1y ago

'I thought climate change was a hoax. Now I've changed my mind'

www.bbc.com 'I thought climate change was a hoax. Now I've changed my mind'

Sarah Ott spent years as a climate change sceptic - now she's an advocate for clean energy.

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.

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59 comments

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
- 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 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.

59 comments