Climatologist turned activist Michael Mann’s political action group is one of the groups actively pushing the supposedly non-partisan March for Science.
Mann, an academic at Pennsylvania State University, is using his PAC 314Action to promote what is expected to be one of the largest political events that the scientific community has ever orchestrated. His group is partnering with environmental group Earth Day Network to orchestrate a massive protest in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.
Founder Shaughnessy Naughton, a chemist, created the group in January shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration to push people with science backgrounds into politics. Mann, who is on the group’s board of directors, has leant his voice to the budding movement’s Earth Day event.
Organizers have said the event will be nonpartisan and meant to advocate “evidence-based policymaking, science education, research funding and inclusive and accessible science.”
His political activities suggest the event could be anything but political. He spent most House Science Committee testimony in March, for example, criticizing Republican congressmen for supposedly being in league with the fossil fuel industry.
Mann, who authored the now-famous Hockey Stick graph, also appeared to deny having any direct connection with the so-called Exxon Knew campaign, an environmentalist-led movement meant to pressure ExxonMobil on its supposedly spotty climate record.
His behavior at the testimony is pertinent considering 314 Action is targeting three of the committee’s members — GOP Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, and California Republican Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and Steve Knight – in the lead up to the 2018 congressional elections. The group’s mission is to oust congress’ climate skeptics.
Neither Mann nor 314Action responded to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Naughton explained in January that the group’s mission is to recruit people with science backgrounds to run for congress.
“There’s nothing in our Constitution that says we can only be governed by attorneys,” founder Shaughnessy Naughton said. “Especially now, we need people with scientific backgrounds that are used to looking at the facts and forming an opinion based on the facts.”
She has yet to address whether it is in 314Action’s charter to criticize climate skeptics during congressional testimonies.
Environmentalists and activists like Mann and Bill McKibben have bemoaned Trump’s climate skepticism, not to mention the president’s recent executive orders nixing regulations addressing man-made global warming.
Activists are using legal tools to perforate Trump’s climate agenda. Indigenous Environmental Network, for instance, filed a lawsuit in March suggesting the Trump administration’s approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline violates several environmental laws and potentially worsens climate change.
Climate skeptics, meanwhile, argue scientists like Mann are muddying the water and staking out unnecessarily harsh positions against people with different views.
“If climate change is indeed a looming catastrophe, you’d want to build a big political tent, no?” Roger Pielke Jr., a researcher at Colorado University, told TheDCNF in early April. He was referring to Mann’s decision to rhetorically firebomb those he should be trying to convince.
“Instead they are offending everyone who is not pure enough or ideologically in step. It’s remarkable,” said Pielke Jr., who joined Mann at his congressional testimony earlier this month.
Other academics disagree and say it’s a misnomer to believe that scientists should not become involved in political fights.
“Most scientists mistakenly believe that they can’t do it,” physicist Rush Holt told reporters in January as the March for Science campaign began taking off. Holt, who represented a New Jersey congressional district for 16 years, is not involved in 314Action’s campaign, but supports efforts to elect more scientists.
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