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.

  • Random Dent
    20•1 year ago

    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.