When climate scientist Michael Mann and cartoonist Tom Toles wrote The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy
Anyway, this overview of climate change politics and denialism, in both text and cartoon form, is out in a new edition that has an updated “in the times of Trump” chapter, and in paperback form.
Pick up your copy of The Madhouse Effect
The award-winning climate scientist Michael E. Mann and the Pulitzer Prize–winning political cartoonist Tom Toles have been on the front lines of the fight against climate denialism for most of their careers. They have witnessed the manipulation of the media by business and political interests and the unconscionable play to partisanship on issues that affect the well-being of billions. The lessons they have learned have been invaluable, inspiring this brilliant, colorful escape hatch from the madhouse of the climate wars.
The Madhouse Effect portrays the intellectual pretzels into which denialists must twist logic to explain away the clear evidence that human activity has changed Earth’s climate. Toles’s cartoons collapse counter-scientific strategies into their biased components, helping readers see how to best strike at these fallacies. Mann’s expert skills at science communication aim to restore sanity to a debate that continues to rage against widely acknowledged scientific consensus. The synergy of these two climate science crusaders enlivens the gloom and doom of so many climate-themed books?and may even convert die-hard doubters to the side of sound science.
Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:
or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
I think there’s a point of no return with very many deniers. A place such as CFACT is evidence for this. It dosnt matter what the evidence is. There’s always some out, some loophole in their own heads, for the nutters.
Interestingly, there’s a trend of attempting to combine nationalism and science, which is very weird.
I was going to say something similar triggered by the phrase “may even convince die-hard doubters” in the last sentence of the post, but you beat me to it Li D.
Having dealt with creationists in Historical Geology classes and kept a watchful eye on creationists attempts at rebutting the scientific evidence for an old Earth & universe, bioevolution, and against the occurrence of any great global flood, it’s became clear to me that most doubters will grasp at the flimsiest excuse they can find to cling to their doubt — even if that excuse can itself be shown to be deeply flawed or even an outright lie.
Astronomers, who have deep time in common with geologists, have similar problems with doubters, as well as with believers in astrology.
Thanks. This does sound great. 🙂
Tyvor.
Astrology and similar woo topics, Arrrrgh!
I despair when I see the relative sizes of those sections in book shops when compared to those on the sciences.
Now if you are off to Florida for your holiday then the book described here could be relevant:
Rising seas: ‘Florida is about to be wiped off the map’ .
Li D
When viewing the Amazon page on ‘The Madhouse Effect…’ look around for reviews of Marc Morano’s ‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change’, plenty to despair about with those reviews.
Amazon.co.uk still showing the earlier 2016 edition of ‘The Madhouse Effect…’ so I will wait awhile.
Just ordered the Michael Mann book form Amazon. Thanks for the nth time for a good tip Greg.
Re Lionel A’s comment to me about Florida: The situation is well known to geologists; It rose rather recently from the sea and sooner or later it is destined to return. It seems it will be sooner thanks to AGW. Yet still the people there vote for Republicans in election after election. So much for the expectation of rational choices from the electorate.
“I think there’s a point of no return with very many deniers.”
I think there’s a point of no return with very many alarmists.
Frankly, there is little or no compromise from AGWers klan other than
finger pointing and no solutions only computer models,
and crackpot theories.
The climatic and it’s interactions are so complex, no one will ever
find many or all solutions.
The real threat to our planet is a very large rock striking the earth.
Humans could be the next dinosaurs.
As you demonstrate your ignorance (“only” computer models, “crackpot theories”) you show yourself to be a scientific dinosaur.
You are conveniently ignoring two important things:
(1) The basic relationship between greenhouse gases and warming is not a “crackpot idea,” it is based on experimental evidence and modern physics: the knowledge of the interaction between radiation such as sunlight and the atomic and molecular structure of different materials.
(2) The computer models are constantly compared with actual climatic data and modified as necessary. They now show close agreement with the actual temperature changes over time.
As I mentioned in a comment on this blog recently, it is the computer models that include human contributions to global warming that closely match the temperature data since about 1920. The models that don’t include the human contribution with other, natural, causes explain very little of the observed change.
The human contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide is shown by ice core data. Their has been a drastic decrease in the carbon 13 isotope relative to carbon 12 over since 1800. This precipitous decrease in carbon 13 coincides with the equally precipitous rise in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The lighter carbon 12 atoms are preferentially used by living organisms so the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) — which are produced from buried organic matter — produces carbon dioxide poorer in Carbon 13 relative to carbon 12.
While many people are intimidated by the complexity of climate and take that complexity to mean that humans will never understand it, actual scientists have been teasing out the different factors and determining their relative importance.
If you are a true denier, motivated by the religious idea that God still controls the weather or deep investment in the fossil fuel industry, or and unwillingness to change your lifestyle, etc., you will ignore what I’ve said, or attempt to bate me with more invective and misinformation but forget it. Tyvor don’t play that game.
” no solutions ”
What the fuck are you on about?
How could you be literate, commenting on this blog, have knowledge of AGW at least to an extent that there is an acronym AGW, there’s such things as computer modeling, and that complexity is a legitimate relevant paradigm in the field, but not be aware of any solutions, particularly the big fucking obvious one, that has every fuckwit in a tiz?
Are you on fucking drugs mate?
How the fuck could you not be aware of proposals to reduce co2 emissions as a solution to AGW?
How the flying fuck?
No, it’s very simple: jack up CO2 and OHC and GAT rise and ocean pH falls and if you keep it up, you get a mass extinction event.
All well understood from fundamental physics, palaeoclimate and palaeontology.
BBD sez ” …. mass extinction event.”
Well it’s sorta like a backup plan C in case the extinction event we are trying to force now dosnt work. Plan B being nukes of course. One way or another.
This attempt at humour was actually terribly painful to write down.
Failed Dr Hanson’s predictions and more.
The next failure in the offering will be “green” energy.
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/scientists-30-years-on-how-well-do-global-warming-predictions-stand-up.322343/page-3
No, you’ve been tricked by liars. For the facts, see:
30 years after Hansen’s testimony (Realclimate)
Analysis: How well have climate models projected global warming (Carbon Brief)
If you push this crap, I will rip you a new one. Fair warning.
* * *
As for scaling wind and solar to displace FFs, yes a massive engineering challenge that is often (IMO) misleadingly portrayed as simply a matter of political will. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t absolutely necessary for avoiding major climate impacts.
“The hotter world that Hansen envisioned in 1988 has pretty much come true so far, more or less. Three decades later, most climate scientists interviewed rave about the accuracy of Hansen’s predictions given the technology of the time. ” That was in the cite giving by BillyR. Did he even bother to read it?
Is this another case of fossil fuel induced blindness? Sad.