This scientist explains something that most people unfortunately do not respond well to: the decades delay in the effects of atmospheric pollution. His metaphor about a car racing toward a wall is so perfect.
The climate deniers are well-funded by capitalists who realize that their system depends upon growth for its existence. Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal article is an example of this. Like a drug addict they are willing to risk future catastrophe in order to feed today their addiction to profits.
The history of science is littered with tens of thousands of discredited scientific papers that challenged the accepted scientific consensus and lost. If we rely on hopes that the next Einstein or Galileo will successfully overthrow the current scientific consensus on climate change, we are making a high-stakes, low-probability-of-success gamble on the future of civilization. The richest and most powerful corporations in world history, the oil companies, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to push us to take this gamble, and their efforts have been very successful. Advertising works, particularly when your competition has little money to spend to oppose you.
