Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / 'Science Under Siege' Climate and pandemic experts on waging a war against anti-science

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'Science Under Siege' Climate and pandemic experts on waging a war against anti-science · DEEP INSIGHT

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  Speaker 1: We want no aluminum in the vaccine. The MMR I
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  Speaker 1: think should be taken separately. This is based on what
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  Speaker 1: I feel is climate change. It's the greatest conjob ever
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  Speaker 1: perpetrated on the world. In my opinion, the carbon footprint
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  Speaker 1: is a hoax made up by people with evil intentions.
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  Speaker 2: Man President Trump. They are making several striking false claims
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  Speaker 2: last week, and none of them supported by data that
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  Speaker 2: the scientific community find credible. The rhetoric and that of
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  Speaker 2: members of his administration contributes to what my next guests
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  Speaker 2: call a global anti science campaign in their new books
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  Speaker 2: Science under Seat. Doctor Peter hotes and doctor Michael Mann
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  Speaker 2: join us now. Doctor Hotez, you specialize in vaccine, development
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  Speaker 2: and disease. Doctor Mann studies climate change, and you explain
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  Speaker 2: how these two threats are linked together. You're right, quote,
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  Speaker 2: we find ourselves facing not just a one two of
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  Speaker 2: pandemics in the climate crisis, but a one two three punch,
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  Speaker 2: with that third punch anti science obstructing the needed response
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  Speaker 2: from government and civil society. Doctor Artes, can you give
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  Speaker 2: us a quick overview of what you call the five
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  Speaker 2: major players contributing to anti science.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: The point is, Jake, it is it is a whole
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  Speaker 3: ecosystem and the five piece and and credit to Michael there.
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  Speaker 3: He he loves the alliteration. That's the plutocrats, people like
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  Speaker 3: Elon Musk, the the Coke Brothers, the Petra States, and
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  Speaker 3: even the far right part of the United States resembles
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  Speaker 3: Petra State, the pros, the credential talking heads that we
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  Speaker 3: see too often pushing misinformation, the propagandists who amplify it.
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  Speaker 3: And then the press, and not just the far right press,
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  Speaker 3: the Murdoch media empire, but even some of the false
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  Speaker 3: equivalency given by some of the legacy media.
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  Speaker 2: Doctor Man, you call the threats of climate change and
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  Speaker 2: pandemics inextricably interwoven. Tell me more about that.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks, Jake, good to be with you. So they're
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  Speaker 4: interwoven in the sense that the climate crisis and environmental
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  Speaker 4: degradation is actually leading to the conditions that favor these
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  Speaker 4: novel pandemics, these novel viruses COVID nineteen. We expect more
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  Speaker 4: of this in the future, in part because of the
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  Speaker 4: aggravating effects of climate change, and so these things are coupled.
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  Speaker 4: Climate change is a crisis on its own, pandemics are
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  Speaker 4: a crisis on their own. And indeed, misinformation, disinformation and
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  Speaker 4: the promotion of anti science is making it impossible for
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  Speaker 4: us to tackle either or any of the great challenges
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  Speaker 4: that we face today. And that's really the point anti
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  Speaker 4: science has become deadly, doctor man.
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  Speaker 2: Let's dive a little deeper into the Petro statee, Saudi
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  Speaker 2: Arabia or Texas. I suppose as to example states or
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  Speaker 2: countries that rely heavily on fossil fuels. One of the
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  Speaker 2: most prominent, of course, is Russia. President Trump recently called
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  Speaker 2: for the EU to play sanctions on Russian oil as
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  Speaker 2: a way to place more pressure on Putin in his
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  Speaker 2: war in Ukraine. Now, in your book, you make the
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  Speaker 2: claim that Russia once again that this is a quote. Now,
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  Speaker 2: Russia once again interfered in the twenty twenty four US
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  Speaker 2: presidential election on Trump's behalf and arguably was the primary
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  Speaker 2: reason he prevailed. Explain what you by that, because just
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  Speaker 2: to be clear, you're not talking about anybody hacking the election,
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  Speaker 2: but you are talking about an influence campaign. So explain that.
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  Speaker 4: Indeed, this is something we see from these Petro states,
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  Speaker 4: from Russia, from Saudi Arabia. They have sought to sort
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  Speaker 4: of poison the well when it comes to global efforts
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  Speaker 4: to move away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy, because
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  Speaker 4: of course, these are countries whose economies are fundamentally dependent
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  Speaker 4: on the extraction and sale of their fossil fuels. One
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  Speaker 4: of the tactics that they've used is to weaponize social
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  Speaker 4: media Twitter, Facebook, to use social media to create just
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  Speaker 4: an overwhelming echo chamber of anti science, to create conflict,
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  Speaker 4: to sort of confuse the discussion, to make it very
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  Speaker 4: difficult for these social media platforms to be the sort
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  Speaker 4: of public square where scientists can communicate the science and
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  Speaker 4: its implications to the public. They've done everything to use
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  Speaker 4: social media really to magnify misinformation and disinformation, all in
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  Speaker 4: a service, all in service of this agenda, this agenda
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  Speaker 4: to paralyze efforts to move away from fossil fuels, and indeed,
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  Speaker 4: this ideologically driven agenda now to discredit public health scientists
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  Speaker 4: like Peter and in the book, we talk about why
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  Speaker 4: and how these things are interlinked and why it's all
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  Speaker 4: part of one larger campaign to basically just you know,
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  Speaker 4: prevent any meaningful dialogue that will lead to solutions to
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  Speaker 4: these problems that we face.
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  Speaker 2: And doctor Hotel. Some of the five forces, the five
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  Speaker 2: piece can blend together. The plutocrats especially, can we have
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  Speaker 2: their influence into politics and propaganda. Tell me how you
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  Speaker 2: saw that escalate during the pandemic.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we saw this when two hundred thousand
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  Speaker 3: Americans died, Jake, two hundred thousand because they refused COVID vaccines.
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  Speaker 3: And it wasn't random. This was a targeted political campaign
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  Speaker 3: that convinced Americans that COVID vaccines didn't work. In their
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  Speaker 3: push against vaccine mandates, which you could kind of understand,
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  Speaker 3: they actually discredit the effect of safety, and Americans died
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  Speaker 3: and drove. So this is why we care. It's become
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  Speaker 3: a killing, a lethal force.
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  Speaker 2: Science under siege. It's available now, Doctor Peter Hotez, doctor
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  Speaker 2: Michael Man, thanks for joining us.