Naomi Oreskes To Address Global Warming In Valley City - newsdakota.com

Naomi Oreskes To Address Global Warming In Valley City | News Dakota

VALLEY CITY, N.D. (Naomi Oreskes) – The introduction to Naomi Oreskes’s 2019 book “Why Trust Science” asks:

Do doctors really know what they are talking about when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when our own politicians don’t?

The 2019 the Harvard Gazette interview describes the book as one in which, she examines the value of the scientific process of proof and verifiable facts in an era when both are under fire. Though the geologist-turned-history-of-science professor’s field is climate, she turned a critical eye to research ranging from sunscreen to birth control.

Professor Oreskes when asked to give a Ted talk on trusting scientists, she realized, “that title was wrong. It wasn’t about trusting scientists; it was about trusting science as a process, an enterprise, or an activity.” Later in the interview, Professor Oreskes also recognized that staying in coastal academic circles is limiting, often people there have interesting things to say because they live in South Dakota and see the world from a different perspective. It makes you a better scholar and a better human being when you engage with people who are viewing the world from a

different perspective. So I embrace the opportunity to go to places that other people might not embrace, and I have what I call my Red State Pledge, which is, if I get invited to a Red State, I do everything in my power to accept that invitation.”

Members of the Valley City community are please to help Professor Oreskes fulfill her Red State Pledge by inviting her to share her knowledge and hear North Dakota voices from October 3rd through October 6th, 2023. Her proposed itinerary includes a book signing in Fargo, tour of Barnes County, meeting with Valley City State University

staff and students with a talk open to the public at VCSU, followed by travel on I-94 to Bismarck and meeting with tribal members and another book signing.

Hopefully, she will come away with an appreciation of workings of agriculture in eastern North Dakota and for the effects of oil development on western North Dakota. Our goal is to engage as many North Dakota people as possible, both in person and virtually, in a thoughtful conversation about the scientific method that has brought so advancements to our way of life.