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I know many many hundreds of climate scientists, including some self-identified climate skeptics, and I can tell you in the entire USA there are only 3 or 4 climate scientists who depart from the mainstream view. But they get media attention colossally out of proportion...
Naomi Oreskes enthusiastically tells us about regional and local success stories all across the country in proving we can fight climate change without "freezing in the dark and giving up our way of life". She urges us not to focus just on the politicians in Washington DC but take inspiration from these local, community-based efforts all across the world!
A moving video by Naomi Oreskes on the impoverishment climate change will bring, both financially and biologically. From increased food prices, to trillions of dollars in protecting important infrastructure, to loss of biodiversity, the impacts will be felt by everyone.
Naomi describes how climate change isn't a problem for the future that can be solved in the future – it's happening right now across the country and across the world!
To Naomi Oreskes, noted Harvard professor and chronicler of climate science and our society, climate change will bring extraordinary injustice. While wealthy countries have received huge benefits from fossil fuels, it's poor countries that will be most harmed.
Why do you go to the dentist when you have a problem with your teeth? You don't go to your car mechanic, you don't ask your husband to pull your tooth out. Like that -- you have a group of people who are highly trained, they have a set of tools, they have an expertise. And guess what? Climate scientists have actually gotten this right.
There's an important distinction between (a) questions of scientific evidence and scientific conclusions vs (b) the policy questions of what we want to do about it. Egged on by organizations with a policy agenda, mass media has done a huge disservice to the American people by blurring that distinction.
There's all kinds of ways that things we care about are being threatened today by climate change right now, here in the United States, in the places we live.
An amazing (and horrifying) story of how Naomi learned that the people attacking her were the same people and tactics used in a wide range of public health issues going back to tobacco use!
Why is no one is on TV saying "Oh we don't believe in gravity waves"? It's because gravity waves have no economic consequences. If gravity waves had an economic consequence you can be sure people would be fighting them!
Naomi Oreskes enthusiastically tells us about regional and local success stories all across the country in proving we can fight climate change without "freezing in the dark and giving up our way of life". She urges us not to focus just on the politicians in Washington DC but take inspiration from these local, community-based efforts all across the world!
But when I started working on the history of climate science, I became the target of attacks. And I started wondering, who are these people attacking me and why do they reject science?