The release of climate scientist Michael Mann’s new book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, led a popular global warming denialist website to stir up some of its followers to go to Amazon and try to tear the book down, with instant negative comments and with thumbs-down to favorable reviews. Prof. Mann has an important story to tell, as many readers of this site are well-aware.
But most of the reviews are positive, so far at least, including those that are most substantive. Get the book, published by Columbia University Press, and read it, as we are in the process of doing now. (And though we are following a common practice of linking to Amazon – in this case, in particular, to call your attention to a small example of the ‘climate war’ as playing out in the reviewer comment section – it will be even better if you can buy the book from an actual bookstore, especially one of the remaining independent booksellers.)
About The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars (from Amazon):
In its 2001 report on global climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations prominently featured the “Hockey Stick,” a chart showing global temperature data over the past one thousand years. The Hockey Stick demonstrated that temperature had risen with the increase in industrialization and use of fossil fuels. The inescapable conclusion was that worldwide human activity since the industrial age had raised CO2 levels, trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and warming the planet.
The Hockey Stick became a central icon in the “climate wars,” and well-funded science deniers immediately attacked the chart and the scientists responsible for it. Yet the controversy has had little to do with the depicted temperature rise and much more with the perceived threat the graph posed to those who oppose governmental regulation and other restraints to protect our environment and planet. Michael E. Mann, lead author of the original paper in which the Hockey Stick first appeared, shares the real story of the science and politics behind this controversy. He introduces key figures in the oil and energy industries, and the media front groups who do their bidding in sometimes slick, bare-knuckled ways to cast doubt on the science. Mann concludes with an account of the “Climategate” scandal, the 2009 hacking of climate scientists’ emails. Throughout, Mann reveals the role of science deniers, abetted by an uninformed media, in once again diverting attention away from one of the central scientific and policy issues of our time.
Excellent post on Adam Siegel’s Get Energy Smart NOW! Blog: Amazon-ian challenge: what is the right thing to do?
And a must-read and must-see post by Peter Sinclair at Climate Denial Crock of the Week: Case Study: Anthony Watts and Info-Fascism in Action
Did you ever wonder about the hordes of angry comments that appear after any major online story breaks about climate change? The ones that angrily attack the very idea that climate is changing, or that man could cause it, or that attack the integrity of the science and the climate scientists? Sometimes you might wonder if such feeding frenzies are organized.
Wonder no more. We now have a convincing demonstration of exactly how its done. …
And be sure to check out the very revealing little video, at the Climate Crocks post, on Training Tea Party Activists in Guerilla Internet Tactics – in which right-wing activists are told that, by subverting meaningful communication on the Internet, they are following in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers.
And an earlier post from Joe Romm at Climate Progress, on Anthony Watts’s practices: Anthony Watts urges WattsUpWithThat readers to disrupt Forbes blog: “shout them down in the comments section”
Some earlier posts (each contains additional relevant links):
Pro-science pushback helps put release of second batch of climate scientist emails in perspective
Favorable Virginia court procedural ruling in Michael Mann v. global warming denialist email raid
A review of the climate science stolen email controversy, with a few lessons for the future
Michael Mann in Washington Post op-ed: “Get the anti-science bent out of politics”
And on some other books that take on the denial machine:
“Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America”
“The Inquisition of Climate Science” takes down the denialists
‘Merchants of Doubt’ responsible for climate confusion – book review