233: The Thorny Issue of 1.5C

Tom: [00:02:38] Nicely done Paul, could not agree more. It's just been horrifying to watch that and inspiring, as you say, to look at people's bravery and willingness to stand up to it.

Christiana: [00:02:47] Heroism, heroism.

Tom: [00:02:47] Heroism, yeah. And his, I mean, his wife is going to need protecting now, Yulia, isn't she. Because she's clearly going to pick up the mantle. And Putin's enemies generally get bad things happen to them. So I hope that doesn't happen to her.

Paul: [00:03:00] Well, just amen to a very, very brave politician. Very brave, very inspiring. Braver than Tucker Carlson, don't get me onto his interview with Vladimir Putin. We're here to talk about one and a half degrees. 

Tom: [00:03:11] Yeah but do watch the Jon Stewart section on that, it's hilarious. Now we are going to, get into a thorny issue that is going to raise all kinds of people's reactions, as it should. And that's around this concept of 1.5. First enshrined in the Paris Agreement, as a stretch target. And since then we realized that really the game is to keep within 1.5 degrees because the impacts of two degrees are so much worse. But also over the last few years, there's been this creeping sense that it's beginning to slip away from us. And that is reflected in the media. It's reflected in the common dialogue. It's also reflected very strongly, to me personally, in meetings that I had in Dubai since then with philanthropists, NGOs, senior people in governments, think tanks who often, surprisingly often will come into the meetings and say, you know what, 1.5 is gone. Let's be realistic about that, people are asking us to be honest about the state of the situation. We're not going to keep the warming to that. So let's accept reality. And rather than pretending that we can still do this, let's instead try to craft a deal to say, let's keep it within two degrees, which is still, you know, according to this telling, kind of feasible to do. Now, this is obviously a very difficult and thorny point, the science tells us the impact of 2 degrees are way worse than the impacts of 1.5.

Tom: [00:04:29] But it is also true that there is this slow march that is happening, as we don't do what is required of us in this decade, and the line keeps trending upwards. And the reason we're talking about this now is because that evidence base got a big boost in recent weeks, when the Copernicus report on climate change came out. Copernicus is a big climate science service that is funded by the European Union to help the EU deal with climate. And it came out a couple of weeks ago with a report that said that we went over 1.5 for most of the months last year, and that we are now in a situation. January was also the warmest month on record, so we're facing a situation where this 1.5 degrees is just kind of becoming a reality, and I'm seeing that creep into discourse. So we're going to get our arms around that this week and say, what do we really think about that? What are the consequences? And Michael Mann is going to tell us the science. But with that as a setup, I would like to invite both of you to come in and just provide your reflections, with what I've shared about, some of these important issues that are shaping our world.

Christiana: [00:05:33] Paul, you jump in. 

Paul: [00:05:35] Okay, well, I mean, we touched upon this a little bit just before we started recording. I do get it that, you know, we should be setting a target and we should be achieving it. And that's kind of the point of the 1.5 being written in or under 2 or. But for me, ultimately we're just trying to minimize the damage that's being done to the Earth system. And minimizing the damage is about reducing the greenhouse gas emissions. And so, you know, if our house was burning down and, you know, a third of it was going to burn down, or a half was going to burn down if the fire people were talking, is it going to be half the house or is it going to be a third of the house that's going to burn down. And they were having such a long conversation that they weren't pointing the hoses at the flame. I think that would be the wrong approach. All challenges on climate change relate to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, that we should focus on that and we should have a target and we should measure ourselves against that target. But the idea of saying, well, we should surrender one and adopt another, I personally can't see how that helps you reframe what you're trying to do. We're just trying to reduce emissions as quickly as possible to minimize the danger.

Tom: [00:06:49] Can I just come in there before Christiana comes in, just as a quick point. So I take your point certainly that many of the actions don't change. But like for example, there's now this new mandate under the UN for all countries to come back in two years time in Brazil with nationally determined commitments that are in line with 1.5. Now, that is a requirement on 198 countries. If that target slipped to two degrees, they would put different targets in place. So I agree with you on one level that it's just about many of the actions would still be the same, but the scale of ambition actually is quite significantly determined by the outcome that we're trying to drive towards and how specific that is. So it does make an impact in policy making, in strategy and other things, yeah. 

Paul: [00:07:30] Good point, good point. Let's see how Christiana threads that needle because I can't.

Christiana: [00:07:33] Well I'm not sure that I can either, but, we will listen to a very important conversation that we had with, Michael Mann about this, very renowned scientist, climatologist. But let me just put a couple of things out. First, let us be very clear that there is no scientific evidence that 1.5 as a ceiling temperature has been breached permanently, period, right. That it has been breached. And then period, new paragraph. No. And that's the problem you know, when you only read half the sentence in any report, what the Copernicus report says quite clearly, is that almost every single month last year was a record breaking month. And what is new, and we knew that, right. We knew that throughout the whole year. What is new about the Copernicus report is that they take the whole 12 years, 12 months, sorry, they take the whole 12 months. And they say, look, the average temperature increase across those 12 months was above 1.5 for that year, for the year 2023. And so let's understand that A, it is an annual breach. It is a year breach, it is not a permanent. And also that it wasn't an El Nino year. That didn't help matters. Now, the report also says El Nino didn't affect it that much. It is the underlying heating is what is most responsible. So the concerning part about this is that we used to breach 1.5 in a month, you know, once in a while, a month or a week or whatever.

