Global Warming Lysenkoist Michael Mann Accuses Skeptics of Lysenkoism

by Dave Blount | April 3, 2017 3:22 pm

Global warming profiteer Michael Mann is best known for inventing Al Gore’s meretricious hockey stick graph, for participating in ClimateGate, and for bulling his critics with lawsuits. Henceforth, he will also be known for the astonishing combination of chutzpah and hypocrisy he displayed in testimony to the House Science Committee last week.

Mann behaved so insultingly that he had to be chastised by a congressman. He spewed sophomoric leftist talking points about climate deniers, the nonexistent global warming consensus, the sinister Koch Bros., etc., and even referenced the movie The Princess Bride on a dare, indicating how seriously he took the proceedings. Worst of all, he told the story of Trofim Lysenko, a scientist whose false theories were imposed by the Soviet Union for ideological reasons with disastrous results.

Lysenkoism and global warming certainly have parallels. But Mann gets them backward:

The gist of Mann’s anecdote was that scientists who challenge the ruling government’s diktat on any given scientific issue are demonized and punished while innocent bystanders suffer. In the here and now, this would seemingly apply to the minority of scientists brave enough to question the reigning dogma of climate science. After all, these are the folks who have been threatened by top law-enforcement officials, personally and professionally attacked by their peers, and even driven out of their academic positions due to the harassment.

But astonishingly, Mann was not talking about those scientists: He was talking about himself. In his alternative universe, he and other climate scientists are the martyrs, oppressed and silenced by the Politburo. Never mind that Mann — a tenured professor at one of the country’s top public universities — opened his testimony by reciting a prodigious list of awards he has won, books he has authored, scientific organizations he leads. He is celebrated by the media and environmental groups around the world, and yet in front of Congress he talked like a guy on his way to the Gulag. It takes a special blend of hubris, juvenility, and dishonesty to portray yourself as a victim when you are really the bully.

Mann portrays himself as put upon because the current administration is not on board with his ideology. But the federal bureaucracy, academia, the media, and the rest of the liberal establishment are still aggressively on his side. Chances are alarmingly high that Trump will be followed by a far-left president as devoted as Obama was to wreaking economic havoc in the name of the climate. The only thing Mann has to fear is that his global warming gravy train will run out of fuel as the promised apocalypse fails to materialize and everyone loses interest.

On tips from Bodhisattva and ICEvictim. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.