Jem Bendell – Bestselling Climate Change Skeptic Who is Destroying the Alarmist Movement – Watts Speaks Out for It?
Michael Mann – “Pessimism has overtaken denial as a threat and as a tactic. … they are led down a path of non-participation. They are unwittingly following the dictates of fossil fuel interests by giving up.”
Pessimist or Realist? Meet the Scientist Who Says Climate Collapse Has Already Begun
By Nick O’Malley August 23, 2024 — 5:00 AM
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At just under 40 years old, he was promoted to full professor. He published articles in popular journals and his two books were well received.
“I lived in a beautiful part of the world, the Lake District in England,” he recalls, speaking from his new home in Bali as he prepares to travel to Sydney for the Dangerous Ideas Festival this weekend. Later, while preparing for his inaugural professorship speech, Bendell turned to the scientific literature to examine how quickly the climate is warming and how well our efforts to cut emissions are slowing the loss of habitat and biodiversity.
What he read shattered him. “I always thought, you know, we have the rest of the century to change, or we’re in trouble.” He began stuffing the scientific papers and new stories he found most disturbing into a folder. These were the kinds of stories that many people would remember. Stories about ancient frozen gases seeping from the Arctic tundra decades before scientists predicted they would happen, strange heat waves in the Pacific Ocean. These were stories of events he had read about, but had never expected the world to see in his lifetime.
He believes that scientific data is being overlooked, underestimated or misunderstood.
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Read more (for a fee): https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/doomist-or-realist-meet-the-scientist-who-says-the-climate-collapse-has-already-begun-20240820-p5k3wj. html
A fascinating battle is underway between those who believe the climate apocalypse is unstoppable and those who want the government to prevent the climate apocalypse.
Michael Mann is taking aim at the pessimists. From 2021;
… Another new front in the new climate war is what you call “doomism”. What do you mean by that?
Pessimism has overtaken denial as a threat and as a tactic. The inactive know that if people believe there is nothing you can do, they will be led down the path of non-participation. They are unwittingly following the dictates of fossil fuel interests by giving up.What is most damaging here is that it seeks to weaponize environmental progressives who would otherwise be at the forefront of demanding change. These are people with good intentions and good intentions, but who have become disillusioned or discouraged and driven to despair. But the “too late” narrative is always based on a misunderstanding of the science. Many of the prominent pessimistic narratives – [Jonathan] French, David Wallace-WellsThe Deep Adaptation movement – may have originated from a misconception that a methane bomb in the Arctic would cause uncontrolled warming and wipe out all life on earth within 10 years. This is completely false. There is no science to support it. …
Jem may have made millions of dollars selling books about the climate apocalypse, even though he gave a free e-books his latest work, so it’s hard to know how many sales or downloads are being registered on Amazon for the free version. His current efforts seem to be focused on translating his climate apocalypse book into as many European languages as possible.
Jem Bendell currently lives in the tropical island paradise of Bali according to his Wikipedia entry.This strikes me as a strange place to be in the wake of global warming. One of my favorite books, “Snow falls in Bali”details how South American cocaine traffickers turned Bali into a drug party town and transit point for drugs imported into Australia and other Asian countries, much like Acapulco in the Western Pacific.
Jem’s Wiki entry claims he’s in Bali trying to set up a school for regenerative farmers, so perhaps he sees his new life in Bali as a way to help the world’s most vulnerable people survive on the front lines of climate disaster.
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