use and a games. trump's political rivals, patel has called for reforms and promised what he called quote, profound changes looked at all 16. more than 17000000 americans receive monthly checks from social security to us government stipend program for the retired or disabled. but president donald trump says without evidence that that money is also going to millions of people who are dads, and that's fuel fears that social security is the next federal programs headed for all on terms of chopping block to zeros. heidi so castro reports on the campaign trail. donald trump vowed to protect social security. the popular government program depended upon by retiring. now in the white house from says, social security is ripe with waste. there are over 4700000 social security numbers for people is from 100 years old to 109. think of that. now

over a 100, there aren't a lot of people that make it seem almost who's been passed by trump to slash government spending posted on x, the 10s of millions of people over age, 100 are receiving social security benefits and even one person over age 360 now social security is new acting commissioner, who was just promoted by trump says most claim is false. experts say the billionaire and the president are confusing the numbers. one of the problems of trying to understand these complex government programs is that there is a lot of data. it's not usually clearly labeled and what it is, it's easy to jump to conclusions if you have just like a partial understanding of what's going on. last july, the social security administration's inspector general report of the agency had given out $72000000000.00 in improper payments over an 8 year stretch, but noted that's less than one percent of the total benefits paid out. that

inspector general was later fired by trump. i think they're calling programs that they don't like fraudulent and they're not fraudulent. in the us, protests are growing against trumps rapid slashing of the federal government. a recent waiters poll shows most americans are worried that the effort will imperil social security payments. and more than 70 percent believe that the very wealthy like must have too much influence on the white house. heidi joe castro. out a 0. washington. more news coming up at the top of the hour right here on knowledge 0. you can always had online. our website is algebra 0 dot com, coming up next. it's all hail the planet. thanks for watching. bye bye. for now. the . the

super charged by the climate. crosby on trick to arms and leave the boy. it's impossible to escape climbing directly into the most count and whole neighborhood to the right people and the planet of these brussels by all dependence on fossil fuels. this rapid exploitation of natural resources and politics has meant that climate action has no. cornelia, as far as it should and then this individual and how we process the enormity of the crisis where we are telling the story of climate change

. psychology can reveal not only the ways in which we grapple with ecological breakdown, but also how big industries politicians and even the media are at times have moved public understanding and action on the greatest crisis. humanity faces. the the 1st thing that comes to my mind when i see the word climate change is disaster waiting disaster. you know, a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety or frightening. i think i am scared of it for sure. be able to help us who vocal climate change for me is quite an overwhelming concept. hopeless . most of the, the stuff like a really affects me and i feel like i have to blame on some of the things i feel

responsible in a week. but that's sort of the most gave us the best fit in man had that seat, a clear idea. we already have a, b, b, and we have a few future. i do care about quite a bit bows to kind of feel as a piece of bias. so most separate se of some of them get guns, something nice that it's no one to people feel like this. news is kind of breakdown, is inescapable. and even if you manage to switch off the tv, you took a break from social media. the impact of global warming is real, for many of us, temperatures, us or in floods and droughts are both getting more frequent, and most of the wildlife is seriously struggling. never before have we'd be more aware of the dire straits, the planet disease. so why is generating meaningful action on the climate crosses? so difficult scientists of science is becoming more and more certain about the urgency of the problem. but we haven't still caught up with how humans respond to

that science. so that's where i have been try to frontier butte, terrorist and starkness is the overall of what we think about when we try not to think about global warming. he says some of the most significant, recent advances in our understanding of climate change hasn't come from the physical sciences. they've come from the social sciences and a deeper understanding of how well brain's work. i'm not in any way doing that. it's oil companies driving. there's other huge campaigns and there is corruption. there is no being under the same time we have to ask why does that propaganda so much impact when 2000 and scientific studies, 6 eyepieces, he report is not enough to come for it. and that is where psychology cannot come in this propaganda place on psychological structures. and if you're able to fish into that, you're able to exploit those irrational tendencies. you are in a power game through his research per spin has found 5 psychological barriers that prevent climate use from sinking in and leading to meaningful response and action.

