Page 46 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

2 AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL E. MANN … 29

BB: You always have to please the editor.
MM: And editors are a part of management. So journalists are sort of
workers and the editors are management, it’s sort of the same workers and
management divide. You don’t want to blame the workers because they’re
doing what workers are meant to be doing. In many cases the blame goes
to the management.

CONTRIBUTING TO POLICY MAKING
BB: It’s a not a fair marketplace. In general, when you see that poli-
cymakers don’t take your advice and don’t take into consideration
your findings and your studies. How does it make you feel?
MM: Again, it’s varied. There are a lot of really good policymakers that I’ve
advised. Jerry Brown, the Governor of California, I’ve been an advisor to
him and he’s doing wonderful things with renewable energy and climate
change: putting a price on carbon, helping the former coalition of Western
states to price carbon, incentivising renewable energy. And he’s taken on
Donald Trump and the rhetoric that Trump has been using when it comes
to climate change. Jerry Brown is sort of a pitbull; he’s fought back against
efforts of Congressional Republicans to misrepresent the science. Sheldon
Whitehouse, a senator of Rhode Island, is sort of again a pitbull on the
senate floor—every week giving a speech about climate change; calling out
climate change denialism. Whether or not anyone’s willing to listen to him,
he’s down there on the Senate floor. So there are still some really good
politicians in the US and elsewhere who understand the threat that climate
change represents and want to act and do something about it. There are
even a few on the Republican side of the aisle who quietly support action
but are afraid of putting out and saying so as they’ll be vilified by the very
same fossil fuel interests we’ve been talking about.
At the other extreme, you have politicians who are just mouthpieces for
the fossil fuel industry. Their campaigns were funded by the fossil fuel
industry; they have close personal ties, some of them even benefit directly
—financially—from the fossil fuel industry. Just about every individual who
has been appointed to the Trump’s administration and cabinet at this point
is a climate change denier and has close ties to the fossil fuel industry. Like
Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, the CEO of Exxon Mobile.