Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Talk Nerdy. Today is Monday,
Speaker 1: November twenty fourth, twenty twenty five, and I'm the host
Speaker 1: of the show Doctor Kara Santa Maria. So Happy Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: to all of my American listeners. I am actually out
Speaker 1: of the country this week and will be I think
Speaker 1: actually on an airplane on Thanksgiving proper. It's a good
Speaker 1: time to fly. You wouldn't think it is, but when
Speaker 1: you fly on the actual day. I say that now
Speaker 1: as I pre record this, but usually it's a little
Speaker 1: less expensive, at least to and fro the US. The
Speaker 1: rest of the world obviously doesn't have any indication of that.
Speaker 1: I am yammering on, but I'm really excited about this
Speaker 1: week's episode. Before I get into it, it's a big one,
Speaker 1: it's an important one. But before I get into it,
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Speaker 1: here on the show, I think you'll see in the
Speaker 1: next few weeks, it's just becoming increasingly relevant, increasingly necessary.
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Speaker 1: t R e O N dot com, slash talk Nerdy
Speaker 1: to learn more. Okay, this is a big one. This week,
Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to speak with doctor Michael E. Mann.
Speaker 1: You probably know Michael mannon we'll talk about this as
Speaker 1: the researcher responsible for the infamous, famous, important, necessary hockey
Speaker 1: stick graph when it comes to, uh, the change in
Speaker 1: our climate's temperature, right when it comes to global warming.
Speaker 1: He's a Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth
Speaker 1: and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He's also
Speaker 1: the director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and
Speaker 1: the Media. And he has a new book that he
Speaker 1: co wrote with Peter J. Hotez, who's the dean of
Speaker 1: the National School of Tropical Medicine and a professor of
Speaker 1: pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine.
Speaker 1: He's also the co director of the Texas Children's Center
Speaker 1: for Vaccine Development. So we've got probably the most famous
Speaker 1: climate scientists combined with just an incredibly important researcher in
Speaker 1: the world of virology, micro biology and vaccine science. And
Speaker 1: they co wrote a book Science under Siege, How to
Speaker 1: Fight the five most powerful forces that threaten our world. So,
Speaker 1: without any further ado, here he is doctor Michael E. Mann, Well, Michael, Mike,
Speaker 1: whatever you prefer to be called. I am so glad
Speaker 1: that you are here today, and I just want to
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us here on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks Kara. I'm Mike to my friends, and so
Speaker 2: that should suffice for our conversation here.
Speaker 1: I love it. I always ask people before we start rolling.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I use the full name and title in
Speaker 1: the show notes and when I interro you, but like,
Speaker 1: are you okay with me calling you by your first name?
Speaker 1: And I've yet to have somebody say, God, no, you
Speaker 1: must call me doctor Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well we've hung out before, so yes, it's great
Speaker 2: to be back with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So we've chatted before when you were a guest
Speaker 1: on The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, but I've not
Speaker 1: had you yet on Talk Nerdy. I will say part
Speaker 1: of that is because although this show has been going
Speaker 1: on for gosh eleven years now, early on, I was
Speaker 1: getting a lot of bookings directly from you know, publishers
Speaker 1: and publicists in the sciences, and just because of the
Speaker 1: nature of my show being a hard science show early
Speaker 1: on and not doing as much social justice work, it
Speaker 1: was just like white men left and right, like cis
Speaker 1: Head white men, and so I made a conscious effort
Speaker 1: quite a while ago to you know, intentionally bring more
Speaker 1: marginalized people on the show. And it's rare now that
Speaker 1: I have a sis heat white man on the show.
Speaker 2: I figured it was just because I was nerdy enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not at all. Couldn't be that. But I have
Speaker 1: to say, when your new book came across my desk,
Speaker 1: I was like, I have to get Mike on the show.
Speaker 1: This is such an important topic. So I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: so glad that you're here.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad to be here, so thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so. You co wrote your new book, Science under
Speaker 1: Siege with Peter Hotez. Is that how you pronounce it?
Speaker 2: Yes, it is yep, and so he is.
Speaker 1: The dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and
Speaker 1: also pediatrics and Molecular Virology and micro bio professor at Baler.
Speaker 1: You are now a Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department
Speaker 1: of Earth and Environmental Science at you PEN and also
Speaker 1: the director of the Pen Center for Science, Sustainability and
Speaker 1: the Media. Most people know you as a climate scientist, right.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, absolutely, yeah. I mean, so you're wondering how
Speaker 2: did you know? It almost sounds like the makings of
Speaker 2: a joke. Climate scientist and a vaccine scientist walk into a.
Speaker 1: Bar, right, right. But obviously those are two areas that
Speaker 1: are you know, under siege. Those are two areas that
Speaker 1: have become deeply deequoliticized.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And that's sort of how this came about.
