The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet provides a guide of sorts to the current state of the decades-long debate about climate change, a bitter conflict that pits climate activists against the forces of inaction, and sometimes against each other. Climate scientist Michael E. Mann has been at the forefront of what he calls a war ever since he and his colleagues introduced the influential "Hockey Stick" graph in 1998, demonstrating rapid warming. In the years since, the rules of war have changed, and Mann seeks to offer a suitable battle plan.
As the effects of climate change become increasingly apparent, Mann argues "inactivists" have largely moved from outright climate change denial to more subtle methods. "The forces of denial and delay" have engaged in deflection campaigns, for example, in an attempt to shift responsibility for climate change from corporations to individuals. Inactivists have successfully used online bots, trolls and social media in order to amplify disagreements within the environmental movement. Mann even accuses some activists and writers of playing into the hands of fossil fuel companies and oil-funded governments by engaging in "doomism"--apocalyptic, defeatist rhetoric he finds in books such as The Uninhabitable Earth. Mann makes what could be called a technocratic argument for defeating climate change, standing up for market-based solutions like pricing carbon, which have fallen out of favor in activist circles. Whether or not readers find his arguments persuasive, The New Climate War is an informed, opinionated guide to an ever-changing conflict. --Hank Stephenson, the Sun magazine, manuscript reader