I spent years doubting the science of climate change and spending time with people who didn’t believe in the science either.
When I realised I was wrong, I felt really embarrassed.
To move away from those people meant leaving behind an entire community at a time when I didn’t have many friends.
I went through a really difficult time. But the truth matters.
I’m the granddaughter of coal miners in Pennsylvania and my family moved to Florida when I was young.
We have a Polish Catholic background and we attended church regularly, but at the same time we were very connected to science because my mum was a nurse and my dad sold microscopes and other scientific equipment.
While it’s wonderful she finally started questioning things, she deserves to feel way more than embarrassed for all the time she wasted and all the lies she repeated while believing it was a hoax.
Especially considering she was a science teacher before she finally changed her mind. Think of how many years she spent teaching misinformation. Is an “I’m sorry” and being embarrassed enough to make up for that, really?
It took her until well after “Climategate” to begin questioning it, and it seems like she listened to Rush Limbaugh religiously.
I’m glad she changed her mind, but this story is not inspiring to me. It’s anger-inducing that we have to fucking free these people from the mental fucking cages they built for themselves. Her being an absolute fucking disgrace to science education who woke up and was like “Oh shit, I don’t want to be an absolute fucking disgrace anymore” isn’t fucking newsworthy or inspiring. It’s bare minimum expectations of a decent fucking human being.
No amount of apologies will be enough from people who spread this religiously-backed bullshit misinformation. It has held back human society for fucking hundreds of years now.
People should have woken the fuck up when Galileo was punished by the church for promoting Heliocentrism. The Inquisition basically threatened him with death for telling the truth. Why the fuck people still follow this religious horseshit is a mystery to me other than people like this chucklefuck parrot it half her life.
granddaughter of coal miners
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
–Upton Sinclair
When someone is indoctrinated for generations it’s hard to pull away. Hopefully she makes up for it but at least she now realizes that she was wrong.
Why is this an excuse? I don’t even know what my grandparents did for a living. Just because they may have been tailors doesn’t mean I would have any special knowledge passion or feeling on fashion or the clothing industry.
I don’t even know what my grandparents did for a living.
I mean, if it was your great grandparents that’s different, but your grandparents?
Honestly that’s a little bit sad that you don’t even know that much about them.
Also, you not knowing or caring doesn’t mean that’s the case for everyone…though it does shed light on why you may not understand the significance of coal mining on the coal region of the US.
It was more than simply an occupation.
lol, no. Continuing to not support actual science because of some bullshit reason like my grandparents had a job like 70 years ago is ignorant plain and simple. There is no amount of culture or tradition that can justify that.
On one hand I agree but on the other if we’re jerks about people coming to our side it will make those considering it hesitant. Still not an excuse, but it will keep some on the wrong side longer
I agree, but I don’t think we have to be jerks to them to make them understand that saying sorry and trying to change isn’t enough to counteract what they’ve already done, and they owe society a lot more than that. That’s not being jerks, that’s being real.
If they can’t handle that measured critique, it’s because they refuse to take any kind of self-responsibility, which speaks to them still being on the wrong side of history.
but I don’t think we have to be jerks to them to make them understand that saying sorry and trying to change isn’t enough to counteract what they’ve already done
Who gets to decide what’s enough? You? Me? Never mind the fact that the article says what she’s done.
How about we let those people who turn their beliefs around decide what’s enough instead.
The important thing has to be the fact that they’ve realised their mistake. The rest of it is just fluff.
Precisely put, thank you. She cannot change the past, she cannot get the years of her own misplaced belief back, and for all the betrayal we feel in this minute reading about her actions, the betrayal she feels daily about the actions of her close friends and family (and Rush fucking Limbaugh!) is magnitudes greater.
She saw the light, she changed her ways, and she’s helping others change theirs.
In reality, that’s the very best we can expect.
Anything more – like changing the past, or holding her personally accountable for the beliefs of tens of millions of deluded American pseudo-christians – is just as much fantasy on our part as denial of climate change once was on her own part.
We need to stop expecting more morality from a stranger than we would ever expect of ourselves.