Speaker 2: About five years ago, I was witnessing my colleagues in
Speaker 2: the public health arena be subject to the same sorts
Speaker 2: of attacks that I had been subject to decades ago
Speaker 2: when we published the now well known hockey Stick curve,
Speaker 2: and it sort of made me a target for fossil
Speaker 2: fuel front groups and polluters, you know, advocates for polluters,
Speaker 2: politicians who find the you know, the science of climate
Speaker 2: change inconvenient to an agenda of continued fossil fuel fossil
Speaker 2: fuel dependents, and so they went after me in an
Speaker 2: effort to discredit this, you know, this, this iconic graph
Speaker 2: that demonstrates just how profound the warming of the past
Speaker 2: century is, how how without precedent it is. It really
Speaker 2: drives home the reality of the problem. So, you know,
Speaker 2: I've been subject to attax by right wing politicians and
Speaker 2: news outlets, you know, the Rupert Murdoch media empire, demands,
Speaker 2: I'd be fired for my job by climate that you
Speaker 2: name it, and and it was sort of PTSD for me,
Speaker 2: you might say, when about five years ago, I saw
Speaker 2: my friends in the public health arena, like Peter, like
Speaker 2: Tony Fauci, being subject to exactly the same sorts of
Speaker 2: character attacks, the same tactics, often by some of the
Speaker 2: same players. And I reached out to Peter, you know,
Speaker 2: because I felt that we had some lessons, that I
Speaker 2: had some wisdom I could share with him based on
Speaker 2: my own experiences. We became friends. We realized, Hey, we've
Speaker 2: got a book to write because whether it's climate science
Speaker 2: or COVID nineteen vaccines, we're dealing with this massive assault
Speaker 2: by an anti science driven, you know, movement that threatens
Speaker 2: us all absolutely.
Speaker 1: And I'm so, I mean, I think this is such
Speaker 1: a great way to start this conversation because probably the
Speaker 1: number one question that I've been champing at the bit
Speaker 1: to ask you has to do with that very thing.
Speaker 1: You have been dealing with this kind of pressure for
Speaker 1: a lot of your career. But I'm curious, from your perspective,
Speaker 1: does it feel different now?
Speaker 2: It does in a sense, you know, if we can
Speaker 2: use a medical analogy, I would say, you know, back
Speaker 2: in the nineteen nineties, you know, there was this sort
Speaker 2: of localized cancer in the you know, uh, in the
Speaker 2: body politic. This this assault, this bad faith assault on
Speaker 2: climate science by fossil fuel interests in those promoting their agenda.
Speaker 2: And what we've seen is this metastasized now to impact
Speaker 2: all of not just all of science, but our entire
Speaker 2: public discourse. This bad faith assault by plutocrats. You know,
Speaker 2: we we spell them out in the book, plutocrats and
Speaker 2: petro states and polluters and you know, who have come
Speaker 2: together to you know, try to not just mislead the
Speaker 2: public and policymakers about sort of some of the critical
Speaker 2: threats that we face in the science that underlies that,
Speaker 2: but essentially to undermine our entire public discourse. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it feels much bigger. It feels like what was once
Speaker 2: this localized cancer has now metastasized to impact our entire
Speaker 2: body politic.
Speaker 1: And it's such a difficult position to be in. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting over here as a science communicator turned clinical psychologists,
Speaker 1: so I'm working within the systems, but I'm also you know,
Speaker 1: continuing to do some of the public communication of science.
Speaker 1: I don't have a position where I am attempting to
Speaker 1: affect policy, for example, But I just can't imagine that
Speaker 1: those who are working as public servants in the scientists,
Speaker 1: I mean, they must feel so like it must be
Speaker 1: hard to maintain hope.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, And we hear from some of them.
Speaker 2: We hear from Peter certainly. Here's from colleagues, some of
Speaker 2: the career scientists who worked in NIH and the Center
Speaker 2: for Disease Control CDC. And I hear from you know,
Speaker 2: some of my colleagues who are at science institution that
Speaker 2: are involved in some way in atmospheric science or ocean
Speaker 2: science or climate science, Noah, the e p A, et cetera.
Speaker 2: We hear stories from colleagues who you know, are are
Speaker 2: still somehow there or in many cases, who have been
Speaker 2: let go over the past several months as the current administration,
Speaker 2: the Trump administration looks to pretty much dismantle the infrastructure
Speaker 2: for public health science in the US, the infrastructure for climate,
Speaker 2: advancing the science of climate and advancing the solutions. It's
Speaker 2: it's it's demoralizing. I know for these folks, many of
Speaker 2: them are without jobs. But more than that, you know,
Speaker 2: this was their life's work. They you know, we're talking
Speaker 2: about career scientists who had no you know, didn't didn't
Speaker 2: go into this for any political agenda. They went into
Speaker 2: it because they loved doing science and they wanted to
Speaker 2: do science for the public good. And now we have
Speaker 2: a government that, you know, there's no other way to
Speaker 2: put it, is trying to weaponize anti science for the
Speaker 2: public bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I mean that's that's something that's so
Speaker 1: obvious to those of us who have dedicated our lives
Speaker 1: to scientific inquiry and to kind of understanding and utilizing
Speaker 1: the scientific method. But it makes me wonder, like maybe
Speaker 1: this is the psychologist in me. But I'm always trying
Speaker 1: to sort of empathize, as hard as it may be
Speaker 1: with the position of the current administration or Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five or of like whichever architects you want to
Speaker 1: talk about. They must know what's going to happen. So
Speaker 1: is this intentional? Is it they want to make their
Speaker 1: be you know, public like a lack of public sort
Speaker 1: of engagement so that authoritarianism can rule. Like is that
Speaker 1: the endgame here? What is the point?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I just and what you're saying, we'd like
Speaker 2: to believe that like our fellow human beings, aren't just
Speaker 2: purely being evil for the sake.
