on. As a final word I highly recommend this book, it is a very important and eye opening book.
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Reviews with images
How many climate deniers could you fight off? A quizzical review
The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars whacked me on the head and said "Wake up! We are in a climate war."It made me think: What will the world be like if the fossil fuel industry wins the climate war?It also made me wonder what it's like to be under attack from hordes of "climate denialists" as Michael Mann was. (Although I must say, I do have some experience defending myself against attacks from my oil-rich government...)Instead of writing a long review, I created an illustrated quiz. I see it as a way for people to put themselves in Dr. Mann's shoes -- if only for a minute -- and think what it would be like to battle climate denialists.The quiz has been taken over 3,100 times. Take the quiz yourself: How many climate deniers could you fight off? See it on Grist.org (grist.org/climate-energy/quiz-how-many-climate-denier-attackers-could-you-fight-off/ )We made a Google map to track who was willing to fight off the climate deniers. Lots and lots of people around the world are ready and willing to fight off the denialists! The map shows that the quiz has spread to every state in the US, most parts of Canada and every continent in the world (except Antarctica). While the quiz is mainly for entertainment purposes, we can see that there is tonnes of enthusiasm for fighting off climate deniers! We are not alone.From Athens to Amsterdam, Mumbai to Melbourne, Paris to Perth... there are lots of courageous climate fighters out there. Ready and willing to use their verbal judo skills to flip Denialist's arguments flat on the floor -- which is great -- because we need lots more people like Michael Mann who are willing to fight back when attacked by climate denialists!I recommend reading The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars.
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