Christiana: [00:09:25] And now it's a year's breach. So it is definitely concerning. And we should not underestimate that and not, you know, make light of it because it is the first time that the yearly average is above 1.5. And at the same time, Paul, I totally agree with you. Yes, it was a year in which we breached that. It is not permanent and above all, what do we want it to be. That's the question. If we give up and we say, okay, 1.5, you know, is gone, therefore we're not going to make any effort, then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And we've talked about this ad nauseam on this podcast, because the moment that we give up, we lose anchor and we're off, you know, into the storm. And then who says that we will stop at two degrees or 2.5 or 3 if we lose the anchor. The virtue of the 1.5 as an anchor, as a political anchor is fundamental, because we have to continuously correct course to that anchor, to that maximum temperature rise. If we correct course to a reference point that keeps on moving, then we're really in big trouble. So there is no guarantee that we will be able to keep as a permanent fixture, that we will be able to keep our warming, to a maximum of 1.5. There's certainly no guarantee. But what we can guarantee is that if we give it up right now, we will definitely lose it.

Tom: [00:11:12] Yeah.

Paul: [00:11:13] Yeah.

Christiana: [00:11:13] And so the choice that we have to make is are we willing to continue to keep it as our North Star, as our reference point. Does it get every time more difficult. Yes, absolutely.

Paul: [00:11:29] Just a tiny point, Christiana, I heard, I was listening to a book about climate policy and somebody was saying that, President Kennedy didn't say we're going to get humans 98.5% of the way to the moon. You know, you have to have the power of a specified goal.

Tom: [00:11:47] Yeah. And I think that what's interesting about what you're saying, Christiana, I think that while you have your goals set by science, so 1.5 degrees is the level at which we can have a reasonable degree of assumption, we're not going to trigger these alarming feedback loops that are going to really destroy so much of the natural environment and humans, well-being. Once you don't have that as your North Star, but instead you shift into the world of saying, we're going to set the target based on what we feel is achievable, then you're entering a much more movable world where everybody and I mean, you know better than anyone in the world how difficult it is to negotiate those things. So it's that part of it, that we just cannot let go of the idea that science should guide the decision making around where we need to go.

Christiana: [00:12:35] Absolutely. I mean, that's exactly the point. The Paris Agreement is science based. And honestly, all our actions should be science based. That is, as I say, the anchor. I used, I don't do it anymore, but I used to sail, and I can't tell you the terrifying feeling that it is to wake up in the morning and all of a sudden, you know, the currents have dragged the anchor, you are adrift and you have no idea where you're going. It is a terrifying feeling, we have to keep. 

Tom: [00:13:04] Remind me not to go sailing with you, that does sound frightening.

Christiana: [00:13:06] No, definitely not. It is, we have to, in fact, dig the anchor in every time more. So, contrary to some people who say, okay, let's give up. And, you know, let's just accept this. For me, every time that we have a breach, whether it is a week, a month, a year now, which is horribly painful, it is even more of a reason to stick that anchor even deeper in, because we cannot lose it as our reference point.

Tom: [00:13:41] So, what would you both say then, I mean, the conversation, there is a real debate going on about this that might be visible to some listeners and might not be to others, and it's happening slightly behind the scenes where many of these things come from, where people who might give away money or run powerful NGOs, or maybe they're senior in governments, are sort of getting together in rooms and saying, you know, we think 1.5 might be gone and we need a strategy for what we then go to. And they're beginning to, like, lay the ground for those conversations around, what do we shift to at that point. And not everybody and it's not nefarious, right. These people are doing this because they're trying to find a way through to get the same outcomes that we want right. But they're looking at it from a slightly different perspective. I'd love to hear maybe Christiana, starting with you, what would you say to people who are sort of beginning to be drawn into that narrative?

Christiana: [00:14:30] You know, Tom, I wonder if we can pull in the concept of an insurance here. We all buy insurance, you know, against disasters for, I don't know for our house burning down or health insurance or you know whatever the threat is. That doesn't mean, and so we want to have a fallback. And I think if some people are preparing a fallback, that's actually pretty healthy. Thank you very much. But it can't be the outcome toward which we are cruising. That's my point. It is a fallback. So we have an insurance as a fallback. That's prudent because the consequences of what we're dealing with are pretty humongous. So we have a fallback. That doesn't mean that if you buy fire insurance for your home, that you then focus all your actions on putting a fire on or starting a fire in your home. You put all of your actions on preventing a fire in your home, and you put everything that the law demands, plus everything else, to prevent the fire in the home. And you still buy fire insurance. The thing is that we should not be so simplistic to think that these two things are mutually exclusive. We buy the insurance, i.e. we prepare in case, but we also do everything, absolutely everything within our, capability to avoid the threat.

Tom: [00:16:07] PD.

Paul: [00:16:08] Yeah, I mean, it's the phrase that comes to my mind is appeasement, that we can't really just accept, slicing off, these targets. You got to remember that in a certain sense, if we went to a kind of war economy situation tomorrow, and if we, did some kind of geoengineering intervention, we could get it below one degrees in ten years, frankly. I mean, it would be very weird, but it's possible. So we have to recognize there's sort of agency here. And I think the danger is this notion of appeasement. You know, let's just say, I'm going to say something stupid, let's say it went up to three degrees, god forbid, at some future date. 1.5 would still be our target to get back to. So it doesn't really ever change 1.5, it's an anchor. That's the point.

Tom: [00:17:05] So, you mentioned something there which I'd like to get, I know we need to go to the conversation with Michael Mann, who actually, you two did this conversation because I was on the train and I listened in and it was brilliant. And he addresses many of these different issues in an incredibly, clear way. So that will be very helpful, I think. But just before we do, you just mentioned geoengineering, Paul. And actually, you know, the Copernicus report is terrifying. It points out that we're, you know, whether or not we're quite there yet. The trajectory is clear of where we're going. And we should all obviously be appropriately alarmed about what's in there, the other hedge against failure or the other insurance policy, to use your words, Christiana, is to begin now to scaffold the governance, the technical work, the thinking that might be necessary for geoengineering interventions. And of course, there's very different types of geoengineering from the reversible to the irreversible. And again this is something that splits opinion. There are prominent people, including former guests on this podcast who are vehemently opposed to this. And there are others who say, well, you know, this is a sort of practical step. We need to be taking this just in case. Anyone want to wade into that?

