Tur, Mann Imply GOP Is To Blame For Flooding, Sea Level Raise

MSNBC’s Katy Tur brought Prof. Michael Mann to MSNBC’s Wednesday program to argue that the GOP was directly responsible for rising sea levels and flooding because they refuse to acknowledge the coming figurative comet.

The genesis for the segment was a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report that stated that U.S. coasts will experience a one-foot rise in sea levels by 2050 and that there is nothing that can be done to prevent this. Mann acknowledged this, but he maintained that further increases in carbon emissions are necessary.

Tur tried then to put blame on apathetic Republicans, and people who don’t want their lives destroyed by radical environmentalists. 

“It’s like we’re looking up at the sky and seeing a comet come towards us, like that movie that just came out and there’s a good portion of the population that sees it and says ‘yeah, I see it, it’s coming. We’ve got to do something about it.’ And there’s a solid portion of the population who refuses to see it,” she whined. “And there’s a portion of the population who sees it and wants to do something but doesn’t want to disrupt their lives as—as– they currently stand.”

She then wondered: “how do you not get really cynical and really depressed, Michael?” 

Mann didn’t answer that absurd question, instead, he chose to go after Republicans:

Yeah. Yes. Don’t Look Up but in this case we’ve got, you know, one of our two major parties that doesn’t want to look down. They don’t want to look down at the warming of the ocean and the sea level rise that’s already having disastrous impacts on red states, like Florida, which is seeing some of the worst consequences. It is, indeed, frustrating. For those of us who watched the—the– film, you know, Don’t Look Up, it was both — it was amusing, at the same time very, sort of, disconcerting because we are facing this. We are facing a politically motivated, you know, belief system that denies this, you know, catastrophe that is unfolding in real-time. Not as quickly as the comet that strikes the planet in the film, but quickly enough that we’re seeing these devastating consequences.

Mann’s MSNBC appearance did not cover the Doomsday prediction that had failed, and it also happened at the exact same moment as Sarah Palin’s lawsuit for libel against her was dismissed by the media New York Times Mann continues to pursue Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn for critiquing his work.

This segment has been sponsored by Progressive.

The transcript of the February 16, 2018 show is available here:

MSNBC Katy Tur reports
2/16/2022
2:48 PM ET

KATY TUR: So I feel a little bit like we are being shown exactly what’s going to happen in the future or—or– not exactly, we’re shown an idea of what could happen in the future. It’s like we’re looking up at the sky and seeing a comet come towards us, like that movie that just came out and there’s a good portion of the population that sees it and says “yeah, I see it, it’s coming. We’ve got to do something about it.” And there’s a solid portion of the population who refuses to see it. And there’s a portion of the population who sees it and wants to do something but doesn’t want to disrupt their lives as—as– they currently stand. How—how do you not–how do you not — how do you not get really cynical and really depressed, Michael? 

MICHAEL MANN (Yes) You know what? The film is. Don’t Look Up but in this case we’ve got, you know, one of our two major parties that doesn’t want to look down. They don’t want to look down at the warming of the ocean and the sea level rise that’s already having disastrous impacts on red states, like Florida, which is seeing some of the worst consequences. This is all frustrating. For those of us who watched the—the– film, you know, Don’t Look Up, it was both — it was amusing, at the same time very, sort of, disconcerting because we are facing this. We are facing a politically motivated, you know, belief system that denies this, you know, catastrophe that is unfolding in real-time. Not as quickly as the comet that strikes the planet in the film, but quickly enough that we’re seeing these devastating consequences, these floods that now occur far more often along the U.S. east coast, sunny day flooding where it doesn’t even take a storm now to flood the streets of Miami Beach and other cities along the U.S. east coast. So it’s happening. That—that– comet is arriving in slow motion and we’ve got to do something about it strikes. 

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