he calls from the 5 days psychological distance, the are the use of do too much distance, denial, and finally identity. so those 5 together are like clusters, ultimate cognizance that explain why it's so hard for people to really taking the alarm. okay, paris than let's start with the 50 psychological just the climate is in terms of perception and the way it's communicated, something very distant from me personally as far away and space optic pulling up as a facing near extinction. climate change is not an abstract notion for these on, but it also far away in time because scientists have been formed speaking about 4 degrees by 2100 for the year, 2015. and the timeframe is very far away from my daily life. san to say we're on track to go up for another half a degree by 2030. the earth temperature will rise by $3.00 degrees by the end of

the century. this is a global issue of it's abstract, so whatever i do, it doesn't seem to make a dent. people hold on to focus on what you can do something about and not focus on stuff. you can't do anything about global greenhouse gas emissions. really have to be slashed nearly in half by 2030. i'm no scientists. but that's, that sounds pretty hard to reach a plainly people who are hurt to people who are drowning or starving or burning. and why far as that to many steps between me and them who are suffering those for dying mentions time, space, influence, and responsibility at up to every strong perceived distance time. it doesn't really trigger my alarm center. so the next defense you have listed is do, how does that work? so imagine you say that kind of changes here which you know, to change everything they will be tomlins, they will breakdowns of the ocean of the weather systems. the issue is that most of the days i look out of the window and things look normal i most of the day. so

there's food and most of the day. so people seem to go about their life. so there is a sense that there's quite rules a lot of the time. and what we know from psychology is the 1st time you wouldn't be going to a huge alarm in your brain and you feel fear and maybe with guilt. the 2nd time it's about 40 percent less, and then each time it's repeated, imagine the live goes down. so how comes another response, which is that it was uncomfortable to listen to this to previous times in my brain will try to avoid it. now change the channel or i go to another website and we pull that avoidance bayers. i finally, if i can this credit, the messenger of saying, oh, it's a god, i'm tree hugger, or climate historic. i can get of that do a feeling and i don't feel the threat anymore and the m and have it done. but mostly, but the minute human has to have them, but she is a, i don't know who to trust. most of them seem aggressive and they seem to be funded by some, uh, you know, uh, lobbies which have their own agenda right now at this point,

it's important to highlight that there are many of us who do not feel distance from the climate classes and they're not put off by a sense of june around climate use, but the food various disciplines struck a chord with me because as a definite dissonance in some of the choices we make it daily lives. dependence is best described as an fina discomfort. when your actions don't correspond with what you know and believe, people often experience dissidence when the facts that they understand and agree with. for example, that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change, conflicts with what they actually do, such as driving or taking flights. if the brain picks up that you're not feeling too good about yourself, when it comes up with justifications like your car, isn't that bad? the neighbors car, he's even worse or my colleague, she flies 5 times on the fly 2 times a year. i can say it's all straight hearing aids us, there was a problem or us can say it's not us, it's china, they can always blame somebody else. it's them. let me. and this way the dissonance

is removed. and if you do that design, it's handling for some time, many can end up in a state of to not, right? yes, you may be a little bit alert or geared up by some body flood, or fire on thursday and then use. but then by monday morning, you're leaving on words as if you've never heard you've just forgot it. we can see these things in the number of google searches, for instance, after how we can sign the smashed new york. it was an immense increase in the search and hurricane in climate, and then 3 weeks to 3 months later, that peak was down to the baseline. again, we close making us your symptoms, your to live without thinking much about it. sometimes the noise is used as a kind of put your attention stupid dinner, but you can be intelligent and more and everything is just a very common that kind of some of the brain that we are learning to live with, of deeply troubling knowledge without being aware of it, and finally, identity means that i spend a number of years building up my self image. i'm

a dentist, i'm a product trucker and done the same thing in terms of politics. i've left and each time something comes up, i will scan it to see whether it goes well with my values or whether it's cautious with. and if there's a conflict, then usually the fax will lose and i will defend my boss. so if, for instance, there are climate scientists saying that what you need is a higher tax, carbon, more government regulations, but i've construed my identity as somebody who loves a free markets and more government taxes. then all those facts and those recommendations with crash. i guess my values, hence they must be wrong because now they're criticizing me. this is where a climate to discourse goes really bad. when people feel their identity threatened, the knowledge of the psychological responses is household. but it's just one aspect of the climate response over time. as cycle of reactions have been voice