Christiana: [00:18:15] Paul's head disappeared into his hands.

Tom: [00:18:19] Into his hands, he had his head in his hands. I don't know if it's because he was listening carefully.

Christiana: [00:18:21] Why was that Paul?

Paul: [00:18:23] Look, I was discussing, with a large language model the other day, geoengineering. And they said it's like a sort of crazy uncle who says you might want to try deep frying the cranberry juice, you know, the cranberry jelly at Thanksgiving. You know, it's sort of weird.

Tom: [00:18:42] Is that was AI said?

Paul: [00:18:43] Yeah.

Tom: [00:18:44] Amazing, really.

Paul: [00:18:45] The point being, it's a sort of radical thing that you could do. And, you know, it might be fun and it might be a disaster. It's got a sort of strange appeal. But fundamentally, it may well be that humans, you know, our descendants maybe in our lifetimes that there's some sense that some tipping point has occurred that's so dramatic, some kind of geoengineering intervention needs to be made. But that is not now. And so once again, bit like losing your 1.5 degree anchor. It's another reason to deflect yourself from the fundamental task, which is reducing greenhouse gas emissions now, which is really, actually incredibly easy to do. Let's remember, there was a greater investment in renewable energy last year than there was in fossil fuels. We've kind of reached the most important tipping point. We should just pile ahead with that. And I think geoengineering is something that we unfortunately will have to consider. But, practical steps to implement anything right now would be insane because there's so much mitigation to do.

Christiana: [00:19:50] Here's what I've been thinking about that because it's something that has been on my mind, obviously. Honestly, I used to be flat out against geoengineering because I thought if we go there, we really drop the anchor again, you know, lose the anchor. And and it just makes me incredibly, nervous to do that. Here's my more updated version of it. If we can put in more research and more funding into geoengineering, assuming that it is one of the insurance measures that we can take against runaway climate change, then I think that we should make some space for it. The part that continues to be very concerning to me is what if the consequences of geoengineering are even more devastating than heating itself? Because that's the piece that is very scary to me about geoengineering, that we don't know what the consequences are. And so to have an insurance policy that, the purpose of the insurance policy is to mitigate risk, to bring the risk down. We're not there yet with geoengineering for me, and I'm very happy to, you know, entertain a different conversation. But my sense is that geoengineering is not yet to the point where it actually helps us bring the risk down. It actually is another type of risk. The magnitude of we have no idea. And so to apply something like that, that could have the potential of even more damage to humanity and to our natural environment, than the problem we're trying to solve or mitigate against or insure against. That's the piece that is very, very difficult for me.

Paul: [00:21:52] And Christiana, if I can just follow that up saying, you know, medically it's like a blood transfusion or something, you could buy you a bit more life, but it's not going to solve the problem. And it has its own risks. And I mean, if we're talking just about, you know, different plans to reduce energy from the sun, if that's sulphate particles in the atmosphere or if it's mirrors in space or whatever it is. Actually, neither of those will do anything to, reduce the acidification of the oceans, which is, you know, stopping the plankton forming their shells. And so, you know, the geoengineering solutions are not long term. They are short term buy you some time, but actually long term, you know, the two things you have to do are reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we know, and bring back nature and the ability of nature to sequestrate. That's the only safe journey out with geoengineering as a decade or two time buyer to avoid a tipping point, in my view.

Christiana: [00:22:46] Well, maybe Paul, maybe right. Maybe geoengineering is actually has negative long term consequences, which we don't know.

Paul: [00:22:56] Yes, yeah. No I agree, I agree.

Christiana: [00:22:57] Sarah, by the way, our wonderful Sarah is putting here in our little notes, thank you Sarah. She's reminding us, Tom and Paul, that we did discuss this issue with Elizabeth Kolbert, when we interviewed her about her book ‘Under A White Sky’. And she talked about this, about the danger of the unknown consequences of geoengineering.

Tom: [00:23:22] Yeah, a beautifully named book right.

Paul: [00:23:24] It's kind of in the title of the book, like the sky stops being blue. I don't want that to happen, not really.

Tom: [00:23:31] Well, it is, I mean, that's the amazing thing about Elizabeth Kolbert. It's a terrifying concept, but it's actually a beautiful name in a way that she's able to sort of bring it out. I mean I think that.

Christiana: [00:23:38] I don't know if beautiful, but very eloquent, very eloquent.

Tom: [00:23:40] Very eloquent. Evocative, evocative. 

Paul: [00:23:43] I wouldn't say beautiful, look at that lovely blue sky. And Tom's like, oh no, not really. I wish it was white.

Tom: [00:23:48] I think it's really interesting to talk about this. I mean, it reminds me of, I mean, I remember and you guys will both remember this too, you know, a while ago there were lots of people saying we shouldn't talk about adaptation. That was giving up. We should only talk about mitigation. If we talk about that, we can adapt to it. Then we'll give up on mitigation. And now there's more of a nuanced picture of like, well, we should mitigate, but we're going to have to adapt as well. And I rather suspect that will be the nature of the conversation on geoengineering. I realize I've taken us a bit off-piste from where we started, but I think it's quite connected. And I think that this is going to be an increasingly important topic. I mean, for what it's worth, from my point of view, I completely agree with all the risks you highlighted Christiana and the time bound nature of it Paul. However, I kind of feel like, you know, a bit like in Kim Stanley Robinson's book, The Ministry for the Future. This is likely to happen by somebody at some point. And building the institutional governance framework, the technical capability, the ability to understand the potential adverse consequences from doing this might make doing it a bit more likely. I think that is a risk. But I think not doing that work because we're afraid of making it more likely that we'll actually do it, and thereby storing up this big uncertainty down the road massively increases the risk that comes later. So I realize that's a slightly nuanced point, but I feel.