Speaker 1: Of valuable unfortunately in.
Speaker 2: The world, you know, and it's there's there's a famous
Speaker 2: quote attributed to Upton Sinclair, the early sort of a
Speaker 2: you know, public figure journalist muckraker in the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: once famously said that, you know, it's very difficult to
Speaker 2: get a man to understand something when his salary depends
Speaker 2: on him not understanding it. And I think, unfortunately, that
Speaker 2: is you know, a pretty a pretty appropriate framing for
Speaker 2: a lot of what we're seeing. We're talking about people
Speaker 2: who are too well educated and too smart to believe
Speaker 2: much of the nonsense and the propaganda that they are
Speaker 2: actively promoting. Now, some of these people are ideologue. Some
Speaker 2: of these people may believe their own rhetoric. I believe
Speaker 2: that's true of RFK Junior, you know, as misguided as
Speaker 2: he is, I think he actually believes a lot of
Speaker 2: what he's saying. And well, we don't really know if
Speaker 2: it's RFK Junior or the worm who ate his brain,
Speaker 2: but that's coming out of him appears to be an
Speaker 2: authentic sort of expression of his viewpoints. But in many cases,
Speaker 2: it's a purely cynical gambit by people who are focused
Speaker 2: on achieving as much short term profit and power as
Speaker 2: they possibly can at the expense of the rest of us,
Speaker 2: as the expense of scientific truth, and at the expense
Speaker 2: of good faith discourse.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And I think it's such an important point that
Speaker 1: we cannot look at what is happening right now in
Speaker 1: a vacuum. We can only look at it in the
Speaker 1: context of this sort of like deregulated capitalism, of this
Speaker 1: era of extreme wealth and extreme income inequality. And I
Speaker 1: think that you made a really good point there that
Speaker 1: bears sort of amplifying, which is there's a big difference
Speaker 1: between the architects and the propagandists and then the people
Speaker 1: who believe them. The people are harmed by them, vote
Speaker 1: for them and maybe continue to amplify their message, But
Speaker 1: we're not the architects of that message.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks, That's such an important distinction. It's one that
Speaker 2: we do try to draw out in the book. You know,
Speaker 2: many of the folks who are down in the trenches,
Speaker 2: you know social media, you know, not the bots and
Speaker 2: the professional trolls, but actual real people who have fallen
Speaker 2: victim to this disinformation campaign. And I use the term
Speaker 2: victim pointedly because they're victims of a disinformation campaign. Now,
Speaker 2: those who are behind the campaign, well those are those
Speaker 2: are the villains in this story. But the ordinary people
Speaker 2: who believe what they're hearing because they're bombarded by this
Speaker 2: disinformation because there are rhetorician rhetoricians who are especially skilled
Speaker 2: at sort of tapping into the reptilian parts of the
Speaker 2: human brain, and I think that that's a lot of
Speaker 2: what's going on. People who, you know, are if you're
Speaker 2: constantly watching Fox News and reading the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 2: editorial pages, you have a view of the world that
Speaker 2: is so you know, out of bounds, that is so
Speaker 2: fundamentally inconsistent with the way the world actually is, and
Speaker 2: it's easy for people to become trapped in that epistemic
Speaker 2: bubble where they're just bombarded with this this disinform Now
Speaker 2: Fox News is pumping out the disinformation for the most
Speaker 2: cynical purposes. And we know that they've lost lawsuits over
Speaker 2: that they know they're lying. It's been proven in court
Speaker 2: that they know they're lying. But it's the people who
Speaker 2: are listening to them in many cases, you know, and
Speaker 2: we might not like their politics. They might be maga,
Speaker 2: what have you, We might not agree with them, but nonetheless,
Speaker 2: in a very real sense, they are victims of this
Speaker 2: disinformation campaign. And they're victims in part because they're being
Speaker 2: convinced to support policies and to vote against their own interest,
Speaker 2: whether it's you know, public health, whether it's the future
Speaker 2: of the planet for their children, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Yeah, doublely victimized, because number one, they are going to
Speaker 1: be harmed. I mean, just like any progressive, you know,
Speaker 1: a conservative is going to be harmed by these policies
Speaker 1: as well. And number two, they're sort of facilitating their
Speaker 1: own demise without even in a lot of ways being
Speaker 1: duped into facilitating their own demise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what's so tragic here, no question about it.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I'm curious we sort of already mentioned,
Speaker 1: but obviously we can go a bit deeper. You know.
Speaker 1: In the book, you guys sort of divide it into
Speaker 1: like the forces that are threatening science right now into
Speaker 1: like five ps. And in a way we've already touched
Speaker 1: on plutocrats and propagandists. What are the other three?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the plutocrats, you know, the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch,
Speaker 2: Elon Musk who the control of the Purse Springs, who
Speaker 2: fund the disinformation and for their own ideological or political
Speaker 2: or self interest. Then you know the Petro States, Russia,
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia. You would have to say the United States
Speaker 2: right now under Trump and Republican Congress. You know, countries
Speaker 2: that basically have an anti science agenda with respect to
Speaker 2: clean energy and climate driven by you know, their dependence
Speaker 2: on fossil fuels for their economy. So those are the
Speaker 2: petro states. And this is synergistic because often these forces
Speaker 2: are interacting, they're working together. I would put there are
Speaker 2: two more piece that are technically part of the five,
Speaker 2: the polluters and the politicians of those petro states who
Speaker 2: enable that agenda.
