All right, lets get started. Let me remind you to turn off the sound on your cell phones. This is our number 3263, denial in the face of fact. I asked for a science panel, i got an antiscience panel. [laughter] tom so im tom blumen thatll. Im the former chair of molecular and Development Biology here in boulder. I am the director of the institute for Downs Syndrome at the medical school. Let me briefly introduce the subject. I want you to imagine a world where they were accepted. Where nobody was deliberately underseeking to undermine these facts just because they stood to gain financially or because they seem at odds with their religious beliefs. Huge numbers of americans simply dont believe facts, people believing in the truth matter as lot not because it affects the truth but because whether or not we act based on truth or fiction matter as lot. This isnt a scientific issue. Its a political one. Todays panelists will address the thorny question of how to get people to believe facts even when they dont want to. So let me introduce the panelists in the order in which theyre going to speak. First is michelle fowler. Shes an astronomer and a science communicator. Shes been a regular host of the history channels the universe. National geographic the known universe and the Discovery Channels how the universe works. You can say shes narrowly focused on the universe. [laughter] tom richard ally is evan pew professor of geo sciences at penn state university. Hes one of the major figures worldwide in the area of Climate Change and is dedicated to educating the public about what is happening and what will happen. He taught me that for what man has done to the atmosphere not to have caused Global Warming , the laws of physics will have to be wrong. Third is chip brulee, longterm activists in the cause of human rights. Hes a democratic socialist and civil rights asbsolutist and he has a new book too close for comfort predicted the tea party movement. Hes sorry. [laughter] tom leonard pip is a columnist for the miami herald. He has won the Pulitzer Prize on race in america. So first, michelle. Michelle well, good morning. You know, its one of the gaps in my training as a scientist that im finding myself in this sort of social situation as a science communicator where im dealing with this odd cadence of people insisting that something that is false is true and something that is true is false. This is something i dont have the rhetorical training and im trying to sort of get the chops to do this. This is actually going on in my life right now at this moment. But the idea that the false is true, that for example nasa could be hiding something from you, right now, we have the dom spacecraft it actually went into orbit around the largest solar system. This happened about three weeks ago. Its amazing. Im so excited. This is the first spacecraft that uses an ion drive and its gone from one asteroid toe another. 600 miles across. There may be evidence of liquid water underneath the surface of the asteroid. As they were approaching ceres there were these odd bright areas inside some of the craters and were wondering if theyre a lighter rock or it was ice. Which was very exciting. And then all of a sudden the images start coming. The reason is were using an ion drive. The thrust is very, very small. It is the equivalent the engine has the thrust equivalent of blowing on your hand just like that. Very, very low thrust engine. So we dont do a burn and start looping around. And orbit around the asteroid. We have to sneak up on orbit. And for the last two weeks weve been on the night side of the asteroid. Thats why there havent been more pictures. And were all waiting when we swing around to the day side and get better images. But this morning im answering emails about what are you hiding . What was in those craters. And the explanation is, no, this is orbital dynamics. This doesnt really seem to get people emotionally to respond to that. You know, i i want the months of my life back that 2012 apocalypse was because i was getting calls from people who were frightened and there were afraid that the world was coming to an end. And other people were i bet the world isnt coming to an end but i want to see where this astronomical conjunction is happening. The difficult thing to tell them is that there was nothing astronomical happening on that date. This thing was made up whole cloth. Its one of the reasons i actually stopped working with history channel. I was one of the regular host for the universe on the history channel. But they would present a show they were doing about asteroids or possible life on mars from a scientific perspective and then they would have ancient aliens right after it. Seriously right after it. And they would be presenting these things as equivalent. And there was enough to make me stop actually working with the history channel. You know, the strange thing was i think this gets at a lot of what is going on with vista nihilism with this do nihilism denialism is somebody calls me at nasa and they said, oh, my god, is it true the world is going to End Next Week . I sort of had enough. Think about this, do you think i would be in my Office Answering the phone if i thought the world was ending in a week . I said start getting worried when all of the scientists buy up expensive wine and max out their credit cards and all go to some tropical im land because island because then you know something bad is going to happen. But this idea that i am not a person, that i dont have feelings and emotions and a family and a reason to be alive, you know, that i wouldnt react emotionally if i knew the world was coming to an end. What an odd disconnect you know, somebody wants to separate the fact of being a scientist from the fact that you are a human being. And this is something that ive seen come over and over again. You know, i was listening to the wonderful keynote address that leonard was giving down there and he was using