Paul: [00:25:07] You and your nuance, honestly, it was like, when I was saying to, what was it, Kingsmill Bond, I was like, you're not being realistic Kingsmill. You're not being real. You're not being nuanced. Okay, we should actually talk to a real expert.

Tom: [00:25:18] So Dr. Michael Mann, previous guest on this podcast, one of the world's best known climate scientists, been doing this for a long time. He's Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. But much more than that, he is just a huge, voice and intellect and personality in the world of climate. He has been pushing for meaningful action for decades. His books include Dire Predictions, The Hockey Stick and The Climate Wars, The New Climate War. He is a brilliant person, friend of the podcast, and we were delighted that he agreed to come back and had a conversation with the two of you, Paul and Christiana, just yesterday that I listened into. So let's go to the conversation with Michael.

Christiana: [00:26:04] Michael, thank you so much for jumping here online, with us at such short notice. And welcome back to the podcast. We had you several years ago, and, we're thrilled that you have agreed to come back and chat with us about several really important things right now. And could we start, Michael, with the Copernicus report? Because it has made a lot of waves, not because it has confirmed that last year was the warmest calendar year, ever. And so it would be really great to understand from you, Michael, what does it mean to breach the 1.5 degree for a year? And what are scientists looking for in terms of a more I don't even know what to call it, more permanent breach. Longer lasting breach, perhaps is what I mean.

Michael Mann: [00:27:04] Yeah thanks, Christiana. It's great to be with you. Great to be with you, Paul. And happy to, sort of tackle that question. So, I mean, it is an important milestone of the bad kind, you know, each new threshold that we breach, you know, represents an ever upward, you know, ratcheting up of, the climate crisis. And so it is important in that sense, but it's also important, as you allude to, to provide some perspective here. What we're really concerned about when we talk about policies, for example, global policies aimed at keeping warming below that critical 1.5°C level. What we're talking about is the trend line. When does the trend line cross 1.5°C. Because that's basically, you know, that establishes when we've at least semi-permanently crossed that threshold. And many of the impacts that we talk about of 1.5°C warming really refer to the trend line crossing 1.5°C. So, you know, this year the trend line hasn't crossed that number. The trend line, you know, if we continue with business as usual, you know, if we continue with current carbon emissions, then the warming will more or less continue at the current rate, and we will cross that threshold sometime early to mid next decade, you know, mid 2030s. What happened this year is that, we had a major El Nino event and that adds to the trend line. So you can think of it, we're riding this ramp and then you get this extra boost, above where that ramp is because of the warming effect of El Nino and a big El Nino event like this one can warm the planet a few tenths of a degree celsius, a couple tenths to a few tenths of a degree. So that was enough. If you take sort of where we are with the trend line, maybe about 1.2, you add on the warming effect of a big El Nino, about 0.3. Well, you get 1.5. So that boosted us above that level for the year. But again, some perspective is useful here. If we're talking about breaching 1.5°C, we had done that, you know, years ago. If we're talking about, an individual day or an individual week or an individual month, we've already crossed that threshold, now we're talking about an individual year, so there's this progression, the real problem is if we're talking about not a day, a week, a month, a year.

Michael Mann: [00:29:48] But a sort of multi year period. In other words, when the trend line crosses 1.5°C, the policies aimed at limiting warming below that amount are really aimed at limiting warming, you know, keeping the trend line below 1.5°C. And that's still possible. But we've done the math and we will know it will take dramatic reduction in carbon emissions. We've heard the numbers before, but with each year of relative inaction, they become more stark. So now we have to decrease carbon emissions by about 50% in less than a decade and bring them down to zero by the middle of the century. It's doable. It's not, you know, the obstacle isn't the physics, isn't climate physics. It's not the technology. Right now, the obstacles are political. And so in principle, those obstacles can be overcome, but that's where we are. And it is important, right. Because it did, each time we pass a new threshold, it's a reminder that we're not making enough progress. And pretty soon, when that trend line crosses 1.5°C, we've missed a major milestone and we're committed to worse and worse impacts.

Christiana: [00:31:04] Michael, so let me just un, let me just understand again, or ask you to emphasize again, so that yearly breach that year breach over the space of 12 months has not impacted the reduction targets that we had from before. We are still needing the net zero by 2050, for sure, and 50% by the end of this decade. We'll still remain within that, let's say that envelope of reduction targets, is that correct?

Michael Mann: [00:31:39] Yeah, that's absolutely correct. You know, the El Nino event doesn't change that. The trend line is pretty much on track for where we've predicted it would be given our ongoing carbon emissions. And so the math is still the same here. We can prevent that trend line from crossing 1.5°C. But it's you know, that window of opportunity is narrowing with each year where emissions remain close to where they are.

Paul: [00:32:06] Okay. So that's a really good description of where we are. Thank you Michael. Super appreciate it. I've been digging into your wonderful books, not least your latest, Our Fragile Moment. And there's something in so much of what you say that I think is super important. And I want to just to kind of drill into for a second. It's this notion that on the one hand, you know, we've got a really serious situation. And on the other hand, if we flip to a kind of doomism, we can get kind of paralyzed or, or whatever. I mean, I confess I personally have been guilty of this. You know, I've sometimes drawn on the authority of kind of like, I know how bad this is and you don't, you know, and I've been kind of full of the sort of pride of my knowing how terrible it is. But you make a really brilliant point I think that we have to get this balance correct where we honour the seriousness of it, but we don't accidentally go into a kind of crazy paralysis. Can you talk a little bit about how to, how people, our listeners, can kind of optimize their response to this kind of pretty shocking information?