Speaker 1: And then, real quick before you move on, would you
Speaker 1: consider because you know, obviously petro kind of denotes fossil fuels,
Speaker 1: but would you also consider like the rare earth metals
Speaker 1: and the mining industry and all of these sort of
Speaker 1: newer requirements for to kind of keep up with current
Speaker 1: technology in that bucket.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. And one of the things that Peter and
Speaker 2: I talk about is even though we use that term
Speaker 2: petro state in part because we're I'm wedded to alliteration,
Speaker 2: so there or therefore we had to find you know,
Speaker 2: peas like peas in a pod. But these five peas.
Speaker 2: But the you know, one of the things we talk
Speaker 2: about is there is this historical relationship between resource extraction
Speaker 2: driven economies and petros. That's the sense in which we're
Speaker 2: using petro states, not just oil, natural gas, and coal
Speaker 2: fossil fuels, but extractionist countries that primarily whose economy is
Speaker 2: primarily driven by the extraction of natural resources. These countries
Speaker 2: tend to be authoritarian, tend to have an anti science
Speaker 2: agenda through and through, And we can get if you want,
Speaker 2: we can get into how is it that like some
Speaker 2: of these same petro states and plutocrats hopped on the
Speaker 2: anti vax train. You know What's we understand why they
Speaker 2: dispute climate science and fight against renewable energy because it's
Speaker 2: a direct challenge to their fossil fuel business model. But
Speaker 2: how why is it that they became you know, antagonistic
Speaker 2: to the public health community. But they but they did,
Speaker 2: and so there is this relay. These petro states really
Speaker 2: are more generally authoritarian regimes that are driven by a
Speaker 2: political agenda which is propped up by anti.
Speaker 1: Science absolutely, and I think it's funny because I get
Speaker 1: into this is going to be in the weeds for
Speaker 1: like two seconds here, But because you know the sgu guys,
Speaker 1: and because you've been on the show before, I have
Speaker 1: to bring up here and you know I publicly talk
Speaker 1: about this with them as well. One of our biggest
Speaker 1: sticking points when we do argue on the show, which
Speaker 1: I you know we don't, we don't because we agree
Speaker 1: about a lot of things, has to do with crude
Speaker 1: space travel and with sort of this motivation crude oil. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: crude like exactly yeah. I know, I know the new
Speaker 1: nomenclature doesn't always work in an audio format, but so
Speaker 1: this idea and they are like just gung ho pro
Speaker 1: space travel in almost every single form. And I am
Speaker 1: always very eked out and reticent when it comes to
Speaker 1: sending people into, you know, the far flung regions of
Speaker 1: space wherever we might be able to go, because it
Speaker 1: does seem to be that the motivation is almost always extractive, colonial, geopolitical,
Speaker 1: and I just don't think you can tease those things apart.
Speaker 1: But you know that I hear a common argument that
Speaker 1: it's like, no, it's just you know, the human uh,
Speaker 1: you know, spirit of wanting to understand what we don't
Speaker 1: yet under And I love that and it's very pure,
Speaker 1: but it also feels so naive to me. Yeah, even
Speaker 1: if you look back to the early explorers like it
Speaker 1: was gross, it was a gross time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, no, it's it's it's a fascinating topic. I've
Speaker 2: seen that same tension and in conversations with with you know,
Speaker 2: fellow science advocates, and I think it's historical in part.
Speaker 2: I think it's part of the historical legacy of you know,
Speaker 2: Carl Sagan and my friend Bill Nye, who is still
Speaker 2: very much support that because there's something that it just somehow,
Speaker 2: something in our consciousness. And in fact, Sagan has a
Speaker 2: wonderful discussion of this. I forget which book, it might
Speaker 2: be Pale Blue Dot and one of his books it's like,
Speaker 2: why as a species are we driven? Are like almost
Speaker 2: it's in our constitution two, you know, to only go
Speaker 2: where no human has gone before, right, and and space
Speaker 2: travel is an extension of that. But it's what drove migrations,
Speaker 2: this need to diversify, this need to find new groups
Speaker 2: of people to expand our horizons and and somehow it's
Speaker 2: ingrained in our in our psyche and our collective consciousness.
Speaker 2: And so I understand that, and I think that was
Speaker 2: I think, you know, people who have been very influential
Speaker 2: in this, in this world, the science communication world, like
Speaker 2: Carl Sagan, I think, did you know? And it's sort
Speaker 2: of eloquently expressed in the book and then movie Contact,
Speaker 2: for example, where Jody Foster, you know, is the star
Speaker 2: scientist again undergoing you know, I won't give it away
Speaker 2: for those who had seen it, but probably through space
Speaker 2: and time to extend our horizons. So I think it's there.
