Lecture by Naomi Oreskes/Harvard University, "Epistemic Privilege and the Gender 0f Climate Change Denial" on Thursday, October 17, 2024 from 5:00-6:30 in 1008 Humanities. Part of the College of Arts and Sciences Sir Run Run Shaw lecture series. Co-sponsored by HISB.

The politics of climate change denial—driven by fossil fuel interests, libertarian ideology, and market fundamentalist politics—has been the topic of considerable scholarly research, including my own. Polls have repeatedly shown that climate change denial is strongly correlated with conservative politics. But less discussed is the role of epistemic privilege, and the gender of climate change denial. In this talk, I will discuss the evidence that climate change denial is primarily promoted by wealthy white men, why that is the case, and what we can do about it.

Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. An internationally renowned scientist, historian, and public intellectual, she is a leading voice on the reality on anthropogenic climate change and the history of anti-scientific disinformation. Oreskes is the author or co-author of nine books, including The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science (1999), Why Trust Science? (2019), and Science on a Mission: How Military Funding Shaped What We Do and Don’t Know about the Ocean (2021), and over 150 scholarly and popular articles. Her opinion pieces have appeared around the globe, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times (London), and the Frankfurter Allgemeine. Her best-selling 2010 book with Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt, has been translated into nine languages, sold over 100,000 copies, and made into a documentary film. Her 2014 book, also with Erik M. Conway, The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, has been translated into twelve languages. Her new book with Erik Conway is The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market (Bloomsbury Press 2023).

Photo credit: Kayana Szymczak