Michael Mann: [00:33:13] Yeah, you know, our good friend who sadly no longer with us, Steve Schneider, the great Steve Schneider, used to say, the truth is bad enough, right. We don't have to exaggerate, the case, the science to make the case for dramatic and concerted and immediate reductions in carbon emissions. We are already seeing dangerous climate consequences, the coastal inundation, the heat waves, the wildfires, the floods. It's here. Dangerous climate change is here. And the question is, how bad are we willing to let it get. And so the truth is bad enough, we don't have to exaggerate it. And by the way, when we do exaggerate it, there's the danger that we end up, sort of leading people down this path of disengagement. After all, if it's too late to do anything about the problem, then why bother. And you know, in some of my past writing, I've pointed out that there are some bad actors out there, polluters and those, you know, advocating for their agenda who have at times fanned the flames of doomism because they realize that if they can take climate activists who would otherwise be on the front lines and convince them it's too late and put them on the sidelines, well, then it's a win for them. And so we have to make sure, as I like to say, to communicate both the urgency and it's absolutely essential because this is urgent, the urgency and the agency, the fact that the science tells us it's not too late to prevent the worst consequences.

Christiana: [00:34:47] And the other thing that I think is related to that very important point, Michael, is the crying wolf syndrome, right. That by crying doom and gloom, way too often we yes, we sideline people who go into sort of mental freeze mode, completely overwhelmed pull the covers over their heads. There's nothing that we can do. But also we may, dis-authorize the voice of science. Because there could be an interpretation that science has called or not science, but that those that interpret the science or speak about it have cried wolf way too long and way too often.

Michael Mann: [00:35:40] Yeah, it's a great point. And, you know, the reality is they're going to do that anyway. They say that, you know, the bad actors out there who've been looking to discredit, you know, the case for climate action and environmental sustainability are always going to claim that we're exaggerating. They're always going to claim that we've cried wolf. But why make it easy for them. And, you know, so yeah, I mean, and I will quote another Steve Schneider ism, which is that, you know, we can be both truthful to the science and make a compelling case for action at the same time, it's possible to do both.

Christiana: [00:36:19] And we don't need to exaggerate because as you just said, it's bad enough. The truth is bad enough.

Michael Mann: [00:36:24] Exactly, truth is bad enough. You know, another thing Steve used to say is, when you look at all the possible sort of climate scenarios, the two least likely are no problem at all, and end of the world, it's not going to be either of those. It's going to be somewhere in between.

Christiana: [00:36:46] In between. Yeah, that's a really good way to put it. Very good way to put it.

Paul: [00:36:51] And you have also commented on like you don't see the science doesn't show very abrupt tipping points in the near future right. Because a lot of people will say we're at the tipping points now and we're just about to lose it. And you said this science doesn't really support that.

Michael Mann: [00:37:05] You know, it's we sort of have to have a nuanced conversation when it comes to tipping points, when it comes to global average temperature, we say that it behaves pretty linearly, which is to say it is a function. The temperature that we get is a function of the cumulative carbon emissions up to this point in time, and the science is pretty robust on that. Now, the consequences of the warming may not be so linear. They can be more abrupt. They can exhibit tipping points. One example is the the so-called ocean conveyor, the great ocean conveyor. And there's been some press about that. There was a study that came out about a week ago, emphasizing the possibility that that current system can collapse and it can do so abruptly, and the science tells us that you put enough fresh water into the North Atlantic by melting the Greenland ice sheet, for example. You freshen those waters, you can inhibit the sinking motion that drives that global ocean conveyor that helps deliver warm waters to parts of Europe and North America.

Paul: [00:38:09] Well, the UK, if I could just shout out to our UK listeners, we're on, you know, London's on the same, what is it latitude as kind of Halifax, Nova Scotia. We could be completely frozen, right.

Michael Mann: [00:38:17] Yeah. And you know, part of that is, is the North Atlantic drift, that ocean current, the conveyor part of it is just the westerly winds. You know, you're getting maritime influence because the the air's coming off the ocean and it's warmer than, say, on the east coast of the US, which is much more continental climate. So it's both the atmosphere and the ocean working together. And, you know, if your listeners have seen the movie The Day After Tomorrow, which is premised on the catastrophe, the movie is a caricature of what would actually happen, but there would be some negative consequences. It would probably have a hugely negative impact on, marine productivity and sort of, the fish populations in the North Atlantic, which we rely upon so much, for food, it would probably lead to an even greater, amount of sea level rise along the east coast of the US. And that has to do with oceanographic physics that I'm not going to go into. But if that ocean current system were to collapse, sea level would actually come up faster along the east coast of the US, so that's a potential tipping point that if you melt enough ice and you freshen those waters enough, it goes through an abrupt transition where you go from the state that we're in, where we have a very healthy sort of, conveyor belt current, it can collapse fairly abruptly. The ice sheets can exhibit tipping point behaviour, you know, when those ice shelves collapse, those ice shelves that are help supporting the, West Antarctic ice sheet as those ice shelves collapse, that destabilizes the ice sheet. And larger parts of that ice sheet can then calve into the ocean, and so there are tipping point elements in the climate system, and we don't know exactly where they lie. So we're sort of like the blindfolded person on a cliff walking towards the cliff. We don't know where it is, but we know the further we.

Paul: [00:40:13] The scientific doctor is warning us of risk and can't be certain, but that's a case for extreme prudence in our behaviour, right.

Michael Mann: [00:40:21] Exactly, you know, your listeners are the precautionary principle. There's only one planet we know of in the universe at this time that can support us. We're not going to find a planet B, so we've got to preserve the liveability of this planet, and the fact that there's uncertainty isn't our friend. It's a reason for even more concerted action, because of the very real possibility that the consequences could be worse than the models predict. And historically, that has been the case with extreme weather events, with ice sheet collapse and other impacts.

Christiana: [00:40:55] That has been the case. Michael, in addition to your recent book, we also celebrate the fact that you have finally, after 12 years, yay, been awarded by the win in a defamation lawsuit against you 12 years ago. That was a defamation suit that got horribly personalized, I would say, and hence, you know, the arc of justice moves slowly, but it moves, I would say. But here's my question, over the past 12 years, has the war on science changed in intensity, in character, in strategy? What have you been observing on the evolution of the war on science?

