This is DANGEROUSLY misguided and unhelpful take from @BillGates (gatesnotes.com/Energy/Leaders…). It promotes classic #NewClimateWar (publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/michael…) climate inactivism tropes. Among these are: 🧵
1. The climate problem is “too complex” to solve w/ existing technology. That’s false. Research Gates inexplicably neglects shows we can get there w/ existing renewable energy. See my @Newsweek commentary, “The Right Path Forward on Climate Change” newsweek.com/right-path-for…
2. The insistence that “today’s zero-carbon technologies are more expensive than their fossil-fuel counterparts”.
That’s false. See this report from Lazard (and associated graphic): lazard.com/media/451086/l…
3. That we need new “affordable” technology to decarbonize our economy. See above! Gates says he doesn’t know the solution to climate “politics”. And it shows. Because the solution IS politics: subsidies for renewables, carbon pricing, etc. Just need the political will to do it.
4. Gates indefensibly dour take on renewable energy leads him to propose dangerous “geoengineering” solutions instead. Read my @Guardian commentary w/ @ClimateBook "Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy it": theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

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More from @MichaelEMann

11 Mar
In his posthumously published (1997) book "Billions & Billion", the late great Carl Sagan provides an interesting discussion of "rules of the game", e.g. different codes of behavior/policy, such as the "Golden Rule", the "Silver Rule", the "Iron Rule", etc. 🧵
Sagan discusses the "science" (game theory) & human experiments that have been done to assess the effectiveness of competing strategies. The conclusion is that the so-called "tit-for-tat" rule out-performs the others, i.e. leads to greatest likelihood of a positive outcome.
This strategy can be summarized as "initial friendliness, willingness to forgive, and fearless retaliation". If you like, it amounts to using both "carrot" and "stick".
Read 7 tweets
25 Feb
"Scientists see stronger evidence of slowing Atlantic Ocean circulation - Atlantic meridional overturning circulation [weakest in] 1,000 years" by @afreedma & @ChrisCMooney in @WashingtonPost, on new @NatureGeosci article by @rahmstorf & co (thread)
washingtonpost.com/climate-enviro…
We (@Rahmstorf et al) reached that conclusion in a 2015 @NatureClimate study (nature.com/articles/nclim…). It featured a reconstruction over the past 1000 years of the sub-polar "cold blob" (below) that is indicative of an AMOC slowdown.
The "cold blob" reconstruction was, in turn, based on our reconstruction of global temperature patterns over the past 1000 years in @ScienceMagazine (2009: science.sciencemag.org/content/326/59…). More discussion here: realclimate.org/index.php/arch…
Read 7 tweets
19 Feb
There's a lot of "friendly fire" in the #NewClimateWar (publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/michael…). Despite having some of the best climate journalists on staff, @NYTimes editorial decisions have often played into the tactics of climate inactivists (presumably unwittingly). Some examples (thread):
The @NYTimes engaging in "deflection" (i.e. it's all about individual lifestyle change rather than systemic change)
The @NYTimes providing editorial page space for a low blow attack on youth climate advocate @GretaThunberg
Read 7 tweets
7 Nov 20
Congratulations #PresidentBiden!
Now let's get to work.
We must reassert the climate leadership that was lost under Trump.
A lot of us stand ready to help!
Here's my full statement below.
Let's hit the ground running in January! 🙂
#NewClimateWar
facebook.com/MichaelMannSci…
Congratulations to President Elect @JoeBiden!
And congratulations to US for having used the power of our vote to create an opportunity for meaningful progress on climate going forward (thread)
Biden's victory ushers in a new era of global cooperation, allowing us to begin to repair the damage that was done by Donald Trump over the past four years both to domestic climate efforts and to our reputation on the world stage.
Read 12 tweets
19 Aug 20
Short thread on what it was like to be a climate scientist a decade ago for some, courtesy of excerpts from "The Hockey Climate Wars" (amazon.com/Hockey-Stick-C…)
1. Being targeted for assault by national white supremacist groups for being part of a purported Jewish climate cabal.
2. Actionable death threats against you and your family. FBI testing your office for anthrax after receipt of a powder-containing envelope.
3. Investigations by Congressional Republican Committee Chairs aimed at intimidating you and discrediting you and your research.
Read 11 tweets
11 Nov 19
One of the most enduring climate change denial talking points is that there is no trend in hurricane-related damages.

This claim is based almost entirely on the claims of one researcher, Roger Pielke Jr. See e.g. @SkepticScience: skepticalscience.com/climate-change…
(thread)
@skepticscience As I have noted several times before (See: ), Pielke’s claims are based on (1) a dubious normalization procedure that divides damages by global domestic product (GDP), a quantity that increases dramatically over time and...
@skepticscience (2) use of a simple least squares trend which is problematic for data such as these with a skew distribution. These choices suppress damage trends
Read 8 tweets

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