Climate scientist Michael Mann, when asked about Obama's avoidance of any mention of climate change in his recent energy speeches, said:
I thought there was some irony to Obama going to Oklahoma, the state that maybe has been most devastated thus far by the emerging effects of climate change, to present a vision of our energy future that really did seem to ignore climate change. I was disappointed by that, frankly.
Yup, another golden moment to draw the link between climate and energy missed. It is indeed
a disappointment.
Michael Mann is best-known as the driving force behind the "hockey stick" reconstruction of temperatures of the past 1000 years:
This plot became a cause célèbre when it was included in the 2001 Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Mann became a target of attacks from deniers as a result, including a McCarthyite "investigation" from right-wing Virginia AB Ken Cuccinelli (which was recently thrown out of court). Mann recently wrote a great book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, which details this story as well as Mann's own transformation from an above-the-fray scientist to an active participant in the public debate on climate.
Mann continued his critique of the administration in the HuffPo interview cited above:
In Obama’s second State of the Union address, he actually seemed to concede the scientific evidence as a weakness. He argued that we need to pursue a more enlightened energy strategy in spite of the doubts about the science of climate change. … We’ve actually made negative progress from where we were 10 years earlier, when Clinton gave his final State of the Union address. We've gone from the science being the primary reason to move forward to the argument that we should move forward in spite of supposed weaknesses in the science of climate change. So we've retreated to a position of weakness on this issue with Obama relative to Bill Clinton.
This failure by the administration to emphatically endorse climate science must be disappointing to Mann and company, who have had to devote much time and energy dealing with deniers and have had to face intense
harassment and intimidation for daring to tell the truth. One correspondent wrote to him
"six feet under is where you should be."
Finally, Mann specifically pointed out the frustrating fact that, despite the administration including some very good people, the overall messaging isn't there, probably because the Obama political team views climate as a "must-not-talk-about":
It’s been a mixed bag really when it comes to Obama and climate change because he appointed all the right people to the various agencies. You know, no complaints about Steven Chu, Jane Lubchenco, John Holdren. … It’s like he had this all-star basketball team, but he wouldn’t let them go out on the floor and play. With the exception maybe of Chu, who’s been out there talking about these issues, they all seem to have been on a very short leash in terms of speaking up publicly about the energy challenge and the need to deal with climate change.
I know that they all have very enlightened view on this because I know some of them and I know what they’ve written and where they’ve stood on this issue for some time. So he appointed the right people, but then he didn’t really let them move forward on this issue. He says the right things sometimes, but then appears to retreat from them. The bottom line is that at the very least he appears conflicted between where his own heart is -– my guess is that his own heart is with moving forward and dealing with the problem of climate change -- and his instincts as a politician.
Mann and his fellow scientists are on the front lines here, doing their best to alert people, but they can't do it alone. They - we all - need the administration to provide narrative, messaging, to end the "we must not discuss this." It's been shown in a
recent study by Robert Brulle et al. that public concern about climate is driven by the amount of media coverage and "cues from political elites." The administration's silence means that no link is drawn between all these recent climate change-related events - including the Oklahoma's record heat and drought and
Mr. Inhofe's debilitating encounter with toxic algae - and burning fossil fuels. Instead the president goes to Cushing and
promises more oil and gas, with nary a mention of the grave danger:
But the fact is that my administration has approved dozens of new oil and gas pipelines over the last three years -– including one from Canada. And as long as I’m President, we’re going to keep on encouraging oil development and infrastructure and we’re going to do it in a way that protects the health and safety of the American people. We don’t have to choose between one or the other, we can do both.
We desperately need the Obama administration to change on climate. People will say, "But he can't pass a bill by himself - blame Congress!" And sure, Congress sucks, at least in the aggregate. But Mann's critique (and
Daryl Hannah's too, heh) does not deal with passing bills. The failing Mann points to is that the administration fails to provide any messaging or narrative around climate - instead, they don't mention it at all! This is indeed a missed opportunity and disappointment to those of us distressed about the threat of climate change.
I hope they get their act together.