Not Cool Ep 26: Naomi Oreskes on trusting climate science

It’s the Not Cool series finale, and by now we’ve heard from climate scientists, meteorologists, physicists, psychologists, epidemiologists and ecologists. We’ve gotten expert opinions on everything from mitigation and adaptation to security, policy and finance. Today, we’re tackling one final question: why should we trust them? Ariel is joined by Naomi Oreskes, Harvard professor and author of seven books, including the newly released "Why Trust Science?" Naomi lays out her case for why we should listen to experts, how we can identify the best experts in a field, and why we should be open to the idea of more than one type of "scientific method." She also discusses industry-funded science, scientists’ misconceptions about the public, and the role of the media in proliferating bad research.

Topics discussed include:

-Why Trust Science?

-5 tenets of reliable science

-How to decide which experts to trust

-Why non-scientists can't debate science

-Industry disinformation

-How to communicate science

-Fact-value distinction

-Why people reject science

-Shifting arguments from climate deniers

-Individual vs. structural change

-State- and city-level policy change