Listen to | the entire program

The United Nations has issued a warning today that flood-stricken Pakistan is not receiving the amount of aid necessary to prevent a bigger disaster. Millions of people have been left without food, water, and shelter in the South Asian nation which began experiencing severe flooding since July this year. An estimated 20 million Pakistanis, or one in every nine people, have been affected. There have been angry protests by thousands demanding help from the government and international community. Yesterday on Uprising we spoke with a scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, who see the floods in Pakistan, and other extreme weather-related disasters around the globe, as directly linked to global warming.

Yet, as climate change science becomes less and less disputable the voices of unreasonable skeptics grow ever louder. The growing fight against science and the ability of so many to shun reason in an attempt to maintain an untenable status-quo is the subject of the documentary, The Age of Stupid. The film is set some 45 years in a post-apocalyptic future and looks back on the present day with the question “why didn’t we save ourselves when we had the chance?” The film’s powerful and dramatic retrospective look at our present day is enough to compel almost any sensible person to action. February’s so-called “Snowmaggedon,” a single blizzard, seemed to increase the skepticism towards climate change here in the US; in 2008, Gallup’s 127 country poll found over a third of the world didn’t know what global warming was; and the myriad climate scientists found to be in the pockets of oil companies and energy corporations stand as a testament to this age being one where intelligence is not as highly prized as it ought to be. So are we living in the Age of Stupid?

Guest: Naomi Oreskes, Co-author of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/

Thank You Gifts:

The Age of Stupid 2 DVD set – $120

www.spannerfilms.net

Call 818-985-5735, or visit www.kpfk.org, to pledge!