HOW TO CHANGE MINDS ABOUT OUR CHANGING CLIMATE

During the past week we witnessed 400,000 people marching in the People's Climate March in New York City, while many more mobilized in cities around the world (including 4,000 in Portland). During the United Nations climate summit two days later President Obama gave a forceful speech challenging the rest of the world to seriously address climate change now. From just reading the news it would seem that the world is finally on board to confront the dire threats posed by a climate in chaos. But believe it or not there are still powerful forces out there trying to stop this movement through lies and obfuscation - and many of these people are members of the United States House of Representatives.

On this episode of Locus Focus we look at how to take on the climate change deniers. We talk with Seth Darling and Douglas Sisterson, whose new book HOW TO CHANGE MINDS ABOUT OUR CHANGING CLIMATE presents science's strongest arguments for the reality of man-made climate change and the most concise and effective ways to deploy that data to change skeptics' minds. They dismantle all the most pernicious misconceptions about climate change: the confusion of climate with weather, claims that global warming isn't such a bad thing, concern that carbon taxes will kill jobs and hurt the poor, and even the belief that climate change is a hoax or conspiracy.

Seth B. Darling is a scientist in the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory and a fellow at the Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago.

Douglas L. Sisterson is a senior manager at Argonne National Laboratory for the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. He received the University of Chicago Pinnacle of Education Award in 2012.