Michael Mann Climate Change Essay

In regards to climate change, it is often believed that the “hockey stick” graph is the only indication of detriment humans have caused to the world. So if someone can disprove the data from the graph, it is believed that all of climate change can be invalidated. However, Michael Mann refutes this belief wholeheartedly; the graph is based on data he and his colleagues comprised. To him this mistake in the public’s opinion was created on purpose to easily disregard the idea of climate change being true by those who are financially involved in industries that rely on destroying the planet to succeed. Mann emphasizes that even if you want to completely revoke the “hockey stick” graph, there are “a number of independent lines of evidence” that cannot be disregarded such as the “Detection and Attribution Studies”(76). Since he believes that this is attack on him and his data, he
alludes to these independent studies to show that he is not the only one proving that climate change exists and there is more than just one graph that highlights this. This myth goes along to prove Mann’s overwhelming thesis that humans find one dubious fact and try to argue their point with little to no knowledge or evidence, which implicitly shows an overwhelming motive of his article is to not argue why climate change exists, but why those who deny his work are manipulative and incorrect. To reduce his enemies arguments to trivial meaningless, he tries to use a false sense of deductive reasoning by beginning with proving that previous warm temperatures does not directly allude to the abnormal weather that we are experiencing now which “reflect[s] a lack of awareness of the distinction between regional and large-scale climate change”(77).
To continue this reasoning he has proved that this claim is vacuous, and therefore “astronomer Willie Soon” who made this claim should also be completely disregarded. Rather than take a different approach to his opponents that are similarly using methods of criticizing the viewholder, he allows his pride to reduce his logical argument to the same level of meaningless and no progression of the problem manifests. Mann wants to highlight how his critics reasoning is not rational, but does not introduce names until he progressed through his argument to gain credibility and authority to persuade the reader, but if you can infer his argument it is easily realized he is mostly demeaning these opponents views instead of explain why they are a
falsehood. The two people he mentions that had the most influence on destroying the validity of his work was “McIntyre [who] works in the mining industry, …[amd] McKitrick ...an economist”, he inserts these vague job titles to imply that these people have no actual expertise in the field as well as having special interests in not wanting the truth of global warming to be a public consensus.(79) The bulk of his argument begins as he introduces these two and is trying to prove that the rise in warmth is unusual and exists. McIntyre and McKitrick supposedly argued that there was errors in Mann’s work and that was especially shown in the reissue of his “hockey graph”, but these corrections as he states had no impact on the actual analysis of the graph. These claims were published in non reviewed sites, but “ rejected by Nature based on negative appraisals by reviewers and editor”. Stating this he is indirectly expressing that since his graph was published by Nature and his opponent's argument was not it immediately draws the conclusion that his data and analysis are correct whereas theirs is refutable in all cases. He alluded to the behaviour and lack of ability of his deniers to publish in a particular magazine as a part of his argument of why their counterargument that the past 20 years has not been an irregular weather pattern has no accuracy. Finally, he adjusts the theory that his data was manipulated to create an enhanced shape and degree of change, and to deny this he identifies five errors in their argument. Mann is so adamant about McIntyre and McKitrick’s theory and reconstruction of his data that he states that it is “statistically meaningless and unworthy of discussion in the legitimate scientific literature”(80). Not only does he believe they are wrong, but their opinions should not even be explored.
When our ideas are threatened, we seem to attack the people that argue the opinion rather than the opinion itself. Mann highlights this of the doubters that he is addressing, but his argument also displays this same trait. This leads to the ultimate downfall of humans that potentially our pride will cause or demise rather than the lack of knowledge.