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CATHY LEWIS: How do you answer skeptics?
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Because I'm sure that they still come to you
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and say "I'm sorry, I [inaudible] it."
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How do you answer that?
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ADM. DAVID TITLEY: I mean, what I do is
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I kind of go through in a, thank God, more abbreviated version
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than what I did this evening,
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but basically just try to walk through the physics
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because-- at a very basic, conceptual level,
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no equations, no nothing like that.
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Because we know the climate's changing.
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I mean, there's just too much data for us.
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And again, I kind of go back to my time on that ship that I showed you,
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USS Farragut.
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I was privileged to be the navigator,
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which is a really, really cool job,
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because you're the only junior officer that can
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tell the captain where to go.
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So that's actually kind of fun.
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But one of the things you learn as a navigator--
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if you don't learn it,
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you're probably not going to be one very long--
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is you never trust any one individual data point.
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So, you know, I kind of look at climate change like that.
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If it was just the Arctic,
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but all the glaciers were like, you know, being the same
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or coming down, and there were no temperature changes,
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there was no acidification change in the ocean, well, OK,
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we've probably got to look at something else.
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But when you look at all the data,
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it all lines up with a consistent picture.
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You can actually model it,
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you take out the carbon dioxide, you don't get the right answer;
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you put in the CO2, you get the right answer.
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So you can kind of go through that
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and I just gave one example of,
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you know, when skeptics have a question about,
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what's a trace gas.
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And I hear that all the time.
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Well, hey, alcohol's a trace,
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but we sure hear about that.
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So just because it's a trace,
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it's interesting,
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but it doesn't mean that it cannot be effective.
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So what I've found is
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that people who really, really, really believe it's all a vast conspiracy theory,
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there's not much you can say.
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But I would say--
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and again, could I just get a show of hands of whose been in the military?
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OK, so a bunch.
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So you guys and gals will probably sort of understand this.
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You know in the military we have some
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very, very, very sensitive programs
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and you read people in,
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make them take polygraphs half the time,
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you are told to never, ever, ever talk about them.
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If you do, we will humiliate you,
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we will take you to jail,
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we will take away your job.
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Even then, it's pretty hard to keep a secret. Right?
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It's pretty hard to keep a secret.
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So what I sometimes want to know,
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when I hear these conspiracy theories
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is how do you get about 3,000 academics across the world
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who like to talk,
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who (oh, by the way) if they could really disprove this,
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there's probably a Nobel Prize in it for somebody.
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You know, how--how--
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do they all like sign an oath or something
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that they were all going to say this?
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I mean, we've got a hard time in the Navy
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to try and keep some.
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It's a challenge.
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So are you telling me a bunch of academics
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who like to talk are going to...you know...
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it just doesn't pass the sense.
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You know, there are some people you just aren't going to convince.
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But then, you know, that's OK.
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LEWIS: So I guess the issue would be then,
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and I think you were talking about this a little earlier,
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there will be a percentage of people who will believe you no matter what,
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a percentage of people who will disbelieve you no matter what,
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so the battle is for what's in the middle.
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ADM. TITLEY: [inaudible] of the New York Times
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really writes about this, the so-called six people.
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And yeah, people on either end are there,
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and the people in the middle slosh around,
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and they'll, you know, I really think,
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I'm pretty optimistic, people listen to reason.
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If you can make a well-reasoned case,
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you know, giving somebody just a spreadsheet or whatever
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or one picture of a [inaudible]
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probably doesn't do much, but
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you know, it's sort of building the first principles.
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I think, you look at all the data.
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As I said, I didn't start off really believing much of this.
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but as you look at it,
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I mean, you've got to kind of come to a conclusion.
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So it's what Churchill said,
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can you, when you see the truth,
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can you, can you kind of change your own--