Michael Mann: [00:41:56] Yeah, thanks both for the comment and the question. And yeah, it's been 12 years in waiting until we did get our day in court and it was a defamation case brought by me, brought by us against two bloggers for the right wing Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Review Online, two writers for these two publications that had, made accusations of scientific fraud against me, had compared me to a convicted child molester.

Christiana: [00:42:31] Child molester? Jesus.

Michael Mann: [00:42:33] Yeah. Jerry Sandusky, you know, Penn State and the football coach. And they took advantage of that particular situation to try to, you know, to subject me to these, very horrible, defamatory comments. And, you know, it's one thing to criticize science and to criticize scientists, that's appropriate, that's okay, you know, there is freedom of speech, but freedom of speech has its limits. You can't, you know, falsely cry fire in a crowded theatre that's not protected speech. And, you know, making false and defamatory accusations against scientists is not, protected speech, because I'm a public figure, there's a very high standard to win such a case, you have to prove what's known as actual malice, which is to say, not only were their statements false, they knew that their statements were false or, that they.

Christiana: [00:43:30] Well, the comparison to the convicted child molester is what I found personally to be so completely unacceptable because it just personalized the whole, it's not like even they were doubting your science. They just personalized it in a completely horrific way.

Michael Mann: [00:43:46] That's right. Yeah, it was certainly, I think, seen as an aggravating factor, they had defamed me by making accusations of scientific fraud, which are very serious, but they had also sort of added fuel to the fire with that inflammatory comparison. And the jury, it was a very smart, well educated, young, diverse Washington DC jury. And they saw through the smoke and mirrors that the other side tried to put up during the trial. And I was really proud of them. You know, they saw through that and they made the right decision, they awarded us $1 million in punitive damages.

Christiana: [00:44:22] Yep.

Michael Mann: [00:44:23] And, you know, if I get that money, you know, I will, I'll probably, contribute it to some climate outreach organizations. We'll see if, whether or not the money ever arrives, it's not the point. We won. I feel this moral victory. And moreover, it wasn't just about me and sort of, defending my reputation. I think it's about something more. And you allude to this. In the 12 years since we filed this case, so much has changed. The attacks have metastasized, social media, the sort of, you know, the caustic environment that one now encounters on social media, in its layers of misogyny and racism and all sorts of other attributes that come into this toxic mix. Some of the worst attacks, my female colleagues are subject to some of the most horrible attacks on social media. And so our entire body politic now has sort of been poisoned by this bad faith, the same sort of bad faith that we were subject to more than, you know, 12 years ago, and so I think there was a poignancy, even though it took so long for this decision, for the decision to come now, at this time when scientists are under.

Christiana: [00:45:57] Yes, yes, ironically, ironically.

Michael Mann: [00:46:00] Yeah, it felt like actually this was the right time for this decision.

Christiana: [00:46:04] The right time.

Michael Mann: [00:46:05] Because scientists feel so under attack, not just climate scientists, but public health scientists who are trying to advise, you know, our policymakers and our population on the need to, you know, to vaccinate, to deal with the pandemic, the Covid-19.

Paul: [00:46:26] The disinformation is kind of out of control. I mean, a last question, you've been very generous with your time, Michael, but, I mean, I can't believe the Competitive Enterprise Institute were one of the, you know, they present themselves as a body of business with respectable corporations associated with Competitive Enterprise Institute. So thank you for your work correcting them. And this is really just my last question really is, you know, there continues to be this climate denial, the deflection that you've done a great job of kind of archiving and speaking about the use of bots and, you know, electronic devices to sort of, ruin the debate. It, you know, it's 2024 now, this kind of stuff used to happen in 2004 or something 20 years ago, and it kind of may have seemed like legitimate debate. Would you caution people right now involved in lobbying against government policy or action by governments that they're leaving a trail and that they may risk future liability because of the, frankly, incredibly irresponsible way that they're trying to steer us to ignore this problem?

Michael Mann: [00:47:32] Well, it's a great question. I mean, you know, we saw in the case of tobacco, the tobacco industry, that, you know, they were finally brought to justice. There was a massive lawsuit in the United States, RICO suit, they were basically found to have engaged in a racketeering, basically a conspiracy to hide the damaging impact of their product. And, you know, scale that up by at least an order of magnitude, because far more people are being damaged, far more lives will be lost because of the impacts of human caused climate change than were lost to tobacco products. And so you could argue, you could argue that an even greater crime to humanity, has been done by bad actors in the fossil fuel industry, than the bad actors in the tobacco industry, who now been brought to justice to some extent, and some people have viewed that litigation as a model for what we might see. The fossil fuel industry, ExxonMobil's own internal documents back in the early 1980s, their scientists correctly predicted the warming that we would see by now, given business as usual emissions, and use the word catastrophic to describe the consequences. Those aren't the words, Christiana's words or my words, or Al Gore's words, or the IPCC words. Those are the words of ExxonMobil's own scientists.

Christiana: [00:48:57] And therefore that's, why they put on such a fight, because the consequences of their actions are so amplified and exponentiated actually with compared to the consequences of smoking.

Michael Mann: [00:49:14] That's right. 

Christiana: [00:49:16] Michael, sorry, I actually don't want to let you go, but my ears are being pulled here. But I did want to just sneak one more question in which keeps me up at night, honestly. Which is, and I am not a scientist, so I would love to hear it from you, which is this appalling, frustrating gap between the science that keeps on getting more granular and more concerning, and the lack of action that is not keeping the pace of science, it seems to me that the gap between science and action keeps on increasing, whereas it should get shorter and shorter or closer and closer. And so I just would love to hear from you, is that frustrating to scientists? Is it, you know, how do you react? What is your visceral reaction to that reality?