Speaker 2: I think it's culturally there in our world, in the
Speaker 2: world of science communication. But there is, you know, there's
Speaker 2: this conflict because you're right, from a purely cerebral standpoint,
Speaker 2: if we're you know, trying to if we're talking about
Speaker 2: what's the most efficient way for us, in the safest
Speaker 2: way for us to extend our knowledge, is not clear
Speaker 2: that it's necessary.
Speaker 1: Right, And we have robots now, right, yes, and there
Speaker 1: are ways to go do these things without, you know,
Speaker 1: but even for one robot, you.
Speaker 2: Know, for one welcome our new robot overlord. So let
Speaker 2: me just be firmly on records with that they can't
Speaker 2: screw up the planet more than we did.
Speaker 1: Yes, and especially when it comes to space travel. But
Speaker 1: I digress. I do think that each of these obviously
Speaker 1: five main forces which which you guys get so deep
Speaker 1: into in the book, there are just layers upon layers
Speaker 1: upon layers. So we mentioned the plutocrats, we mentioned the
Speaker 1: petro States, we mentioned the propagandists in passing is what
Speaker 1: about the pros?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the pros and the propagandas are sort of
Speaker 2: two sides of the same coin. These are the people
Speaker 2: sort of out there promoting the disinformation, the misinformation. It's
Speaker 2: the petro states and the plutocrats are funding the operation,
Speaker 2: but they need ground forces out there, you know, promoting
Speaker 2: this the disinformation, and on social media, on podcasts, in
Speaker 2: the mainstream media, on conservative talk uh conservative you know, uh,
Speaker 2: television news networks or pseudo news networks. You know that.
Speaker 2: So some of them do it for money. They're literally
Speaker 2: paid for that, and that hence pro they're pros. And
Speaker 2: in the world of public health, there's an interesting sort
Speaker 2: of special case of sort of the health freedom uh uh,
Speaker 2: sort of Mount Bank libertarian, Yeah, exactly, they've exploited this
Speaker 2: sort of libertarian health freedom movement, but a lot of
Speaker 2: them have monetized that very cynical way by undermining public
Speaker 2: faith in you know, conventional in vaccines so that they
Speaker 2: can market There are snake oil and charge huge expenses
Speaker 2: for tell tele conference uh uh consultations that go along
Speaker 2: with selling very cheap but completely uh unhelpful fake miracle
Speaker 2: cures uh like you know, uh ivermectin or hydrochloroquin and
Speaker 2: so that's it. They're is special. But but the bottom
Speaker 2: line is whether it's they're you know, monetizing the anti
Speaker 2: science by selling a product game rich doing so, or
Speaker 2: taking big bucks from tobacco and fossil fuel companies to
Speaker 2: get out there on Fox News and promote propaganda. Those
Speaker 2: are the pros, the the the propagandists. Many of them
Speaker 2: do it anyways. They're not necessarily paid, but they're still
Speaker 2: part of that ecosystem. They're they're true believers or what
Speaker 2: have you. And so there that's essentially the same category,
Speaker 2: the pros and the propagandasts. And in many cases one
Speaker 2: could argue over whether a particular cular individual is in
Speaker 2: one category of the other, but that's sort of that
Speaker 2: fills out, you know. So it's the petro States, plutocrats,
Speaker 2: the pros and propagandists, and then there's one.
Speaker 1: More, the press, right, and they're they're deeply related as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was tough for Peter and me really
Speaker 2: to be so convinced that our media has become part
Speaker 2: of the problem that we were willing to actually make
Speaker 2: that one of the categories, even though we have you know, colleagues, friends,
Speaker 2: journalists that we've interacted with, that we've worked with. There's
Speaker 2: so there's so many really good journalists out there, and
Speaker 2: so we're not saying they're all bad and that all
Speaker 2: these outlets are bad. What we are saying is that
Speaker 2: too often now many of our major media, especially as
Speaker 2: they're bought out by some of these conservative plutocrats, right
Speaker 2: like CBS News. We're looking at you, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: Elon Musk buying Twitter and now TikTok being bought by
Speaker 2: another one of these conservative plutocrats. So our media are
Speaker 2: no longer independent. They're being bought out by plutocrats. Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 2: a plutocrat, owns the Washington Post, and we've seen him
Speaker 2: now come out and say, well, you know, we are
Speaker 2: going to I mean, he's gotten rid of a lot
Speaker 2: of their longtime opinion writers. They're more progressive opinion writers.
Speaker 2: There have been massive layoffs, and he said that he
Speaker 2: is now sort of retooling the Washington Post to promote
Speaker 2: conservative principles like free markets. New York Times, you know,
Speaker 2: we take them to task for engaging in what we
Speaker 2: call performative neutrality, where you know, both the New York
Speaker 2: Times and the Washington Post have repeatedly platformed the lab
Speaker 2: leak theory of COVID nineteen even though the you know,
Speaker 2: there isn't a single peer reviewed article that supports it,
Speaker 2: and the evidence is overwhelmingly in the direction of zoom
Speaker 2: spillover events, you know, transmitted from bats and pangolins to
Speaker 2: human beings. There's quite a bit of evidence that's what's happened.
