After the recent UN findings on climate change, it was hard not to become intrigued all over again with climate change deniers. In one recent analysis, there were three types of deniers identified: The first are strategic deniers -- people who have a vested interest in, say, the oil industry; the second are people who just can't wrap their heads around the issue, so there's a cognitive dissonance going on and they deny out of fear; and the third are just plain deniers -- they simply don't believe climate change is real.
At SHFT, we find it pretty astonishing that in our world of unprecedented access to information, science and technology well over 100 members of the United States Congress are climate change deniers. These congressmen are of the first variety -- the strategic deniers -- and have probably encountered a lobbyist or two in their tenure.
As it turned out, we were recently invited by the League of Conservation Voters and Organizing for Action to help produce a short film called "Science Fair Nightmare," conceived and directed by Andy Cobb, and narrated by SHFT's Actor-cofounder, that takes the piss out of this kind of climate change denier in an effort to shed a little light on the issue.
Satire it is, but Cobb based the bit on a reality. Former Republican Congressman, and former climate change denier, Bob Inglis, attributed his transformation to enlightenment from his son. Retired Republican Senator John Warner said that his late-career conversion and then commitment to embracing the climate science was due in part to his children and grandchildren.
Young people overwhelmingly accept the science of climate change and are concerned about how it will affect their lives.
As President Obama advances his plan to address climate change, deniers of climate science in Congress will be forced to choose between willful ignorance or defenders of American lives and livelihoods.
When next you get the chance, or some extreme weather comes to your neck of the woods, tell your members of Congress: it's time to act on climate change. #ScienceSaysSo