intentionally and unintentionally play the big industry, politicians and even the media have been able to psychologically target us well, public understanding and paralyzed action on climate change. while we've shown in our work is that we've been the victims of a deliberate conscious organized this information campaign name. your risk us is a historian of science at harvard university. she is known internationally for her work on the role of this information in booking climate action. going back as far as the late 19 eighties. the fossil fuel industry has deliberately attempted to muddy the waters to poison the well of public debate and to prevent action by confusing us about what the problem even is. the creational doubts making people question the facts, making the one to with a human action even is the cause of the climate. crisis, has been a powerful tactics of the corporations,

especially the fossil fuel industry. i think that is powerful because it does tap into human psychology, right. the world is filled with doubt, the world is confusing. life is confusing. so figuring out who to trust, what to trust, what to focus on, where to put our energies. that's hard, and it's become even harder in recent decades because we're bombarded all the time now by messages in 247. and so the dat wondering lights that it's based on knowing there's people aren't sure. so just give up or they'll just say, well, you know, i'll think about that tomorrow or that someone else's problem or i really got to go pick up my kids from football practice. right? so it's exploring that natural tendency. fossil fuel companies weren't the only ones to play on people's psychology. in nipple conventions adapt naomi and stella science historian, eric conway, spent usertesting to more than $14000000.00 documents that came out of a series of law suits against us tobacco friends. a strikingly familiar story

imaged decades before the fossil fuel industry tried to undermine the case of the climate change. tobacco companies had use the same techniques, even the same public relations funds to challenge the links between smoking and lung cancer in the 1950. 1 is between the abreast of pressure that's no fresh felt very cool. people were looking for a weight out of that distance between knowing that smoking was dangerous to health . it is a judgment of the committee cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality from certain specific diseases. and to the overall death rates, the same thing happened with climate sometimes. so through the c o 2 kills if we don't do the right thing. now, there are very serious problems that our children and grandchildren will have to

face. and then somebody comes up and says to you, well actually it's not really sure the studies are contracted by other studies, trust us. so this is how doubt becomes psychologically beneficial because it ribs yourself out of that ugly feeling. so when you see the same pattern being used over and over and over again, and completely different context, except what they have in common is that they're selling the dangers. they're selling you something that actually just hurt you. and then you begin to realize what these people have a strong incentive to lie. and guess what? not only do they live, but they live in the same way to send you match. smoking is across an agent is on the evidence. did they compete down guests? there is no basis in the scientific literature, they found no consistent correlation between carbon dioxide, interest temperature. and the idea is to create confusion because if we're confused in most cases,

we won't act as climate. this information campaigns wrapped up in the 1990 oil companies and the payoff propped up contrary. and scientists to push narrow did some on a certainty and shift help generalist covered the issue. big oil became a key of it out of where the coverage of their industry was. generally stickly sound. they would accuse those who didn't quite seos and spokes people of bias. the ethics resulted in a denial machine, a scrolling network of talking heads from groups and false reset, job fits, built to persuade people that they have nothing to worry about. then in 9098, a newly qualified ph. d scientist michael man stole the show in the climate debate with the growth that would cause controversy for the next 20 years. i felt myself under assault by this massive climate denial machine back in the late 19 ninety's

when i co authors and i published the now i conic hockey stick curve, using temperature data dating back as a 1000. jeez, michael and his colleague exploded a graph called the hockey stick for obvious reasons and made the case that human activity is the undeniable cause of global warming. we believe we are seeing the effect of human beings on the climate of the 20th century. just wasn't the 1st convincing line of evidence that we were warming the planet and changing the climate. there were many independent minds, but it's but the hockey stick, i think was more visual because it told a simple story. all you had to do is look at it to realize the unprecedented challenge that we face today. and so all of the weight of the fossil fuel this information machine came down on the other german 5 as a call to the testicle. rubbish, i even called is the typical charlotte's, and he has had a report after report attacking the found is and the idea of the 20th century