Michael Mann: [00:50:18] Yeah, thanks for that question. I think we all feel that frustration. All of us who are, you know, connected to this issue, who are passionate and have been fighting for action for years. And there is this growing disconnect, you know, after COP26, the 26th Conference of the Parties, the International Climate Conference two years ago, there was some significant progress. We saw, you know, when it comes to emissions reductions, the countries of the world had committed to emissions reductions that had the potential to keep warming below 3°C. Now, that's still way too much warming, but it's much less than where we were headed towards more than four or even almost 5°C, you know, prior, for example, to the Paris Agreement. So there was some real progress there. There was a feeling that we were making policy progress, that there was, you know, that there was some good faith on the part of the leading polluters, the United States, China was coming to the table, the EU. Over the last two years, we haven't seen nearly as much progress. COP27 a year later, there really wasn't any ratcheting up of the reductions.

Michael Mann: [00:51:35] And again, the commitments made at COP26 don't come anywhere close to keeping warming below 1.5°C. They keep warming, you know, possibly below 2°C if all of the commitments were kept and kept on time. And we've already missed sort of the deadlines on some of those. COP27, there was no further ratcheting up of the commitments. There was an agreement on loss and damage, which was important, potentially bring, you know, the developing countries into the world. Those who are being most impacted deserve, you know, some resources from the industrial countries that created this problem in the first place to help them cope with the impacts that they're already dealing with and to help them sort of leapfrog past the stage of fossil fuel economic development. So there was a little bit of progress. COP28, you know, in my view, there was a little bit of lip service that, you know, there's some language that, you know, I forget the exact language, that there's a commitment to.

Paul: [00:52:42] Move away I think.

Christiana: [00:52:43] Away, yeah. Move away from fossil, transition away from.

Michael Mann: [00:52:47] Transition away. And I think I made a joke, you know, at the time, it's like, you know, your doctor telling you that you've got high blood pressure and you're in danger of, you know, a heart attack. And it's like, oh, don't worry, doctor, I will transition away from fad and junk food. Trust me. I mean, it's. 

Paul: [00:53:06] And cigarettes. 

Michael Mann: [00:53:07] And cigarettes, you know, I will transition away from cigarettes. Without a time frame, without any actionable targets it doesn't really mean very much. And so I was critical. I was supportive of the developments of COP26. I was a little disappointed with COP27 and deeply disappointed with COP28. And I think there's some soul searching to be done has, you know, have we lost our way. Has the, the UN process, has it become compromised by Petro states, you know, the last two meetings have been held in fossil fuel states. And so there's a sense of greenwash. It's like they're getting some credibility from holding the meeting. But at the same time, you know, Saudi Arabia and other fossil fuel states did everything they could to scuttle any meaningful progress for emissions reductions at each of these, COP27, COP28. So I think there needs to be some real soul searching here. I feel like the COP process has lost its way, and the people need to sort of re seize control of that process, and, you know, there are a few things we could do, for example, changing the rules so that one bad actor country can't block the entire agreement, maybe requiring some like a two thirds, majority of contributing countries to ratify a resolution. There's some other changes that could be made that would prevent a few bad apples, frankly, from scuttling, you know, any meaningful agreement.

Christiana: [00:54:50] Michael, sadly, we have to come to a close, and our traditional close is to ask our guests, one reason for outrage, of which there are many and one reason for optimism. And it just strikes me that your book actually, follows very much that logic of the outrage and the optimism.

Michael Mann: [00:55:15] Yeah.

Christiana: [00:55:15] But, just wondered if you had to which we're inviting you to, to put it into a few sentences at this point, at the beginning of 2024, what is it that makes you most outraged and what keeps your glow of hope alive?

Michael Mann: [00:55:34] Yeah. Thanks for that question, you know, I'll be succinct. The outrage is that we could have acted decades ago, and it would have been much easier to avoid catastrophic warming. But the fossil fuel industry did everything they could full, you know, they had full knowledge of the scale of the threat, their own scientists had told them. And they chose instead, as you alluded to, to hide their own internal, you know, deliberations and reports and double down in a campaign, a massive disinformation campaign to attack the science and the scientists who are coming to the very same conclusion as their own scientists had secretly come to. That's the outrage. The optimism is the fact that despite their bad actions and despite that setback and decades of lost opportunity, literally, it's still not too late, we still hold the future in our hands. And young people in particular, give me optimism because I really feel like this. The youngest generation, they get it. They understand the dimensions of this threat, they recognize, and they see through the bad actors and the bad actions. And I think that they're ready to hold their policy makers accountable. And I think we will see that in this next American election. And it's essential because without American leadership on this issue, we will not achieve the action that's necessary. So it really comes down to young folks here in the United States turning out in this next election and voting for policy makers who will do what's right by us, rather than simply act as apologists for special interests.

Christiana: [00:57:24] Oh boy Michael, from your lips to God's ears, may that be the case. May that be the case. 

Michael Mann: [00:57:30] Let's hope.

Christiana: [00:57:30] Let's hope.

Paul: [00:57:31] I hope they are listening up there.

Christiana: [00:57:32] Michael, thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it. It's always lovely to have you, and to our listeners again, Michael's recent book, highly, highly recommended. And we will have it on the show notes. And we will also be commenting on it, Michael, in our, post recording conversation. Thank you so, so much. We really appreciate your time, your wisdom and your, always hard work.

Michael Mann: [00:58:07] It's always delightful, talking with you. So thanks so much. I look forward to talking again.

Christiana: [00:58:12] Thank you Michael.

Paul: [00:58:13] Thank you, bye bye.

Michael Mann: [00:58:14] Bye bye.

Tom: [00:58:21] I mean, Michael Mann is just such a brilliant, scientist and communicator. What did you both come away from that discussion with?

