“Urgency and Agency”: Michael Mann on Conquering Climate Despair

I will admit that I sometimes fall into the climate-doomism camp. As a sustainability and behavioral scientist steeped in a steady stream of information about how much we have to do and how often we fail to do it, it can be hard to feel optimistic. I was surprised—then chastened, then angered—when I realized that my climate despair might actually be a tool being wielded by those looking to undermine climate action.

It’s one of the tactics Michael Mann, professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University, describes in his latest book, The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet. For the organizations looking to stall climate action, climate denial has become passé. Instead, they have turned to carbon shaming, it’s-too-late climate doomism, and stirring up fights among climate advocates, all to paralyze behaviors and policies that could help us fight climate change.

But it’s not all bad news. Good climate science creates plenty of room for hope. I haven’t felt optimistic about climate change in a long time, but I did after reading Mann’s book. I was even more heartened and energized after our conversation, in which we talked about how to overcome climate anxiety, why it makes more sense to focus on what we gain than what we lose with climate action, and how urgency and agency make a winning combination in our fight against climate change.  

Michaela Barnett: The climate crisis feels really big and overwhelming. How do we overcome fear and paralysis when we’re thinking about the scale of this problem? And how do we turn our fear and anxiety into motivation and action?

Michael Mann: One way to get past that feeling of being overwhelmed by the scale of the problem is the agency that we feel when we actually start acting.

If you lead people down a path of engagement, there’s a snowball effect that can lead to greater and greater engagement. So even if that initial action really isn’t doing much to actually solve the problem (like changing light bulbs, using recyclable shopping bags, or driving a more fuel-efficient vehicle or electric vehicle), it leads us down this path of engagement where we realize, “Oh, well you know, that was easy enough to do. Maybe I can do this too.”

At the same time, there is a potential trade off we have to look out for. If people feel like they’re doing enough in their individual actions, that can actually lead to decreased support for needed systemic changes. For example, carbon pricing. “Why should I have to pay a carbon tax if I’m already doing all these things in my day-to-day life to solve this problem? Why do I need to pay a tax as well?”

There’s a danger that focusing too much on individual actions can crowd out the emotional energy we have. It can crowd out support for systemic change, and we really do need systemic change.

There’s a danger that focusing too much on individual actions can crowd out the emotional energy we have. It can crowd out support for systemic change, and we really do need systemic change.

I think there are a lot of really good, well-meaning, well-intentioned, good-hearted people who fall into doom and despair. And they are not the enemy! They are not our opponents. They are victims of this framing that has taken hold. And there are some bad actors who are promoting unhelpful framing to actually cause paralysis and disengagement. Those who are framing it as a fait accompli, as a tipping point that we’ve crossed, a point of no return, as if it’s too late to do anything—a lot of those narratives are steeped in distortions of the science that are almost as bad, if not as bad, as distortions of the science on the denialist side.

The problem is that these false narratives, this idea that we’re already experiencing runaway warming and there’s nothing we can do and all life on earth will be extinguished within a decade (and there are some pretty prominent actors in the climate discourse who do promote that sort of that very messaging) is premised on bad science.

The best available science tells us that we can avoid catastrophic warming. I’ve boiled it down to something even simpler in my messaging these days, which is the pairing of urgency and agency.

In this new climate war, the bad actors we are fighting can feel abstract. It’s either the system or it’s “them.” How do we fight an enemy that sometimes feels abstract or hard to pin down?

I talked quite a bit in the book about petro-state actors, Russia being one of them, that have used cyberwar to really interfere with the climate movement and to polarize climate advocates in order to create conflict and division. It’s such a perfect way to disable a movement—creating infighting and internal conflict. And they do that very effectively.

We do know that there are state actors, Russia in particular, who are creating bot armies to sow discord, to promote talking points that frame climate action as either impossible or fake. In the old days, it was mostly about the fossil fuel interests, marshaling the political right for their agenda.

Those who are framing it as a tipping point we’ve crossed as if it’s too late to do anything – those narratives are steeped in distortions of the science that are almost as bad, if not as bad, as distortions of the science on the denialist side.

But now they’ve become adept at actually weaponizing some of the political left. When you find yourself promoting doom and despair, it’s too late. “We can’t do anything about climate change. We should just live off the grid, and spend the remaining years that we have, you know, with our goats.” That’s unhelpful. And if they get you thinking that way, then then they have weaponized you for their cause of disengagement.

And getting us fighting with each other about individual behavioral choices. What better way to get people fighting with each other than finger-pointing and carbon shaming? Where we’re shaming each other’s lifestyle choices, that really leads to division and it plays into their tactics, because then it’s divide and conquer. We’re fighting with each other. We’re not representing a united front demanding action.

You write that both climate alarmism and climate inaction aren’t good. Is climate alarmism really as bad as climate inaction?

Frankly, no. The framing of this being alarmism comes from developments in our political discourse over the last decade or so. Many in this camp see this from an ideological standpoint. Climate change dismissal is a proxy for their political tribal identity.

