Michael E. Mann
The Madhouse Effect
Denial is something we encounter in many aspects of modern life, and there is an entire psychological literature dealing with the topic. In this book, we are focused on a particular type of denial — the denial of the threat we face from human-caused climate change.
While this denial has features in common with other forms of denial, there is also something unique in this case. Fossil fuel interests have spent millions of dollars funding a disinformation campaign aimed at confusing the public and policymakers about the scientific evidence for human-caused climate change.
As a result, the public is substantially misinformed and confused about the degree of scientific consensus behind human-caused climate change.
While there is nearly unanimous acceptance by scientists that climate change is real and human-caused (97-99% depending on the assessment), most public polling reveals that only a bare majority of the public accepts the consensus scientific viewpoint.
A non-trivial 15-20% subset of the population actively attacks the science of climate change and is committed to promoting the idea that climate change is a massive hoax. This notion is fed by conservative groups, right wing media outlets, and fossil fuel interests. Such is the “Madhouse” that we describe, criticize, and ridicule in The Madhouse Effect.
Editor: Judi Pajo
The Madhouse Effect
Michael E. Mann and Tom Toles The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy Columbia University Press 208 pages, 6 x 9 inches ISBN 978 0231177863
Available here →March 29, 2017
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Michael E. Mann
Michael E. Mann is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State. He has authored more than 200 publications, including three books, Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change, and The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars and The Madhouse Effect, featured in his two Rorotoko interviews. Mann was selected by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002, was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the EGU in 2012 and the National Conservation Achievement Award of the NWF in 2013. He made the Bloomberg News list of fifty most influential people in 2013. In 2014, he received the Friend of the Planet Award from NCSE. Michael E. Mann is a Fellow of the AGU, AMS, and the AAAS.
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Climate denial is a funded disinformation campaign that has worked, and humor and ridicule will reach people graphs cannot.
Against JM · Wherever Jews have been granted legal equality they have done disproportionately well at capitalism, and that has causes. On: Supplying people with correct information is what dislodges a false or contested belief
Against PS · American public debate is impoverished because its dominant voices suppress the factual uncertainties at each hard issue's core. On: Supplying people with correct information is what dislodges a false or contested belief
Alongside MF · Conspiracy theory is a subset of populism, which is why showing its factual errors never dissolves it. On: Supplying people with correct information is what dislodges a false or contested belief
Alongside IA · German thinkers from Leibniz to Nietzsche knew far more about their Ottoman neighbours than their published work admits. On: Supplying people with correct information is what dislodges a false or contested belief
Alongside TM · The welfare queen survives because stories demand antagonists, detail and resolution, and only better-told stories can dislodge her. On: Supplying people with correct information is what dislodges a false or contested belief
Alongside GB · Fingerprints, bitemarks, firearms and hair analysis have never had their founding premises validated, so an expert's 100-percent identification is unsupportable. On: Supplying people with correct information is what dislodges a false or contested belief
Nearby TT · The media's false balance gives fossil-fuel-funded climate deniers a standing the science never gave them.
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