Fighting Back Against The 3 “D”s Of Climate Inaction

Climate denial is dead. The vast majority of Americans now accept the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. However, opponents of climate action will not give up without a fight. Indeed, these “inactivists” have merely changed their tactics to better divide, distract, and dispirit the growing climate movement.

Penn State scientist Michael Mann is uniquely suited to reveal these new battle lines in the struggle to save our planet. For a quarter century, he has been at the forefront of climate research and climate action. His “hockey stick” curve famously demonstrated the unprecedented rate of recent temperature rises. He also was a primary political target during the faux scandal of “Climategate” where hackers stole scientist emails in a disingenuous attempt to undermine confidence in climate science.

Mann has combined the roles of groundbreaking scientific researcher, compelling popular communicator, and courageous activist in a way few have since Carl Sagan. His latest book, The New Climate War, provides a thoughtful perspective on the forces impeding meaningful climate action. Mann convincingly argues that we already have the technologies and tools to address climate change, what is missing is concerted collective action. This article explores three themes from The New Climate War that are critical for any climate activist (or concerned citizen) to understand.

Division

One of inactivists’ most common tactics is manufacturing division, within society and within the climate movement itself. As previously noted, the scientific consensus on climate is longstanding and undeniable. For years, that did not stop climate deniers from making bogus claims under the cynical expectation that the media would be compelled to report “both sides.” Unfortunately, discredited theorists or industry shills were given coverage, helping to confuse the public about climate change. Now, these false claims have been thoroughly debunked and the number of outright climate deniers is vanishingly small. However, this fringe group possesses an outsized voice on social media. Their belligerence aims to stifle collective action by making it appear that climate remains a contentious issue. Potential climate advocates can be preemptively silenced if they fear that mentioning climate to neighbors or family members will elicit extreme negative reactions.

Climate inactivists have also tried to drive wedges within the climate movement in hopes that in-fighting will detract from the fight against emissions. Two of the most potent wedge issues are personal responsibility and economic development.

Right-wing personalities like to attack celebrity climate activists like Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio as hypocrites for their outsized carbon footprints. However, neither of them has demanded that individuals drastically restrict their consumption, rather they have advocated for systemic change to decarbonize society. Indeed, the COVID lockdowns demonstrated that personal consumption habits have limited potential for drastically reducing emissions. Even as huge segments of the population stayed home and personal air travel virtually disappeared, global emissions only dropped by 17% in April 2020. Personal choices can have an impact, but when they become a purity test, they only alienate potential allies and absolve corporate and government actors. Unsurprisingly, several oil majors have released personal emissions calculators. Hollow calls for personal responsibility from corporate emitters echo the bad faith argument of gun manufacturers that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

Another inactivist trope has been the false choice between climate action and economic development. Opponents fearmonger that climate policies will ruin the domestic economy and consign billions globally to perpetual poverty. This latter point is particularly disingenuous coming from groups that have staunchly opposed foreign aid, immigration, and international development work. Do not be fooled, climate action is not only compatible with economic progress, but also essential. Within the US, the World Resources Institute estimates that decarbonizing the economy will save trillions in potential climate damages and will create millions of good-paying green jobs. Many developing nations face the greatest risks from climate change, so addressing climatic challenges is a matter of economic necessity. Naturally, the UN includes climate action as one of its sustainable development goals. Despite the linkages between a healthy planet and a healthy economy, some in the climate movement have fallen victim to this either-or thinking. Climate action is complementary to racial, social, and economic justice movements, not competitive with them. Globally, economically and racially marginalized groups have suffered the most from environmental degradation and are frequently in the path of climate change’s worst effects.

Distraction

Beyond sowing division, inactivists seek to distract the public through ambitious sounding but vague pledges and climate “solutions” that maintain business-as-usual. Last year was the year of the corporate climate commitment, as corporations began making pledges to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. While net-zero is an admirable goal, and a necessary one to limit global warming, such commitments demand scrutiny. Some fossil fuel companies have committed to net-zero emissions for their operations, conveniently excluding all emissions released from using their products. Other businesses, such as those in the aviation industry, have announced plans to purchase vast amounts of carbon offsets. Offsets have been plagued by issues of double-counting and shady accounting, which makes verification critical. Finally, many firms have failed to provide tangible short-term steps to reach long-term decarbonization goals. Without defining specific actions and intermediate targets, a net-zero announcement is little more than greenwashing, a PR stunt that perpetuates the status quo.

