104 | Michael Mann on Taking Action to Address the Climate Crisis

On the Evidence

For anyone looking to understand Earth’s climate history and the unfolding climate crisis, Michael Mann has got you covered. Mann is the Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media. He has authored numerous books, including The New Climate War and The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars. He was selected by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002 and was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2020. “Climate doomism” – the idea that it’s too late to act on the climate crisis – is a common refrain that promotes inaction. But in his new book, Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis, Mann argues that we can avoid catastrophe if we take meaningful action to address the crisis. On this episode, Mike Burns, Mathematica senior director of communications and public affairs, speaks with Mann about his new book and preserving “our fragile moment.” Topics addressed include: • Lessons that can–and cannot–be drawn from Earth’s climate history • Why seemingly insignificant temperature changes aren’t so insignificant • The concepts of urgency and agency, and obstacles to climate action • “Shifting baseline syndrome” – the gradual change in expected norms for environmental conditions • Weighing the paleoclimate record with other sources of information about the climate system • Effective communication and messaging strategies around climate science and climate change A full transcript of this episode is available here: https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/climate-scientist-michael-mann-on-preserving-our-fragile-moment Learn more about Mann’s new book, Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/michael-e-mann/our-fragile-moment/9781541702899/?lens=publicaffairs Read Mann’s full bio: https://michaelmann.net/content/about