Naomi Oreskes, professor of history and science studies at UCSD, was named the “Climate Change Communicator of the Year” for 2011 by George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication.
The national award comes on the heels of her critically acclaimed book "Merchants of Doubt," which detailed a long-running campaign to undermine public confidence in the scientific understanding of climate change. The book included a prominent figure at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and was a finalist in the Los Angeles Times annual book awards.
"Working climate scientists have come to view Dr. Oreskes as their champion. Her fearless work – often performed in the face of threats of legal action – has helped to expose the non-scientific pressures climate scientists have encountered during the course of their research," said John Abraham at the University of St. Thomas and Benjamin Santer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who nominated Oreskes.
"Her courage and persistence in communicating climate science to the wider public have made her a living legend amongst her colleagues. While we are uncomfortable using such strong language to describe a colleague, it is fully warranted in this case. We have no reservations in providing our strongest support for this nomination, for a colleague who exhausts superlatives," Abraham and Santer said.
Merchants of Doubt
Seitz, Singer, Nierenberg, and Jastrow had all served in high levels of science administration, where they had come to know admirals and generals, congressmen and senators, even presidents. They had also dealt extensively with the media, so they knew how to get press coverage for their views, and how to pressure the media when they didn’t. They used their scientific credentials to present themselves as authorities, and they used their authority to try to discredit any science they didn’t like.Over the course of more than twenty years, these men did almost no original scientific research on any of the issues on which they weighed in.
Once they had been prominent researchers, but by the time they turned to the topics of our story, they were mostly attacking the work and the reputations of others. In fact, on every issue, they were on the wrong side of the scientific consensus. Smoking does kill— both directly and indirectly. Pollution does cause acid rain. Volcanoes are not the cause of the ozone hole.
Our seas are rising and our glaciers are melting because of the mounting effects of green house gases in the atmosphere, produced by burning fossil fuels. Yet, for years the press quoted these men as experts, and politicians listened to them, using their claims as justification for inaction. President George H. W. Bush once even referred to them as “my scientists.” Although the situation is now a bit better, their views and arguments continue to be cited on the Internet, on talk radio, and even by members of the U.S. Congress.
Why would scientists dedicated to uncovering the truth about the natural world deliberately misrepresent the work of their own colleagues? Why would they spread accusations with no basis? Why would they refuse to correct their arguments once they had been shown to be incorrect? And why did the press continue to quote them, year after year, even as their claims were shown, one after another, to be false? This is the story we are about to tell. It is a story about a group of scientists who fought the scientific evidence and spread confusion on many of the most important issues of our time. It is a story about a pattern that continues today. A story about fighting facts, and merchandising doubt.
-- Excerpt from the introduction, reprinted with permission from Bloomsbury Press