on August 5th, a chunk of Greenland, four times the size of Manhattan, calved off and fell into the sea. Ed Markey, the Congressman, said that's ample room for the professional deniers to set up their own country and they're now trying to figure out what to call it.But it is if folks need evidence that this is going on, the evidence is all around us.
And I went, "Woe, the only constant in there is me." And that's how these patterns started to develop and how we began to work with them. The Martyr becomes an Integrator, and instead The Denier becomes a Trust Builder by saying, "There is a problem and we have to face it and we're going to dig down and find solutions.” And the Splitter, who goes from one to the
Now, to be clear, Bradley Smith is not a global warming denier . He is a corruption denier . And he said this--we were on in interview on the radio.
That said, there are people, roughly a quarter to a third of the country according to the polls, who aren't sure it's happening or don't think it's happening. And I am, I'm not here to call you a denier or to question your motives. I think there are people of, as I say in the book, and maybe you haven't gotten to this part yet, people of goodwill who don't think this is happening. That said, there are plenty of books out there that explain what's happening and why. And I didn't feel that what I brought to the party would necessarily be another
They feel abstract and distant and isolated, rather than like beams of an ever strengthening narrative. So-called climate change deniers reject the conclusion that 97% of climate scientists have reached-- the planet is warming because of human activity. But what about those of us who say we accept the reality of human caused climate change?
But then when it hits the Earth, it emits infrared radiation with longer waves and that you're trapped and bounce back when they try to escape on their way back up into space. And climate deniers today, from Ted Cruz to Rand Paul to Bobby Jindal, might say, bounce back off of what? Introducing John Tyndall. In the 1860s Tyndall investigated methane and CO2 and water vapor to see whether any of them
the journalism community began to move on from that false opposition. And then they began to do it with the economics, which was the second great front in the climate war. When the climate deniers saw that people were no longer swayed by disinformation on the science, they began to fill the airwaves with disinformation on economics and they claimed that any action to stop climate change would destroy the American economy. They hired economists,
Don't question me. Or maybe they would call it body change, right? Are you a body change denier ? Body change is real.
Yet, we have this amazing contingent or a segment of our society that's in denial about climate change, because of the success of the climate deniers . They've been so influential.
So it's a big problem, and it's almost unique to the United States. There's very few climate deniers in other-- in the UK, there's quite a few, I guess. But at the recent summit of the 20 largest economies, the United States was isolated.
There is a map of the electoral college of only millennials that voted, and it's overwhelmingly the other way on social issues, especially climate change. So I think climate change deniers , who are affiliated with the conservative parties, are very much aware of that. And so there's a big hustle to get very conservative judges put in place in the Supreme Court and to maintain this denial as long as possible,
You go, this doesn't speak to my values. If we can get the climate deniers to do exactly what the climate acknowledgers want, do we care whether or not they're
was settled and it was time to move on. Because, by refusing to engage the deniers , they seeded the messaging space to the professional deniers , who filled it up with this information. And Gore and the Green Group, which is the loose coalition of major environmental organizations in this country, made a decision to stop arguing about it and say, "Well now we have to move on." Well, even though they were right, I think it was the wrong tactic because you
So imagine, the stakes here are very high, and they're playing out all around us. You think of the climate scientist up against the climate denier . And I think the mindset is often like, well, I'm right, and that should be enough.
Like that's the hypothetical situation that we think discrimination is in this field. You can have the most dedicated climate change denier , but once they get that government tax rebate to put solar panels on their roof,
--a quarter to 2:00, it will be done. And why do you think that there are so many deniers ? Oh, because of the fossil fuel industry.
How do we get to the place that we need to be? Well, climate deniers , in this one case, not so much anti-vaxxers, but climate deniers are almost universally old. They're almost all older people, over 50 years, 60, 70 years old, people who control a lot of the money.
the folks at the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, who are trying to keep the world safe for coal-fired electric generation and essentially stave off climate legislation for as long as possible. A professional climate denier named Myron Ebell from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Jim Hansen, the climatologist, and a number of other people on various sides of the fight right down to the activists who are chaining themselves to bulldozers to try to prevent the construction of coal-fired power plants. So, I basically was a ping-pong
So hand, are you a Pleaser, or do you know a Pleaser? Okay? Another one that I mentioned was a Denier . That's somebody who never sees a problem. We had a big thing here -- and I don't want to go into politics -- but a year ago right around now, there were a lot of people saying, "What problem with the economy?
And I went, "Woe, the only constant in there is me." And that's how these patterns started to develop and how we began to work with them. The Martyr becomes an Integrator, and instead Or, How do I show up as a Denier ? as a way in.
And part of my argument here is that we've had-- the story we've been telling us has been able to be co-opted. The main story we've been telling has been co-opted by climate deniers as a way of blunting our activity. So what are we trying to sustain?
hurt by the natural disaster. And she's got some amazing stories of lawmakers who were climate change deniers , but when natural disaster hit their city, they become believers. In other words, the horrors and the experience of droughts and floods that have ravaged their cities have caused them to become believers.
