The New Climate War

A renowned climate scientist shows how fossil-fuel companies have waged a thirty-year campaign to deflect blame and responsibility and to delay action on climate change, and offers a battle plan for how we can save the planet.

Recycle. Fly less. Eat less meat. These are some of the ways that we've been told can slow climate change. But the inordinate emphasis on behaviour is the result of a marketing campaign that has succeeded in placing the responsibility for fixing climate change squarely on the shoulders of individuals.

Fossil-fuel companies have followed the example of other industries deflecting blame (think 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people') or greenwashing. Meanwhile, they've blocked efforts to regulate or price carbon emissions, have run PR campaigns aimed at discrediting viable alternatives, and have abdicated their responsibility to fix the problem they've created. The result has been disastrous for our planet.

In The New Climate War, Mann argues that all is not lost. He draws the battle lines between the people and the polluters - fossil-fuel companies, right-wing plutocrats, and petro-states. And he outlines a plan for forcing our governments and corporations to wake up and make real change, including:

• a common-sense, attainable approach to carbon pricing - and a revision of the well-intentioned
• but flawed currently proposed version of the Green New Deal;
• allowing renewable energy to compete fairly against fossil fuels;
• debunking the false narratives and arguments that have worked their way into the climate debate and driven a wedge between even those who support climate-change solutions;
• and combatting climate doomism and despair-mongering.

With immensely powerful vested interests aligned in defence of the fossil-fuel status quo, the societal tipping point won't happen without the active participation of citizens everywhere aiding in the collective push forward. This book will reach, inform, and enable citizens everywhere to join this battle for our planet.

About the Author

Michael E. Mann is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State. He has received many honours and awards, including his selection by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002. Additionally, he contributed, with other IPCC authors, to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2018 he received the Award for Public Engagement with Science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Climate Communication Prize from the American Geophysical Union. In 2020 he was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of numerous books, including Dire Predictions: understanding climate change and The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: dispatches from the front lines. He lives in State College, Pennsylvania.