I was going to blog this later today, but now I see Tim over at Deltoid has beaten me to it, so I’ll post this without much comment. (Shakes fist in impotent fury at those damned Australians!) Like Tim, I received a heads-up from John Mashey regarding an online talk by Naomi Oreskes titled "The American Denial of Global Warming." It’s an hour long presentation that discusses the "history of the global warming disinformation campaign, led by corporate-funded policy operatives and ideologically-driven scientists, who employed the ’tobacco strategy’ to manipulate public opinion to create an exaggerated sense of uncertainty about scientific evidence on global warming and climatic disruption." Sounds just like the DI’s attack on evolution, doesn’t it?
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This is an excellent presentation and well worth the hour you will need to watch it. Her published version is found in "Climate Change: What it means for you, your children, and your grandchildren", edited by Joseph DiMento. It's entitled "How do we know we're not wrong?" The published version is excellent, too, but omits the "tobacco strategy" portion. Too bad, as that is great fuel for arguing with deniers. Watch this first, then buy the book.
Posted by: Nebularry | February 10, 2008 11:47 AM
I have just listened to the whole lecture and would like to salute Naomi Oreskes with the biggest cheer my voice is capable of producing. I just wish I had a typed transcript of her lecture. I urge all readers of this blog to listen too and to ensure that as many people as possible also listen to what Naomi says. This lecture should be put on national television for peak time viewing all over the English-speaking world.
Posted by: Mrs Hilary Victoria Minor | February 10, 2008 11:53 AM
Naomi Oreskes has graciously made the printed version that Nebularry mentions available here (scroll down to the end of the post).
Posted by: John Lynch | February 10, 2008 2:56 PM
Just to avoid confusion:
1) The paper mentioned in #1 & #3 is a dandy paper, well worth reading, with plenty of material relevant to science in general.
2) But, it is *not* a printed version of "The American Denial of Global Warming". Some of it overlaps with the first part of here talk, but there is very little from the second part. The first part is a good exposition of science that is fairly well-known. The second part is a good historical unearthing of some of the odd origins of climate change denialism, and how that happened is *not* so well-known.
3) If every reader wrote a short note to their local newspaper, and some editors actually watched the video, it might do some good.
Posted by: John Mashey | February 11, 2008 1:56 AM
Sorry, until she is able to convince most skeptics that McIntyre and McKitrick are wrong she is going to have a heard time convincing realists. Go there yourselves and read.
http://www.climateaudit.org/
Posted by: Manish Ghosh | February 11, 2008 12:50 PM