And I pushed a button here, and as I pushed the button, it started stretching into two dimensional directions. You know, you have all the global climate deniers , right?
because they also don't have the manpower to like monitor every new group as soon as it's put up so you know these groups get on to the site and people join them and um and you know so some people were just hammering at Facebook for allowing holocaust deniers to create groups on the site. And you know Facebook's policy is as long as these groups are not directly advocating violence against others, we're gonna let them exist. It's speech.
these culprits are and why it's been so hard for us to achieve any kind of climate action at the federal level. The first group that you have to begin with is the professional deniers . And let me just say, I differentiate between regular folks who are skeptical about climate change and don't know what to believe and the paid professional public relations executives whose job it has
in this country, made a decision to stop arguing about it and say, "Well now we have to move on." Well, even though they were right, I think it was the wrong tactic because you all know what happened. The deniers , along with their enablers in my line of work, the journalists who are scared to come out and say anything without hedging it, so they're always looking for what climatologists say. "This is happening, but I'm gonna get the appearance of balance into my stories. So, I'm gonna look for somebody who's saying 'Well,
so I was there with the Koch brothers and assorted Republicans. And as you'll, see I disavow this label of denier . But I had no expectation whatsoever of becoming even really pro-fossil fuels, but let alone a passion that has consumed,
It's too much. They can't see the whole thing. So the Avoider, "Got to go" guy. The Denier , "What problem?” And the Splitter, who says "Well, you know, this guy tells me one thing and I'll believe that. And this other guy tells me something else and I'll believe that.” And you never get anything fully completed.
And we have to address-- this is a picture from Katrina-- the way in which federal resilience and adaptation dollars are not going, right now, to the communities that I think that is quite analogous to climate, where we have the continued presence of climate deniers
We know about the fossil fuel industry and how they fund right wing think tanks and deniers across the world in trying to discredit
It's vile. It's approaching the vileness of Holocaust deniers .
70% of Americans have said they wished America would have stayed in the Paris Climate Accords, and that includes the majority of Republicans. I think there's a sort of misunderstanding about the balance of people who are accepters of the science and deniers of the science. And a lot of us have the impression that about half of the country doesn't believe that it's happening, when, in fact, there's a very small slice of the country that
And I think that, for environmentalists to understand the people who they call climate deniers , I think it's useful to wrestle with this history,
Hi. I'm wondering if you've encountered a lot of climate change deniers or human impact deniers .
with climate science and you read The Climate War, you will pick up an awful lot of carefully fact-checked science about exactly what's happening and why. But the thrust of the book is politics and economics, because what I found with the professional deniers is they were more than happy to fight this war on multiple levels for people who are still capable of being convinced that the science is not sound and we don't really know what's happening.
Eric: Thank you. member #1: I guess you've been doing it a long time, so, but you seem to be preaching to the converted. So, I wonder how you picked a side and what you would say to someone who view you, who views you the way you view those you call deniers , as somebody who might be sincere, but is profoundly mistaken on the science? Eric: Fair question. The, as I say, I don't, I reserve the term deniers for the paid professionals
And we have to address-- this is a picture from Katrina-- the way in which federal resilience and adaptation dollars are not going, right now, to the communities that But here's the question I'm glad you didn't ask me, which I often get, which is what's the best way to convince a climate denier that they're
I'm not on social media, but my friends reported that I was being called all sorts of names, including birdbrain and climate change denier .
was the position of the Republican Party, which by the polarizing logic of online discourse, made me a climate change denier .
So he debated and it got covered on the "New York Times" web site. Or I didn't really ever think I'd make a "Rolling Stone" top 10 list, but a couple of years ago I made the denier elite, so I was there with the Koch brothers and assorted Republicans.
And you say, I know, but I want to know the magnitude. And they say, what are you, a vaccine side effect denier ? Don't question me. Or maybe they would call it body change, right?
The consensus about that among people who have studied it, is roughly the same as the consensus among scientists that global warming is taking place." Now, to be clear, Bradley Smith is not a global warming denier . He is a corruption denier .
with better speech, with more speech. Um, personally I think it's kind of a good thing if you, you know, if this happens on Facebook 'cause even there, if they're enforcing their rules about you know people having to use their real name and picture, you can kind of go on these groups and go 'that person's a holocaust denier '. You know, I mean he's made himself public in a way. Um, we're not gonna get rid of holocaust denial by hiding
There's no problem with the economy.” We had a lot of people doing that when there was a problem. Deniers are going, "Everything's fine." They can see people grimacing, but they'll still say, "There's no problem here.” Do you know a Denier , or are you a Denier , okay? Two more. Another one would be the Martyr.
foolish. And I think it is the case, as climate deniers often say,
But in terms of other human impacts, interestingly enough, you very rarely hear people being ocean acidification deniers .
human beings, long to transcend. We want more than just the material. I think even people, even-- even Bill Maher or Christopher Hitchens, or any of the adamant God deniers , still are
in any realm of science. Debate never goes away and I actually think that Al Gore and the environmental community made a strategic error when they announced that the debate was settled and it was time to move on. Because, by refusing to engage the deniers , they seeded the messaging space to the professional deniers , who filled it up with this information. And Gore and the Green Group, which is the loose coalition of major environmental organizations
Manufacturers had stood up and said that in 2030, the sky will be yellow and the sun will be blue, the headline the next day would read, "Sun Will Be Blue Economist Warns" and they would just put it out there. So, the press enabled the deniers as, and I call them the "deny and delay community" because step one was denying climate science and step two is delaying climate action. It was less interesting as I hung out with the professional deniers
would just put it out there. So, the press enabled the deniers as, and I call them the "deny and delay community" because step one was denying climate science and step two is delaying climate action. It was less interesting as I hung out with the professional deniers to see their twisted take on the science then it was to learn about their view of the politics because they laid out an entire playbook for how they intended to kill climate action and