EDITED for clarity
What do you want from her, exactly? For her to live the rest of her life in shame? Kill herself? Feel bad about it until she gets tired of feeling that way and looks for some way to lash out at those insisting she needs to feel bad forever?
Don’t make picking the right choice another bad option.
Fairly written.
It’s so hard to celebrate this, and yet we really should .
I have changed my mind about it. Ask me about 2003 I would have said I am not convinced. When I saw more evidence I changed my views.
While true, the fact is that we’re in immediate danger from the effects of climate change, and if we push away those willing to change by shaming their past rather than celebrating their willingness to change we’re probably just hurting our cause.
Well said.
For as much as some of us want to emphasize the logic and practicality of their position on the issue, it sure is strange when they want more people to see things their way, yet also want to reject them when they do.
To move away from those people meant leaving behind an entire community at a time when I didn’t have many friends.
I agree we should just be mean to these people. They clearly are using logic to reach their conclusions and not just going with it because they feel the need to belong in a community . And knowing that they will 100% be mocked for life for changing definitely doesn’t make leaving harder.
From that point, it’s like I’ve started a new life. I learned about a non-partisan group called Citizens’ Climate Lobby, which advocates for climate solutions. I led their North Georgia chapter for a while, and I still volunteer and lobby with them.
I’m also part of the National Center for Science Education, using physical science concepts to teach climate change to my teenage students.
Always worth reading the article before writing a comment.
Yes. There is no excuse for someone with the science training to believe these things. She was either a very weak person or the program she studied in wasn’t very strong. Either way, although it’s good to model perspective change, this isn’t the example we need.
TBF there are a lot of unintuitive things going on with the science of climate change, such as the precise role of greenhouse gas absorption/emission spectra in trapping heat, that even with a strong general science background it’s not immediately obvious what the driving factors are.
Add to that the (deliberate) but plausible sounding misinformation and you have a deadly cocktail of not quite correct pseudoscience to drown in.
I understand being a climate skeptic, up until a certain point in time. There were still a lot of things that were unclear and the reporting was muddled and there was lots of conflicting information floating and even in supposedly well informed publications. But there really is no excuse after 2004 or so.
There really isn’t to disbelieve even as far back as the 70s. The models weren’t as good back then but the conclusions remain essentially unchanged.
I agree with you. In fact we had important data about this going back to the early 1900s.
But convincing people of it back then was tough going. Even scientists. It only really started being obviously undeniable (which is a higher bar than merely very likely) in the early 1990s. And we didn’t always do a very good job selling it to be honest.
They were publishing and discussing these things in the 70’s. Not big oil secret memos - published articles, tv shows, magazines, all that media could carry had it consistently represented over fifty years ago all the way through to today.
Tree huggers. Disgusting hippies. Loonies. That’s all the thanks these people could muster. Yeah, some people are not going to accept a “whoopsie. Gosh i was wrong” and just forget it. With good reason.
Reckoning: a settling of accounts.
Also, we are talking about brainwashing. Aum Shinrikyo successfully turned medical doctors from the best university in Japan into cult religion leaders to join the leadership that killed, injured and disabled subway passengers with sarin, among others murdered in different ways.
there are a lot of unintuitive things going on with the science of climate change
But science isn’t intuition-based. It often comes to conclusions that are far from intuitive.
Yeah this is what gets me about the young turks guy that wants to run for office. Its like its great you came to the light in the last decade or so but you spend a goodly amount of time shilling for the other side. Its fine for you to shill for us but that is as far as I trust your judgement.
Cenk used to be a conservative? TIL
not just conservative but ultraconservative libertarian with aweful views on women. He did not go straight to ultra liberal. He went indenpendent for awhile and then eventually way left. I more jaded person than I might suppose he saw no future for a person of his background on the right but saw lots of opportunity on the left.