Speaker 2: But the idea that was a lab leak in Wuhan,
Speaker 2: China plays into so many useful stereotypes that the right
Speaker 2: has exploited. And here you've got, you know, legacy media
Speaker 2: like the New York Times, that the Gray Lady and
Speaker 2: the Washington Post that have platformed, you know, not just
Speaker 2: pseudo science, but anti science and done so for example,
Speaker 2: in several cases, on the eve of, say a congressional
Speaker 2: testimony by Tony Fauci, and the day before, the New
Speaker 2: York Times the Washington Post will publish an op ed
Speaker 2: attacking them, attacking the mainstream scientific understanding of of you know,
Speaker 2: COVID nineteen and platforming anti science, and so we have
Speaker 2: to hold them accountable as well. Even you know, it's
Speaker 2: not just the right wing media. Obviously they're a problem.
Speaker 2: The Ruper Murdoch, the Murdoch Empires media empire is the
Speaker 2: single greatest promoter of anti science propaganda, both with respect
Speaker 2: to climate and COVID nineteen vaccines. Obviously they're a problem.
Speaker 2: But even what we might call the mainstream press have
Speaker 2: now become weaponized in a way that is extremely unhelpful.
Speaker 1: Do you think that part of this is like an
Speaker 1: Overton window issue, that like certain things in the window
Speaker 1: of discourse have become so normalized, like certain radical things,
Speaker 1: that what seems now center is actually and I know
Speaker 1: Overton went kind of north south axis intentionally to avoid
Speaker 1: left right, but like that radical things are now considered
Speaker 1: like policy or popular sensible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look at the things right now that
Speaker 2: the president of the United States is doing I mean
Speaker 2: literally amputating the White House. Yeah, you know, amputaying a
Speaker 2: leg off of the White I mean it's almost it's
Speaker 2: symbolic of just how the standards have shifted so dramatically
Speaker 2: that things that wouldn't have.
Speaker 1: Thought would have never been I mean, throwing a Gatsby
Speaker 1: themed party at our a lago in the middle of
Speaker 1: snap benefits being taken from millions of Americans like it.
Speaker 3: Just audacity, Yeah, the audacities say, you know what, we
Speaker 3: are so immune now to criticism that we're going to
Speaker 3: prove your point for you and it's not going to matter.
Speaker 2: We're going to give you the you know, the the
Speaker 2: video clip that you ought to be able to use
Speaker 2: to defeat every Republican in Congress and the upcoming you know,
Speaker 2: in the midterm elections, We're going to give it to you,
Speaker 2: and you're still not going to be able to win
Speaker 2: because we've got so much money, we're so organized, we've
Speaker 2: taken over the reigns of the government. That is their attitude,
Speaker 2: and that's why they rely. They think that they are
Speaker 2: now you know that they are now immune to the
Speaker 2: will of the public, and that's a very dangerous place
Speaker 2: for us to be But you're absolutely right, it's this
Speaker 2: shifting of the Overton window. But it didn't happen by chance.
Speaker 2: It happened because of these deeply entrenched, well funded, you know, plutocrats,
Speaker 2: conservative plutocrats, dark money that they have used to basically
Speaker 2: buy out our media, control the public discourse, and move
Speaker 2: that window in the direction that they wanted to go.
Speaker 1: And so really like this idea that because you often
Speaker 1: hear this and it kind of flies in the face
Speaker 1: of evidence based or science based thinking, critical thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of the skeptic mantra that there is this like
Speaker 1: deep state and this is like a huge conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1: But really, like it's like you said, if you follow
Speaker 1: the money, there is sort of a natural path of
Speaker 1: least resistant almost like an evolutionarily an evolutionary principle at
Speaker 1: play where those with I guess the most fitness. But
Speaker 1: here we're talking about capitalist fitness. You know, greed. These
Speaker 1: things are just going to happen over and over and
Speaker 1: they don't have to be I guess all in cahoots
Speaker 1: for that to occur.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely, And let's you know, I mean, if
Speaker 2: we want to bring some scientific gravitas to this point
Speaker 2: of view. Let's introduce Albert Einstein, who famously wrote back
Speaker 2: in the nineteen thirties, and I think it was it
Speaker 2: was it was some sort of commentary that he wrote
Speaker 2: on sort of American politics and where it was headed,
Speaker 2: and he warned that a capitalist system where media outlets,
Speaker 2: where our media can be owned by individuals, can be
Speaker 2: bought out using private capital, that inevitably the equilibrium of
Speaker 2: that system. Let's make this physics. The equilibrium of that
Speaker 2: system is a system where a small number of extremely
Speaker 2: wealthy people control the public discourse. And once they do that,
Speaker 2: democracy cannot function in the way the founding fathers imagined
Speaker 2: it would, because the assumption was that people would make
Speaker 2: decisions that first of all, are informed by facts, but
Speaker 2: second of all, are in their own interest. And once
Speaker 2: you can get people to vote against their own interests,
Speaker 2: you have so much control, such extensive control of the
Speaker 2: media environment, that you can basically just you know, you
Speaker 2: can pollute the entire public discourse with your own for
Speaker 2: framing and propaganda and talking points. So Einstein worried that
Speaker 2: that was the equilibrium of a system where you know,
Speaker 2: our media could be bought using private capital. That we
Speaker 2: have a privatized media, a system with the media that
Speaker 2: can be owned by a small number of individuals. The
Speaker 2: equilibrium of that is a small number of individuals who
Speaker 2: are running the country and making policy in their own
Speaker 2: interest rather than in the public interest. And that was,
Speaker 2: you know, the better part of a century ago that
Speaker 2: Einstein warned of that. So you know, if you want
Speaker 2: to say that Einstein Stein was a conspiracy theorist, then fine,
Speaker 2: you know, make that argument, But no, some of the
Speaker 2: greatest scientific minds you know, in modern history saw this
Speaker 2: quite clearly. Carl Sagan saw this. He warned about this
Speaker 2: as well, so did you know, so many other great thinkers,
Speaker 2: scientists and great thinkers saw this. Even Mike Judge saw
Speaker 2: where we were headed in idiocracy.
