pdotb@wyrms.de reviewed The New Climate War by Michael E. Mann
Meh, and that's being quite generous
3 stars
To be honest, there were multiple times in reading this book that I seriously considered DNFing it and now, having finished, I'm rather regretting not having done so. There's some potentially useful stuff in here, and the last chapter almost redeemed the rest of the book, before descending into the same failings. Ultimately, though, it's just not a very pleasant book to read.
Far too much of it feels like the same kind of snark that works so well on Twitter, but in a ~350 page book that becomes pretty wearying. There's also the problem that the author is a pretty central character in the story, and so we get lots of mentions of disputes he's been involved in, in which he is always in the right. "The New Climate War" seems to come down to Mann and those who think like him, against pretty much everyone else.
While it's …
To be honest, there were multiple times in reading this book that I seriously considered DNFing it and now, having finished, I'm rather regretting not having done so. There's some potentially useful stuff in here, and the last chapter almost redeemed the rest of the book, before descending into the same failings. Ultimately, though, it's just not a very pleasant book to read.
Far too much of it feels like the same kind of snark that works so well on Twitter, but in a ~350 page book that becomes pretty wearying. There's also the problem that the author is a pretty central character in the story, and so we get lots of mentions of disputes he's been involved in, in which he is always in the right. "The New Climate War" seems to come down to Mann and those who think like him, against pretty much everyone else.
While it's good to see the deniers having their tricks pointed out, and Mann does reasonably well at pointing out that excessively doomy predictions (e.g., Scranton, Wallace-Wells) aren't justified, he also very much takes aim at anything to the left of carbon pricing. Naomi Klein, AOC, Bernie, the GND, it's all apparently misguided. The problem with that (apart from the fact that I don't believe it :) ) is that Mann never really puts up a convincing argument for what carbon pricing will do, and why it won't exacerbate inequity. That last point is simply waved away, and the positive effects of carbon pricing simply seems to come down to "providing incentives", without explaining what that would lead to.
In conclusion, it's really hard to recommend this book. Even if you're not as sensitive to the tone as me, I think there are just much better books on the topic.