The difference is that many of those who fall victim to doom and despair would otherwise be the first people on the front lines, demanding action. And so it’s so tragic to watch them become disengaged, because these are the people who were most likely to be leading the charge. That’s what makes it so pernicious, this weaponization of doom and despair as a way to disengage advocates. So it’s not the same.

I try to clarify the difference between alarm and alarmism. There is reason for alarm. But alarmism carries other connotations. You know, if you look up the dictionary definition of it, it is an exaggerated level of concern. It carries this connotation of irrational overreaction. Don’t call yourself an alarmist, because the other side will use that to dismiss you—but own the fact that you’re alarmed, because you should be. We do face great risk, and there is great urgency.

Many of those who fall victim to doom and despair would otherwise be the first people on the front lines … That’s what makes it so pernicious, this weaponization of doom and despair as a way to disengage advocates.

The truth is bad enough. We don’t have to exaggerate the science and the facts and the impacts to make the argument for dramatic and immediate action, because the facts alone merit that argument. If we invent facts, we distort the truth in the same way as the other side when they deny the science. It does play into this notion of false alarm. And it’s used very effectively, not so much against us, but against some moderate conservatives who we might otherwise be able to bring on board.

We’re probably not going to win over the hardcore ideological zealots, climate change deniers, and hardcore climate change contrarians, but we don’t want to energize them either. “They want to come in and take away your hamburgers.” That’s not what this is about. Let’s not help them frame it that way.

I appreciated what you wrote about behavior shaming almost always being counterproductive on climate action. But there are cases when shame is a useful motivator, right?

We need to shame those who rightfully deserve to be shamed. And those are the bad actors. The fossil fuel interest lobbyists, shills, people who claim to be environmentalists but are actually funded by natural gas and nuclear, and those people who, objectively speaking, are not engaging in good faith on this topic.

And that doesn’t mean everybody who disagrees with us, because we can have disagreements in good faith. I’ve cultivated friendships with conservative Republicans. I have a very different philosophical outlook, but we’re both aligned in our interests in climate action. That’s a worthy, good faith discussion.

But when we encounter people who are not engaged in good faith who are promoting misleading talking points and disingenuous arguments that seem to be agenda-driven to thwart the clean energy transition and to create continued political currency for fossil fuel interests, it’s appropriate to call those people, groups, and institutions out. That’s what I love about Greta Thunberg. She speaks truth to power. And yeah, she’s shaming people. There’s no question. But she’s shaming the people who rightfully do need to be shamed. The power brokers, the fossil fuel interests, the investment managers, all those people who are in a position to do something and aren’t doing it.

Even up to a couple years ago, all the focus was on individual action. Now, it really feels like there’s this pendulum shift to focusing on systemic change. How can we better integrate these two polar extremes?

Both are important. It’s too easy for us to get locked into this binary framing, which is unhelpful, and it’s misleading. When we talk about collective action, collective action is individuals banding together to affect change. What is a collective but a collection of individuals? To me, voting and all of the actions that we can take as citizens banding together—demonstrations, protests, any sort of civic engagement—is individuals making the decision to be part of that. When we band together, then we have much more power.

For too long, we’ve allowed climate change to be framed in terms that are scientific or economic or political, but it’s fundamentally an ethical dilemma. Those who had the least role in creating this problem are those who are going to suffer the most.

And what about the decisions we make about our own lifestyles and our efforts to reduce our environmental footprint and our carbon footprint? I would argue that is important too. But at the same time, we need incentives, so that putting up solar panels is an economic incentive and means you really do pay less energy. And that requires policy. That requires politicians who are willing to do our bidding. We’re the people they’re supposed to be representing, rather than powerful special interests, who have a far narrower interest in short-term profit than the interest of the people themselves.

Let’s end on a hopeful and happy note. What is making you feel hopeful about the climate?

Let me tell you—so much. We’ve got a president in Joe Biden who has been far bolder on climate than anybody, especially his critics, anticipated. I think he understands that there were a lot of voters, younger voters in particular, who voted on this issue. And he has honored that by being far bolder on climate than anyone expected. This is the most ambitious agenda on climate that we’ve ever seen.

There’s the youth climate movement—Greta Thunberg and other youth climate advocates around the world who have helped collectively recenter this issue on matters of ethics. For too long, we’ve allowed it to be framed in terms that are scientific or economic or political, but it’s fundamentally an ethical dilemma. Those who had the least role in creating this problem are those who are going to suffer the most. And that includes the developing world versus the industrial world, but also generationally. Our children and grandchildren will bear the brunt if we fail to act.

So that has recentered the issue, and it has intersected with a larger conversation we’re having now with fundamental issues of justice, on cultural justice and racial justice. I think we’re going through a tipping point with all of those things, and climate justice is clearly wrapped up in it.

And we experienced this pandemic. As awful as it is and as much of a tragedy as it was, that has forced us to confront our own vulnerability as a civilization. And so, for all of these reasons, I feel like we are now in the best position we have ever been in to see meaningful, concerted global climate action. But not a moment too soon.