Speaker 1: Right yep, Yeah, absolutely, It's that's.
Speaker 2: Sort of the comic version Einstein, yeah, Sagan, or the
Speaker 2: tragic version. Ideocracy is the comic version of that prophecy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, it's it's such a tough thing
Speaker 1: because there's this part of all of us that that
Speaker 1: it's it's not institutional memory, it's very recent memory. What
Speaker 1: it I mean, obviously, there have been problems, governmental problems
Speaker 1: for quite some time. Regardless of the political party that's
Speaker 1: like in power. But we do remember when the people
Speaker 1: who were sort of playing the game agreed on the
Speaker 1: rules exactly, and that we all were sort of pro
Speaker 1: democracy and anti authoritarianism. And now that that's not the case,
Speaker 1: the system is breaking down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're so right. I mean, there's it's interesting
Speaker 2: to think about what were the axioms, you know, and
Speaker 2: they were they were you know, this was the age
Speaker 2: of this was the Enlightenment. They were guided by science
Speaker 2: and enlightenment. The founding fathers, they were well educated, they
Speaker 2: thought scientifically. Jefferson was a scientist, Benjamin Franklin, the founder
Speaker 2: of my university, was a scientist. They and so, and
Speaker 2: they were sort of axiomatic and how they thought, And
Speaker 2: so we can ask what were the axioms, what were
Speaker 2: the assumptions. And one of the assumptions that they made
Speaker 2: was that we could at least agree upon the basic
Speaker 2: premise that our country was founded on.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes, And and so we're in a tough spot
Speaker 1: and I want I want to make sure that we
Speaker 1: carve out enough time because we're getting close to our
Speaker 1: time crunch here. But you mentioned previously, and I think
Speaker 1: it's clear to see this connection between plutocracy and you know,
Speaker 1: Petro states, this connection between fossil fuels and individuals and
Speaker 1: governmental power who you know, have been bought by lobbyists
Speaker 1: and are making decisions to help, you know, just increase
Speaker 1: wealth for a select few. But the anti vax movement,
Speaker 1: it does seem strange. It doesn't seem like the laby
Speaker 1: like that there's a big profit motive. If anything, it
Speaker 1: seems like pharma would be a better alliance with these pollutacrats.
Speaker 1: So when did we go astray there?
Speaker 2: That's a great question. And so Peter and I trace
Speaker 2: it back. I mean, the roots of sort of the
Speaker 2: health freedom movement and sort of libertarian conservative politics go
Speaker 2: way back, you know, to early American history.
Speaker 1: So the Spanish flew there was the anti mask movement.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing amazing like photographs and yeah, yeah in the.
Speaker 2: Article well and sort of the rugged individual. There was
Speaker 2: this idea that like, we should be free. You can't
Speaker 2: tell me, you know, what medicines to take. So it's
Speaker 2: almost you know, arguably part there are good things about
Speaker 2: sort of the American psyche, and there's some some bad
Speaker 2: things about it. And one of it in the tendency
Speaker 2: to challenge authority can serve us well in certain circumstances.
Speaker 2: But when the authorities tell are advising us based on
Speaker 2: you know, the scientific consensus as to how to best
Speaker 2: protect ourselves from disease, we should be listening to those authorities.
