There was a time when climate change denial was one of the biggest threats to our planet, but now we've traded denial for feeling doomed, says renowned climate scientist Professor Michael Mann.
He argues that for real action to occur we must put despair to one side.
His new book Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis, sets out his arguments that we have agency in the climate crisis if we make the right choices.
We are presently at a precipice; Mann tells Jesse Mulligan.
“We developed this global civilisation; we have 8 billion plus people on the planet, based on the development of infrastructure that was built for a climate that was very stable for 1000s of years.
Photo: RNZ / Rayssa Almeida
“But we are now leaving that envelope of stability, rapidly warming the planet through our continued burning of fossil fuels and the increase in carbon pollution.
“And that's what makes it such a fragile moment, because we will very soon leave that window, or envelope of adaptive capacity that we have us as a civilisation.”
Previous changes in the climate have happened much more slowly than what we see now, he says.
“Climate change and natural climate change helped create this moment that we're in, gave rise to our species in the first place.
“But those changes happened 1000s of times more slowly than the changes that we are creating today. And that's the real issue, it isn't how warm the planet is, or what levels of carbon dioxide can exist in the atmosphere, it's how quickly we are increasing those levels and warming the planet.
“There's no precedent for the rate at which we are being now asked to adapt.”
When an asteroid that struck the planet 66 million years ago killing off the dinosaurs, there was nothing they could do, he says.
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“It created a giant dust storm that blocked out the sunlight, and rapidly cooled down the planet and anything larger than basically a dog that couldn't burrow in the ground and escape from the cooling perished.
“So, the dinosaurs couldn't do anything about it, they couldn't see the asteroid coming, even if they could, there was nothing they could have done about it, they had no agency.”
We do have agency, we can take the actions necessary, he says.
“But only if we elect politicians, policymakers and governments who are willing to do what's necessary.”
Looking back at climate change over the planet’s 4-billion-year history is informative and debunks much doom-mongering fatalism, he says.
“I decided let's go back and look at what really did happen with those events [Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum event and end-Permian extinction] and they did not represent some sort of runaway warming scenario, a runaway increase in methane.
“It turns out the planet warmed up because of an increase in carbon dioxide, not from fossil fuel burning, but in that case, from episodes of extreme volcanism and large amounts of carbon escaping through volcanoes.
“And so, the cause of those events was the addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.”
Professor Michael Mann Photo: Wikimedia Commons
This gives hope, he believes.
“The warming is caused by us, and if we act, we can prevent crossing some of those very dangerous thresholds.”
The idea that we might fall off a climate cliff is wrong, he says.
“We always talk about that number [1.5 degrees Celsius] because it is a number we're getting close to.
“And if we go beyond things will get a lot worse. But here's the thing, every fraction of a degree matters. And if we miss the 1.5 C exit, we don't give up, it's not the end of the world, we go for the 1.6 C exit.
“And if we miss that, we still go for the 1.7 C exit, the further down that that highway we go, the more danger we encounter.
“And that's how it works. It's not a cliff, it's more like a minefield, and we want to stop that forward lurch out into the minefield that means decarbonising our economy as quickly as possible, getting off fossil fuels as quickly as possible.”
Working against this is what he calls the “weaponisation of ignorance”.
“I'm talking about where we are in the climate, but I'm also talking about where we are in the global political climate, will we allow ourselves to fall victims to misinformation and darkness?
“Or will we recognise the light that is provided by science and follow the path that is dictated by what science has to say about these risks we face.”
Mann calls for a “righteous anger” directed at those with the power to change the course of history.
“The Youth Climate Movement and the Global Youth Climate Movement, Greta Thunberg and other youth protesters, there's an anger there but it's a righteous anger. It's a deserved anger.
“And what they're doing is they're funnelling it into action, action that demands accountability, that demands accountability from opinion leaders and policymakers.
“That's what we need, we need accountability. And we have opportunities to instil accountability by turning up at the polls and voting for politicians who will actually do something for us, our children and grandchildren by acting on this defining crisis.”