Climate activists should also be wary of purported “solutions” that serve emitter interests or claim not to require any systematic energy system or economic changes. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has become the fossil fuel industry’s primary answer to the climate crisis. The basic idea of CCS for a coal or gas plant is relatively simple, as the fuel is combusted, capture the carbon dioxide and store it somewhere to keep it from going into the atmosphere. The issues arise with economics and scale. Installing CCS technology would make many fossil fuel plants economically uncompetitive, especially as costs for solar and wind power continue to plummet. As a result, relatively few CCS-equipped plants have been built, and one of the largest, the Petra Nova gas plant, closed last year. Furthermore, to limit emissions, this technology would need to be deployed on a massive scale, with some estimates indicating we would need to open one new CCS plant per week (right now there are fewer than 30 worldwide). Storing tremendous quantities of carbon dioxide may be possible, but it poses major logistical challenges. Ironically, most of the carbon dioxide captured today goes into enhanced oil recovery (EOR), a method of using the compressed carbon dioxide to force out more fossil fuels from the ground.

Likewise, technologies like hydrogen fuel have also been touted by the fossil fuel industry. Hydrogen is indeed clean burning, but it is energy intensive to produce. While hydrogen can be produced by renewable energy, at present, 95% is produced from fossil fuels. Furthermore, hydrogen provides a massive infrastructural advantage to fossil fuel producers as pipelines and distribution centers that currently carry oil and gas could be repurposed for hydrogen.

While CCS and hydrogen may play a constructive role in a low-carbon future, climate techno-fixes of “geoengineering” are potentially dangerous distractions. While geoengineering can refer to many different means of altering the environment (even planting trees), the geoengineering attracting Silicon Valley’s attention is far more controversial. Perhaps the most audacious proposal is that of solar radiation management (SRM), which increases the amount of incoming solar energy reflected back into space. From a technical standpoint, the idea is not terribly complex. When volcanoes erupt, they release sulfate particles into the high atmosphere. Human-produced aerosols have a similar effect, blocking some of the sun’s energy from reaching the Earth’s surface, thus cooling the planet. In a geoengineering scheme, massive amounts of sulfates would be released into the atmosphere to simulate this reflective effect. While this approach initially appears cost-effective, it represents nothing less than turning the planet into a giant experiment. Changing the global energy balance is likely to have negative effects on certain regions, ranging from increased floods to severe droughts. In addition, this “solution” does not address ocean acidification (often called global warming’s “evil twin”), as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. Not only might sulfates increase pollution in the form of acid rain, but these short-lived atmospheric particles would need to be sprayed continually to maintain the desired temperature. Halting the experiment would lead to frighteningly rapid warming from the built-up greenhouse gases. SRM would be a diplomatic nightmare as nations fight over who gets to set the planetary thermostat and might detract from proven emissions reduction strategies. Geoengineering may create moral hazard by convincing people that emissions can continue indefinitely without consequences. While geoengineering may need to be considered as an emergency measure, its frightening unknown consequences make it a solution of last resort.

Doomism

As climate denial is no longer scientifically tenable, many deniers have become climate nihilists. Under this view, nothing can be done about climate change, so efforts toward climate action are meaningless. One of the most prominent advocates of this position is Bjorn Lomberg, who has argued that all national climate pledges would reduce global temperatures by fewer than 0.1 degrees. This scientifically incorrect argument about global powerlessness on climate is frequently paired with the false choice between climate action and development.

Inactivists also like to attack green technologies as not only ineffective, but dangerous. Former President Donald Trump absurdly claimed that wind power did everything from destroy property values to cause cancer. Particularly unfortunate was filmmaker Michael Moore’s Planet of the Humans, a film roundly condemned by scientists for its numerous inaccuracies. While environmental impacts of producing green technologies must be addressed, the overall harms of fossil fuels and renewables are in no way comparable. Even without climate impacts, ecosystems destroyed, and waters poisoned by fossil fuels, over seven million people die annually from air pollution.

Another idea of climate nihilism that may be more well-intentioned, but also serves to dispirit is the notion of the inevitable climate apocalypse. Unfortunately, the media sometimes furthered this narrative by grossly oversimplifying or misinterpreting climate research. Despite headlines the Amazon does not produce 20% of the world’s oxygen, we don’t have nine years to stop climate change, and climate tipping points have not made climate change unstoppable. However, one can hardly blame a reader for feeling confused. Climate doom stories may get clicks, but it is bad science and bad for climate action. Psychologists explain that when people believe they cannot change their circumstances, they can enter a highly demotivated state produced by “learned helplessness.” This disempowering state is the opposite of the energetic advocacy that the climate crisis demands. Unfortunately, climate doom only benefits those opposed to climate action.  

Tackling climate change is humanity’s defining challenge in the twenty-first century. It demands collective action from governments, businesses, and societies. The energy systems and economies that built our modern world must be fundamentally retooled within the next generation. Fortunately, science tells us that if we act now, we still can mitigate the worst effects of uncontrolled climate change. Even better, we already have the tools and technologies to limit our greenhouse gas emissions. The global low-carbon transformation will accelerate sustainable development and present unparalleled opportunities. However, some vested interests, for political, ideological, or financial reasons, are determined to prevent this essential transition from taking place. To fight back, we must recognize that outright denial has been replaced with the three “Ds” of climate inaction: division, distraction, and doomism.