Naomi Oreskes: A Chronicler of Warnings Denied
A Chronicler of Warnings Denied
Like many people, I used to think the scientific community was divided about climate change. Then in 2004, as part of a book I was doing on oceanography, I did a search of 1,000 articles published in peer-reviewed scientific literature in the previous 10 years.
I asked how many showed evidence that disagreed with the statement made in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report: “Most of the observed warming over the past 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.” I found that none did. Zero.
That was astonishing, because if someone like myself had believed that the science was unsettled, what did the ordinary citizen think? I published my finding in Science. The article was called “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change.”
It ignited a firestorm. I started getting hate mail. Letters arrived at my university demanding I be fired. At the same time, Al Gore talked about my paper in “An Inconvenient Truth.” Suddenly, I was a hero to the left because of Al Gore and a demon to the right because I was now part of the conspiracy to bring down capitalism. I thought I’d entered a parallel universe.
How does the free market prevent acid rain or climate change? It doesn’t. How do we know about the potential harm to individuals or the environment? Because of science. And how does one prevent harm? With regulation. To prevent regulation, we’ve had this campaign of doubt-mongering about science and scientists.
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