Speaker 2: But this anti authoritarianism, and that was a big part,
Speaker 2: it's a big part of the conservative movement today. They
Speaker 2: need people confused, they need them distrustful, they need them
Speaker 2: distrustful experts they need and that can be obviously the
Speaker 2: climate experts and the clean energy experts, but it's the
Speaker 2: public health experts as well, and one of the interesting
Speaker 2: sort of pieces of the puzzle. So that's sort of
Speaker 2: the larger picture. You know, the experts are wrong and
Speaker 2: sort of weaponizing their base to reject you know, what
Speaker 2: experts have to say. Because in that world of relativism
Speaker 2: where nobody knows who to trust, bad actors flourish and
Speaker 2: can easily exploit that ignorance. And so that's a big
Speaker 2: part of it. But there's also a very specific thing
Speaker 2: that happened early on during the pandemic when we needed
Speaker 2: to stem the spread of COVID nineteen and so governments
Speaker 2: were instituting stay at home orders and lockdowns and policies
Speaker 2: to prevent the spreading of this disease, which was necessary
Speaker 2: to minimize the fatalities which were you know, it was
Speaker 2: overwhelming the public health system. And one thing that that
Speaker 2: led to was a decrease in energy usage. And you
Speaker 2: can see it if you look at carbon emissions. There's
Speaker 2: a big dent, a negative dent during the pandemic when
Speaker 2: transportation less, transportation less use of energy in general decreased
Speaker 2: carbon emission, decreased use of fossil fuels. And guess who
Speaker 2: that hurt. That hurt the fossil fuel industry, including the
Speaker 2: largest privately held fossil fuel interest, the petrochemical coke industries,
Speaker 2: and the Koch brothers, the infamous plutocrat libertarians who have
Speaker 2: funded much of the you know, the disinformation infrastructure of
Speaker 2: climate denial and opposing clean energy. Well early on, they
Speaker 2: saw their own interest as being threatened by the advice
Speaker 2: of the public health community. Don't listen to the experts
Speaker 2: who were telling you to we need lockdowns, you need
Speaker 2: to wear masks, etc. And the problem is that created
Speaker 2: this sort of weaponized rabble that was sort of conditioned
Speaker 2: to reject the advice of the public health community. And
Speaker 2: when that came around to being vaccination, well they were
Speaker 2: going to reject that too. And the tragedy of that
Speaker 2: was hundreds of thousands of lost lives in the United
Speaker 2: States because as largely conservative base had been weaponized to
Speaker 2: reject the advice of the public health community, which included
Speaker 2: the advice to take a vaccine that could save your life,
Speaker 2: and in many cases didn't because these people wouldn't take it.
Speaker 1: And then there's this weird confluence where this kind of prominent,
Speaker 1: outspoken as you mentioned before, died in the wool anti vaxer,
Speaker 1: happened to have the ear of the president, happened to
Speaker 1: be promoted to a very influential post.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and in that regard, it's chillingly so similar to
Speaker 2: the and I know we don't have the time to
Speaker 2: go through it, so your listeners, can you know, look
Speaker 2: Uplysenko in the Soviets talk about that a lot.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, this is this is the trajectory we are
Speaker 1: on right now.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and it's happened before where you know, anti science
Speaker 2: became sort of the official ideological view of the government,
Speaker 2: and in that case, the Russian government and to it
Speaker 2: led to the demise of you know, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: of people because of famines that resulted from bad the
Speaker 2: bad pseudoscience that was being used to uh to used
Speaker 2: to guide agricultural policies in the Soviet Union in Russia.
Speaker 2: And so it's the same you know history they say
Speaker 2: doesn't doesn't doesn't repeat, but it often echoes. It's it's itself.
Speaker 2: That's sort of where we are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and and people will die. And I think
Speaker 1: it's an important thing. You know, it's important to bring
Speaker 1: everyone's attention to that. So much important stuff. In this book,
Speaker 1: we didn't even get to talk about how you go
Speaker 1: to bed at night without you know, tons of Onwii,
Speaker 1: but where.
Speaker 2: You take a second to take a second as it's
Speaker 2: history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. That's the saying
Speaker 2: I was looking for. And in the there are lots
Speaker 2: of things that we can do to try to make sure,
Speaker 2: you know, as scientists, as science communicators, the work that
Speaker 2: we do to inform the public is even more important today.
Speaker 2: And we have to create space for young scientists who
Speaker 2: want to be involved in that. We have to sort
Speaker 2: of reclaim the scientific discourse that has been hijacked by
Speaker 2: these bad actors, no question about it. But it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's almost impossible for us to do that as long
Speaker 2: as the rules are stacked against us. And so in
Speaker 2: the end, we need to take the actions necessary to
Speaker 2: reclaim our politics right. We need to elect politicians policymakers
Speaker 2: who are going to support policies to regulate big tech
Speaker 2: so that they're not allowed to weaponize social media in
Speaker 2: the way that's being weaponized against the public interest, that
Speaker 2: dark money, limiting the penetration of dark money which is
Speaker 2: poisoning our politics, and poisoning policy. All of these things
Speaker 2: we can't do as individuals. We need our government to
Speaker 2: do it. And that will only happen if we vote
Speaker 2: for politicians, support politicians, create space and support for those
Speaker 2: politicians who are willing to advocate on our behalf rather
Speaker 2: than be rubber stamps for these bad actors. And I
Speaker 2: say that I'm not sure when this is going to run,
Speaker 2: but today's election day. It's an off term election, and
Speaker 2: it sort of drives home. People need to get out.
Speaker 2: They need to use their voice and their vote to
Speaker 2: try to re you know, to steer the ship back
Speaker 2: to the path of truth. And decency.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, gosh, I can't thank you enough for the time
Speaker 1: that you gave us today, for the time that you've
Speaker 1: committed to your research, your work in you know, public
Speaker 1: communication of these important issues, and this wonderful book co
Speaker 1: written by yourself, doctor Michael Mann and doctor Peter Hotez.
Speaker 1: The book is Science under Siege. How to Fight the
Speaker 1: five most powerful forces that threaten our world. Mike, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Care It's always such a pleasure
Speaker 2: to talk with you, and I look forward to talking again,
Speaker 2: hopefully sometime soon.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and everyone listening, thank you for coming back week
Speaker 1: after week. I'm really looking forward to the next time
Speaker 1: we all get together to talk. Nerdy