There are so many people in these comments calling her stupid for believing in the ideas in the first place. You have to keep in mind that these ideas are what she would have grown up around all her life and would have been told to her by those around her. You should be happy for people who escape these ideals, not critical that they held them in the first place. It does no one any good
Exactly. She should be praised for taking the scientific approach and reconsidering her views based on evidence instead of blindly accepting what was being said
I’ve lived in the South. There is immense social pressure to not even consider climate change as real alongside all the outright lies and rationalizations about climate change being pushed constantly that you don’t even want to open your mouth to publicly question denialism. You don’t want to deal with the shit you might get for speaking up. It’s like being an atheist. You learn to dodge the issue if you don’t want to deal with either the ignorance or the grief.
Yep, that kinda social pressure can be difficult.
I live in the south, and I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut on a variety of topics.
While the truth is important, I’m not gonna change these peoples minds. Expending that energy, and self inflicting negative emotions is just not worth it.
Hell, when I was much younger I tried to convince a 16 year old coworker that he should absolutely “spend time” with the girl from his school (also worked there, she was objectively attractive, though too young for me) and they went to talk. He wound up shrieking turn or burn at her over and over, while leaving the building.
Yeah, her family was just a different flavor of christian.
Not even raging hormones can counter some brainwashing.
I never bothered to look into it but I’m sure it’s a hoax. I heard it somewhere so it must be true
goddamn brainless morons everywhere and they all fucking vote. She *should * feel embarrassed.
She’ll burn like the rest of us on this fiery hellscape we’re creating.
I was doubtful it was mostly man made, but listened to the experts when they told us what was what. Regardless, WTF wouldn’t we support conservation and not polluting regardless? We have reversed rivers literally being on fire with all the oil in them. Without enforced regulation, we get where we are now.
There’s a huge chunk of religious people who believe the earth is theirs to exploit for the maximum possible enrichment.
I’m glad she found her way out of the right wing disinformation sphere. A lot of folks have relatives that still haven’t made it out, and would be happy with them coming to their senses now, even if it’s later than it could have been.
My husband didn’t get home from work until late, so I would have four or five hours at home by myself every day, always with the kitchen radio on, tuned to conservative stations.
We listened to Rush Limbaugh, a radio host known for his controversial opinions on topics such as race, LGBT rights and women, and I would hear him every day for two hours.
He would talk about how climate change was just a hoax.
Up to that point, I had been exposed to a lot of misinformation about evolution in my church groups, but I had studied the theory of evolution at university, so I was equipped to spot it.
But I didn’t have that same skill set for climate change.
My conviction that climate change was a hoax solidified when I heard Limbaugh talk about Climategate. It was a controversy involving research from the University of East Anglia. Only much later did I learn that the material was twisted and taken out of context.
…
I craved intellectual stimulation, so I kept the radio on while I was cooking dinner or while driving in my car. But there were only a few hours of Rush Limbaugh each day.
That’s when the big turning point came.
I tuned into NPR, a US non-profit broadcaster. I don’t remember which show it was, or the specific news story, but I remember how they described the issue in a completely different way from what I had heard on my usual stations. And it sounded so reasonable.
I realised how much my social network had changed since I had stopped teaching. At school, I was around people from all over the world, gay or straight, conservative and liberals.
Without that school environment, all I had in my social circle was my church group.
“Intellectual stimulation” being “Rush Limbaugh” says everything, doesn’t it.
True, but when you’re surrounded by toddlers all day every day, almost every adult sounds like a rational genius.
So this boils down to, “I stopped listening to opinion and started listening to news.” What a revelation.
I’m glad she broke free, but man, it’s hard to be sympathetic to someone who willingly poisoned her mind.
Had a degree in zoology and taught science.
I studied social science and law. I see the evidence of climate change everywhere I look.
I can see the insects and bacteria that aren’t supposed to be anywhere near me killing off the native species. When n was a kid you would drive for twenty minutes on a summer night and have to wash your windows from all the splattered bugs. You can see there are no more bugs on the window any more.
She has no excuse other than she is a gullible fool. As far as I’m concerned, someone who was fooled so badly has no business with a platform. If she can be tricked as to something so readily apparent and obvious, nothing she says has any credibility. How does she not completely implode upon realizing she could be wrong about literally everything she thinks she knows?