the term he didnt coin it. But he used it before. The weapons of mass distraction. When there are things going on that are bad for consumerism or people might say that theyre bad for the economy or any number of reasons, bad for the reactionary culture, for conservatism in culture people often will try to distract you with Something Else. And this started to make me very uncomfortable. And i actually really enjoyed working with the Discovery Channel and i talked to the Discovery Channel producers about this. But im beginning to have a ethical problem doing a show about the risk the earth stands from a gamma ray burst or from the risk that an asteroid can destroy us. When theres an even greater risk right now. And we are not talking about that on the Discovery Channel. We are not talk about the huge amount of data that makes human driven Climate Changes fact. And you know, this is the sort of thing where, you know, if you ask me for an elevator speech. Right . I am in an elevator with you and i have you for three minutes. Why should you believe that Climate Change is real and that it is human driven . What are some of the things that i think are the compelling arguments . Nasa has 20 satellites that deliver Climate Change data. Its one of the reasons why we have to really protect our Earth Science budget. Some of it is landsat, data about land use and the heavy of vegetation and the entire surface of the world for the last 43 years. We have a record of what things have changed in that time. My friends are flying Research Aircraft over the ice caps of the world right now. They are wonderful. Theyre incredible young scientists, young women especially and you know, we are measuring from orbit one of our satellites im most proud of is called grace. The gravity recovery and climate experiment. You know of it, do you . The thing with grace, grace is actually two spacecraft that flies at 100 miles apart from each other. Theres a microwave beam between the two of them. Victim measured measure the distance between the two spacecraft with they can measure the distance between the two spacecraft with just tiny accuracy that is actually about 100 the diameter of 100 hair. As these two fly, they respond to the mass underneath them. When one of them is flying over a Mountain Range it actually gets accelerated a bit by the gravity, it dips down a bit. They are above us right now they do a complete earth image every two days and theyre doing this dance. And the reason we measure mass is that there are areas on the earth where mass is changing very quickly. And one of the things we can measure are aquifers, the amount of water deep under the ground. From 300 miles up in space we can actually measure the amount of water in aquifers hundreds of feet below the ground. And we see those aquifers draining. You know, this is something that all of this data is not only free to everybody in america. Its free to everybody in the world. We want people to see these data. The other thing were measuring our the health of the ice caps. Are the health of the ice caps. And greenland was in reasonable equilibrium. It was bigger in the winter, it was smaller in the summer. There was a cycle. For the last 15 years the ice cap on greenland which is a land based ice cap has lost 200 billion tons a year that has not been replaced. And if anything that trend is accelerating. Antarctica, the land based ice sheets there were stable until just a few years ago. There is one, the western Antarctic Ice sheet is losing 200 tons a year and another ice sheet that is beyond saving. That water will go into the ocean. And at this point there isnt any way to reverse that trend. I think thats something you can say. And you know, people often ask me, are you allowed to say this as a nasa scientist and the answer is absolutely yes because these are the facts. What im not telling you about his policy. Is policy. As a federal official i cannot comment on what we should do about whether we should do carbon cap and trade, about whether we should use fossil fuels. That is not my right as a federal official. And i take that very seriously. I serve the United States government and you no matter what your political affiliation is. And i will give you the best information that nasa has about whats beginning on with Climate Change. And it is not my place to argue about the politics of it. So, you know, the idea the attack on what a scientist is, you know, are we not allowed to be human . You know, am i not allowed to go on television, which i have done, and say im scared . Its not that, you know, im going to tell you what to do but i can tell you my emotional response. And its become very apparent to nasa scientists that just delivering more and more data about, ok, we have the acidification of the ocean. I can tell you its not the sun. Because weve been studying the sun very closely for 30 years. So all of these data are not helping in the debate. And so instead were trying to draw back into our skills as storytellers and as people and as emotional human beings trying to tell this story. And ill wrap up with one quick sort of anecdote. If you ever wonder how much of an entertainment value people are getting out of this very important debate, i actually appeared on fox friends with steve doocy this year. Steve doocy had done a huge 10minute piece about how nasa scientists were lying about the Climate Change record about how there was a temperature point from 1934 and they moved it. This was immediately it was actually rated as pants on fire lie by an independent fact checker. They became more consistent with weather stations. We calibrated for the height difference which is something you in boulder know about at 6,000 feet. And i had all the facts and i went on the steve doocy show. At their invitation. And before the cameras rolled steve doocy was talking to me about this, about the facts, about the Climate Change data. About what had happened with these points. And i