I almost never use this word, but this time it’s apt… Naomi Oreskes is my hero. She’s a historian of science who wrote ‘Merchants of Doubt’ (together with Erik M Conway), a wonderfully detailed book that builds evidence against a small set of scientists who have decided to take money from private industries and use their authority (or sham authority) to systematically saw the seeds of doubt about scientific evidence in relation to global warming. These same scientists historically have done the same about cigarette smoking and acid rain as well, the global warming ‘skepticism’ is just another round of the same game of paid denialism.

Here’s a video of Naomi Oreskes confronting Senator Nick Minchin (who was Minister for Industry, Science and Resources 1998-2001) who is still clinging to the notion that global warming is not caused by human activity.

I have previously blogged on Merchants of Doubt, you can look it up here under ‘science and technology’.

Here’s another one where Oreskes explores the scientific consensus behind IPCC documents…