Why are you such an asshole. She got out of her bullshit conservative bubble. Take the win
Just like this lady, some conservatives are beginning to admit that maaaaybe some climate change science is real, but I’m not cheering for any of them. They are still extremely dangerous conservatives and will continue to support deadly politics that oppress or kill the normal people.
I’d expect nothing less, Burn the Right
It’s honestly what makes conservatives hate people on the left. The smugness that leads people to run back to their tribe and never having the ability to reaccess a believe because the second you do you have people like the poster above ready to do a victory lap and not accept someone that was able to get out of a circular thinking loop.
It’s on both sides. I’ve had to look at specific believes that in practice didn’t pan out the way I thought and if mentioned it to my friends group they would call me a far right shill or whatever bullshit term is being used right now.
There is little room for nuance and having a conversation that’s not surface level black and white opens you up for slander at times.
We really don’t know how to deal with repentance and it kinda sucks. Just go look at all those atheist groups. They splinter constantly. Meanwhile the Catholic Church is still a thing 1700 years later.
I don’t know how to fix this.
Nolawns
About 4 years ago I stopped cutting our farm. We still do livestock rescue and all the animals actually look better than ever because they’re not just eating rich sugary grass. Plus we have a few small caves and the bat population has boomed since we stopped. Tons of insects have returned. Insects are the foundation to our existence, when they go, we’re fucked.
If the invasive insects could chill out I’d appreciate it.
Emerald Ash Borer, lanternflies, etc
Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening, and really don’t want someone trying to figure it out by introducing more invasive species lol
I am in infrastructure and even the rapid conservative engineer I work with has come along on it. Areas are flooding that are not supposed to flood and we have historical records proving that they are not supposed to be flooding. Systems are overheating that again didn’t overheat in the past.
In general the government replaces old systems in the same spot. Think about your work, if the copier machine dies they buy a new copier and put it where the old one was. Same thing in government. So when my company gets the contract to replace something we can look at what we are replacing. The evidence is there. The old system wasn’t designed with flooding in mind but it died in a flood. The old system worked fine and then melted. Our new system broke the next summer.
The climate is changing. All these incredible satellite data is awesome to have but I can prove something is up just by showing you my emails after hurricane season and August
Driving on the highway today and looked out at a tidal river. It’s got 100 year old trees all along the bank, every one of them dead within the past several years, rotting out. Roots currently under water, as they are every time I drive by. People used to have picnics under these trees.
C’mon, man, don’t be mean to the morons. They’ll put us in camps and the centrists will just say it was our fault for being too smug about checks notes noticing the weather changing for decades
No fuck that. I’ll go into the chamber reminding these people they are fucking morons.
I think the community thing is a big part of these sort of weird anti-science movements that people don’t always think about. I watched a documentary about Flat Earthers a while ago and that was one of my big takeaways from it, that a lot of people are there just for the sense of community and belonging, and if it means they have to convince themselves the Earth is flat then so be it.
Climate Denial is a slightly different bag because they’ve done actual real damage to the world and everything living on it, but I can see how people fall into it, kind of.
But either way I don’t suppose it much matters at this point, I get the feeling that we’re pretty much fucked anyway.
Behind the curve. This was also what I immediately thought of
“I’ve been rowing the opposite way for years, now I finally stopped.” Cool, here’s a cookie, Sharon. Also we’re all gonna die. Thx.
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To move away from those people meant leaving behind an entire community at a time when I didn’t have many friends.
maybe you didn’t have many friends because of the way you acted?
That seems unnecessarily mean. The author isn’t making any grand claims about herself, she’s explaining how she changed her point if view and admitted to being wrong about a major view. I’m hoping I can learn something from her experience, and maybe help tip more people towards making a similar change. I don’t really care how much or little she apologizes for being wrong before.
So what I think you can learn from her story is that she had to change her view because it was just not true (a lie). This lie she claims was planted by church groups and conservative media. Removing those two things from her life made it possible to spot the lie.
Abolish churches and media that bears false witness and the lie would never have been planted.
I wonder how many of the “holier than thou” commenters in this thread do anything productive about climate change? So easy to throw stones from behind a screen.