was feeling just as i was to you i was being, just as i was to you, very friendly and nonconfrontational saying your money pays my salary. And steve doocy, the cameras rolled. He gave me a very soft ball question about air quality and got me off. He wouldnt even let me talk. So theyre not interested in telling you what the facts are. Theyre interested in the entertainment, in the clicks, in the selling the ads on the, you know, Television Shows. And you know, its one of the things we have to decouple. What have you heard about Climate Change and why are you skeptical about it . It is something we really have to delve into. Thank you. [applause] tom so for those of you not familiar with the conference on World Affairs we will hold questions until each of the panelists has spoken. The next speaker is richard alley. Richard thank you. I am sitting there to trying real hard not to give michelle a standing ovation. I am a climate scientist, we use that climate data. We share friends at nsf and nooaa. We were pointing about places that we are getting our food by pumping water out of the ground so fast that its not being replaced that its changing the orbit of satellites. People get that. All right. So and im a climate scientist so im one of the people who have gotten the occasional email that says youre an evil liar. Im trying to get you fired. I hate you. Im going to watch you. I know where you are. Ive also weighed into the evolution issues and ive editorialized on that. And the people who do not want to see evolution taught tend to be much nicer to me than the people who do not want to see Climate Change taught. For what it is so im a geologist and i do climate and i do ice sheets. If you come back at 3 00 today here, i will tell you a little bit about how we can solve some of this. But im going to tiptoe into jims world, maybe, and he will straighten me out later. But michelle gave me such a beautiful opening here. So there is some research on some of the many well springs of this i dont want to hear the facts. And i want to show you a little piece of that, not the whole thing, ok . And so first of all, i would like you to think when you have ever been in one of the great cities of the world, london or paris or new york or whatever and tried to drive a car or seen somebody driving a car or at least when you heard about people driving cars in one of the great cities of the world. And i would like a show of hands very briefly, how many of you have the impression that the great cities of the world are uniquely and beautifully designed to be absolutely optimal for moving the modern mix of traffic, right . And theres a number of reasons for this. But one of them is that the great cities of the world are designed for an ox cart coming to market 1,000 years ago. And they have built themselves around the streets that were built for an ox cart 1,000 years ago. And they have built overpasses and overpassed underpasses, and through passes but they are still preserving the streets from hundreds of years ago from an ox cart. I want you to think of a baby, a oneyearold and a twoyearold and how fast they learn and what they learn. And by the time they are one or two, they have a naive physics. If i sit this in midair it will fall down. If i set it on something it will stay there. It is not rotating around 24 hours going 25,000 miles on a spinning earth, it sits there. And you know, im a baby and there are certain things that come out of me that require that my diaper be changed. But a gaseous emission is not one of them. And i am learning who is a reliable source and who takes care of me and who my people are and so forth. And i get a view of the world that is works. But a puppy grows up to be a dog. And if i throw something, it hits where i threw it. And now i go off to school and i i start learning science and the scientist said this actually has a quantum way function and it could go two slots at the same time and im on this giant ball spinning through space all around the place and i am falling towards the center of mass all the time. And you know, those trace gases that come out of my rear end and the other ones that come out of your tail pipe are going to change the climate even though i know that they dont matter because they dont have to change my diaper. And if you watch the puppy grow into a dog and the puppy grow into a dog and you do that long enough and theres a reason to selection that affects survival you will get something that is different. And none of that makes any sense. None of that is the ox cart that was laid down in my brain when i was one. And when theyve asked, you know, so you go to a sevenyearold and theyve been told the world is round and people have done experiments and they have a little troubles with this, many of them do. Theyll draw the world round with you living inside. Or theyll draw the world round with a flat spot where you live or a little divot and it may be nine or so before you get back. Eventually all of us, with a very small number of exceptions apparently theres still a flat Earth Society but eventually almost all of us get that. But we get it because all of the trusted Authority Figures in our world tell us that. And we have trusted Authority Figures. We have built very young sort of a hierarchy of who were going to believe and where were going to take our information from. And when all of our trusted Authority Figures say yes, the world is round we get it. But when some of our trusted Authority Figures say nasa is lying to you from the satellites. Theyre making up the data. Theyre sneaking it around. Now the idea that maybe the gas that comes out of me doesnt change the world because i dont have to change my diaper, maybe that you can stick with it. You done have to believe the scientists. And what we seen is this rise of Authority Figures who say that the two of us are evil liars right . And so in some very real sense that we can go into our media bubble, we can go into our c