A science historian takes on climate-change skeptics and fights off their attacks

Naomi Oreskes, a history of science professor at the University of California, San Diego, talks of climate change policy development and its effects. Oreskes says that the issue of climate-change is most affected when methods such as uncertainty of science research are erupted, leading to a delay in policy action. She highlights that it took 50 years and millions of people dying of tobacco-related diseases before policymakers took action to tax cigarettes, add warning labels on packages, and establish smoke-free public spaces. A key to the problem is the white-coat phenomenon, which include merchants of doubt that get heard because the media and public do not distinguish areas of scientific expertise. Despite the risk of retaliation, Oreskes thinks more scientists should be more vocal about the science consensus on climate change in public arenas