Scholars
Naomi Oreskes
Harvard University
Based in
United States
North America
Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and an Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. A globally recognized earth scientist, historian, and public speaker, she is the author of the best-selling book Merchants of Doubt (2010) and a prominent advocate for the role of science in society. Oreskes is widely known for her work on the reality of human-caused climate change and the impact of disinformation in hindering climate action.
She has authored or co-authored nine books and over 150 articles, essays, and opinion pieces. Notable works include Merchants of Doubt (Bloomsbury, 2010), The Collapse of Western Civilization (Columbia University Press, 2014), Discerning Experts (University of Chicago Press, 2019), Why Trust Science? (Princeton University Press, 2019), and Science on a Mission: American Oceanography from the Cold War to Climate Change (University of Chicago Press, 2021). Merchants of Doubt, co-authored with Erik Conway, inspired a documentary film by Participant Media, distributed by SONY Pictures Classics, and has been translated into nine languages. A new edition, featuring an introduction by Al Gore, was published in 2020.
Oreskes also wrote the introduction to the Melville House edition of the Papal Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality, Laudato Si. Her essays and opinion pieces on climate change have been featured in leading newspapers worldwide, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Times (London), and Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Among her many accolades are the 2019 Geological Society of America’s Mary C. Rabbitt Award, the 2016 Stephen Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication, the 2015 Public Service Award of the Geological Society of America, the 2015 Herbert Feis Prize of the American Historical Association for Public History, and the 2014 American Geophysical Union Presidential Citation for Science and Society. Oreskes is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. In 2018, she was named a Guggenheim Fellow, and in 2019, she received the British Academy Medal.
Her new book, with Erik Conway, is The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market, published by Bloomsbury Press.
![](https://cssn.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/naomi_oreskes.jpg)
Country(ies) of Specialty
United StatesFocus areas of expertise
HistoryPublications
Select Publications
- The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loath Government and Love the Free Market, 2023 (Bloomsbury Press)
- Science on a Mission, 2021 (University of Chicago Press)
- Why Trust Science?, 2019 (Princeton University Press)
- Science and Technology in the Global Cold War, 2014 (MIT Press)
- The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, 2014 (Columbia University Press)
Collapse of Western Civilization Home Page - Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, 2010. (New York: Bloomsbury Press.)
Merchants of Doubt Home Page
Merchants of Doubt at the 52nd New York Film Festival, October 8, 2014 - Models in Environmental Regulatory Decision Making, Whipple, Chris et al. (fourteen additional authors), 2007. (Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences National Research Council, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology), 287 pp.
- The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science, 1999. (New York: Oxford University Press)
In the Media
Testimony Before the US Senate Budget Committee, Twitter, June 22, 2023
Science Isn’t Always Perfect – But We Should Still Trust It, TIME, October 2019
Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think, New York Times, October 2019
Escaping Extinction, World Economic Forum, January 2019
Yes, ExxonMobil Misled the Public, LA Times, September 2017
What Exxon Mobil Didn’t Say About Climate Change, The New York Times, August 2017
Assessing ExxonMobil’s Climate Change Communications (177-2014), Environment Research Letters, August 2017
Scientists Dive Into the Political Fray, PBS Newshour, April 2017
How to Break the Climate Deadlock, Scientific American, November 2015
What Did Exxon Know?, On The Media, November 2015
The Pope and the Planet, The Open Mind, November 2015
Exxon’s Climate Concealment, New York Times, October 2015
Naomi Oreskes, a Lightning Rod in a Changing Climate, New York Times, June 2015
A Chronicler of Warnings Denied, New York Times, October 2014
Merchants of Doubt, Documentary from Sony Pictures Classics, 2014
“Why We Should Trust Scientists,” TED Talk, June 2014
The 2014 Vatican Environmental Summit:
Prof. Oreskes discusses her book, “The Collapse of Western Civilization…”
- Naomi Oreskes – The Collapse of Western Civilization, Inquiring Minds Podcast
- “A View From the Climate Change Future,” National Public Radio via Boston’s WBUR
Edited Volumes
- Oreskes, Naomi, ed., with Homer E. Le Grand, 2001. Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth (Boulder: Westview Press), paperback edition February 2003.
Edited Journal Volumes
- Oreskes, Naomi and James R. Fleming, eds. 2000. “Perspectives on Geophysics,” Special Issue of Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 31B, September 2000.