Paul: [00:58:29] Well, I feel that he is an absolute expert in striking the very narrow line between, panic, freeze and kind of, any kind of unwarranted optimism. I think he nails the situation is sort of serious. He has to me once again, I kind of come from a medical family. He has to me the bedside manner of the serious doctor who was telling you that you have to fundamentally change the way you're living and what you're consuming. And there's no time to waste. But you shouldn't despair either. It's a time for absolute clarity and focus, and you can get through this. You know the 1.5°C Copernicus x-ray test results are terrifying, but we're being advised here by an expert how to conduct ourselves to get to where we need to go because we can't fail. I heard that.

Christiana: [00:59:41] Yeah, I agree with that, Paul, it's such a difficult balance, right. Not to fall into irresponsible, whatever la la land or to go to the other extreme of, just assuming a world that comes to an end and, so how to and those are the two extremes and how to walk that very fine line with, based on science right, based on science is absolutely magnificent the way he does that. Because you can say, okay, well out of my, you could, say that most people try to walk that line or those of us who and I would put myself into that box, try to walk that fine line, but out of a sense of conviction of what I think is right, the difference between his way of doing it to the way I do it is that he doesn't put any morality into this. He doesn't say this is the right thing to do. He is very strict in standing in the science with the data and then arguing that that middle ground is entirely possible, which is a different take. You come out of the same balance, but you start from a different place. And I just think he does that so brilliantly.

Tom: [01:01:17] Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, I came away from that feeling like, which is what you hope to come away from, these conversations feeling like this is a tricky place, but we've got to double down and fight for what we know is still feasible. And actually, that's amazing that he's able to to draw that out of people, as situations become so dire because he's not shying away from the reality. I mean, he knows better than most just how dire this situation is, but such a privilege to have him back on. Right, anyone else? 

Paul: [01:01:49] Yeah, I mean, just, well, I just would say that there are some incredibly positive things as well to throw into this. You know, the Copernicus report is there as a caution. But I'm getting incredibly excited by the transition plans that are coming out of investors and corporations now, you know, we're seeing a sort of fundamental change in the attitude of major organizations towards this. I've seen some great research recently that came from a mutual friend of ours, which is talking about how, we in the climate change movement could be much better organized when we look at the people on the kind of fossil fuel negative side, how we can adopt some of their tricks. And to be honest with you, I'm also somewhat inspired by revolutions and computing, where we've now got kind of, digital resources that can think really holistically and in big ways to help us plan how we can respond to this. So just as we get scary news, we also have to remember the good things that are happening, the way we're evolving as a society in response to this challenge. So a balanced way I'd like to end on this scary but necessary bit of information that I hope will help us, to use that cliché, redouble our efforts, and increase our effectiveness.

Tom: [01:03:10] I'm afraid I'm going to ruin your balanced response just for a moment. And I really apologize for that because I love what you said, but we have to come back to this soon because I was just reading a report just before we came on from David Gelles from The New York Times saying more Wall Street firms are now flip flopping on climate. Last few days, JP Morgan, State Street, PIMCO all pulled out of Climate Action 100. There's bad stuff happening in the financial services. Okay.

Paul: [01:03:32] Oh don't get me wrong, that is the fossil fuel industry that is owning more and more, legislators in the United States, this big wounded animal is flexing its legislative muscle, and it's learned that an attorney general or somebody who's on a committee somewhere can scare the bejesus out of a gigantic Wall Street bank who says, oh, well, you know, I don't have to do anything on climate change. That is a longer conversation for another day, but it is indeed terrifying.

Tom: [01:04:00] Okay. Thank you both. Lovely to talk to you as ever. We'll see you next week. And we're leaving you with some music from Luke Wallace, Comeback. Bye.

Paul: [01:04:09] Great to see you, bye.

Christiana: [01:04:10] Bye guys.

Luke Wallace: [01:04:13] Hello, I'm Luke Wallace, I'm a folk singer and touring musician from the Coast Salish Territories called Vancouver, Canada. You're about to hear my song Comeback, and as a songwriter, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to write songs that capture this hopeful but concerned energy around the environment and the state of ecology on Earth, as well as, you know, social unrest. And, you know, I'm obsessed with trying to find a hopeful message and an optimistic one in a in a sea of a lot of despair and legitimate concern. And this song Comeback is tapping into a global phenomenon, which is the sport's comeback. And we all have some understanding of that. And I thought it would be cool to write a song that ties in that notion of a Comeback. And I think we're well positioned right now as a society to, nourish in a little bit of a comeback around ecology and our relationship with the environment. So here you go.

Clay: [01:09:13] So there you go. Another episode of Outrage + Optimism. Clay here. This week Luke Wallace on the podcast as our musical guest. Beautiful song. And I really loved this recording. You can listen to more of Luke's music by checking the show notes and going to lukewallacemusic.com. I want to point out to our audience that Luke is also an environmental educator and speaker. He uses his songs and stories to communicate and inspire hope, something we highly respect and revere on this podcast. And a lot of our audience is involved in education and events surrounding climate and environmental advocacy, and it's such a privilege to have on artists who are not only multidisciplinary, but also weave their talents into bringing conversation about nature and climate to places that so desperately need it. Go check him out, lukewallacmusic.com. Thank you Luke. Okay, back in the saddle this week after Christiana's mini series Our Story of Nature, I had an absolute jam placing and making some music for that series. It didn't get mentioned in the episode enough that we are loving your response to the series. We call these episodes deep dives within our team, but these style episodes are very popular with all of you, and so if you have not listened, the door to the party is still open. So come on in. You can go stream those episodes. They're available wherever you get your podcasts. Again, our Story of Nature is the title of the series. Shout out to Mundo Comun, Christiana, Isa, our producers Jenny and Shannon and Sarah. These episodes are an expression of our truest selves, our community, our work. Thank you for listening. Okay, where was I. Oh, Michael Mann returning to the pod. Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis’ is his latest book. Link to get yourself a copy is in the show notes. MichaelMann.net. Go check it out. Okay, short credits this week. That is all from me. I'm grateful to be back into weekly format episodes. Good to have the gang back together. Thank you all for joining us, for listening, for tuning in. We'll see you next week.