« Climate Change »

Naomi Oreskes Misquoted by VOA

Author: Naomi Oreskes

Dear Colleagues,

Some folks have been commenting unfavorably about a press release issued by Voice of America, to accompany a recent interview I did with them. I would urge you to listen to the interview, because the press release misrepresented my comments. In my interview, I was at pains to emphasize that the recent tsunami has nothing to do with global warming, and it would be a mistake to imply that it did. I did say, however, and stand by the comment, that these events do illustrate the extreme vulnerability of millions of impoverished people, who live in coastal areas, to the kinds of effects that global warming may produce, and that poor countries are less able than wealthy ones to protect themselves.

The press release also misquoted me with respect to the causes of global warming, saying that I said that "agriculture also contributes to Global Warming by producing carbon dioxide." In fact, I said that agriculture contributes to global warming through methane production, which was part of trying to make the point that we are all implicated in global warming, rich and poor, industrialized and non-industrialized, and therefore it behooves us to work together, rather than to point fingers.

Naomi Oreskes