temperatures are unprecedented. is what michael man is peddling through the un efforts to criminalize the science that i and other climate scientists were doing. michael's personal email support hacked and selected content were published on the internet to suggest the key and other climate t ologist were manipulating for hiding data. and so this is what the fossil fuel industry and their advocates recognize, that if we can pick off one scientist and make an example of the others, i would just retreat into my laboratory. i chose not to do that because i recognized that that's exactly what they wanted. they wanted to silence me. many of the media outlets that well within legal unwittingly part of the pilot justified the space they gave to ne say, is this part of the practice of jen was 6 pounds. the skeptics is a senior fellow and environmental starters, the cato institute, and the side of familiar face. bill nye,

the science guy. how to decide now he's, well, then he was that trip. i'm not sure which president st. green. and if you're saying that this, this phrasing is winter, very small, it's important before, but anyhow, the point is not so much the extent that is in the nature of the range of views on the science. the idea was balance, right? and it was tied to a kind of idea of objectivity. objectivity means you guys as much as you are truly able to look at the evidence fairly not. oh, well i have to listen to joe's about lives for an equal amount of time as listening to my tell me the truth. i mean, that's absurd. notion of objectivity. again, the industry knew the journalist felt that way. and so they knew that they could exploit that and they could persuade journalist in the interest of objectivity to give equal time to the industry position, even as industry position was a lie. and even if we had scientific evidence to show that that industry position was to the war on climate science has paid it out. all companies stop pushing as it

climate to know how more than a decade ago and well, attacks and scientists, duca, and conspiracy theories. cleaning climate change is a hoax, mesas, occasionally, those tactics are no longer as effective as they once what. what is happening now is a war on climate action. as of the form of denial ism in which deception, deflection and destruction, i used ultimately to continued laying meaningful cups in global emissions. fossil fuel interest polluters, they have sought to deflect attention away from the needed systemic changes towards individual behavior as it is just about you and be changing our eating habits. also dividing climate advocates, getting climate advocates fighting with each other online using bod armies and trolls to divide the community delay kicking the can down the road, talking about how they will use new technology that doesn't exist today at scale.

as a way of excusing continued business as usual, as we move from denying just whether that is global warming or not. the next step is, it is there, but it's not dangerous. how dangerous is global warming? really? i don't think it's dangerous or if you accept that it's actually getting dangerous, then you can always point the finger to somebody else. so we don't have to do anything. now we can delay action because they should go 1st as part of the change room. yes it is, but if you want to really change the verbage and we need to start telling china and india that they have to lower their and this and then if you accept this the interest. now there's flooding of the risk prior, but these actually too costly to do much about it because they were doing our economy and we would lose our jobs. climate change will have a major impact unemployment funds on jobs, and the way businesses operate. and finally, or you can say, well, it's dangerous,

it is costly, but now it's too late to do much about it. down to focus becomes on securing your life rather than doing something about it. this is a kind of continuum of arguments for your go gradually from denial to the layers is always been about to lay delaying action. continuing to promote business as usual, back in gain diversion. distraction. got monitoring. r o leads to the end of delay and it's what it was for tobacco. the tobacco industry knew they had a product that was crazy for the 1950s for they also use the state to delay to back from charles. they could continue to make large profits and they would just keep doing that for as long as they could. but we're also seeing some progress and it's important to keep that in mind as well. we are seeing carbon emissions now globally start to my toe. and we know that's due to the shift underway from fossil fuels towards renewable energy. the problem is it isn't happening fast enough in large part because of the forces of inaction in the stalling tactics that they're using.

we live in an age of skepticism. some of it is completely justified and necessary. some of it does is the product of deliberate and misinformation and misdirection. it is led to distrust of well established scientific claims about the climate. well, i think it's hardly surprising that people are confused and that some people don't trust scientists because they've been the victims of a campaign designed to confuse them. on the good side, i guess i could say the latest cold results showed that the number of americans who completely dismissed private science is actually down to only 9 percent despite this massive this information campaign. so that's really good news. the problem though is how long it has taken to that point. if somebody missed opportunities have been along the way to which today climate scientists bear some responsibility for portion of the missed opportunities for too long they operated under the night . use police that the communication strategies on dry sometimes and accessible and

often not very engaging with fine, and that there was no other serious way to share scientific information. the temperature will arise perhaps by something like point $4.00 degrees fahrenheit per decade. in reality, dissuading people, demands a host of different communication styles. and it helps to collaborate with social scientists and patient experts to understand that it's not just the effects that you're providing. it's how you deliver those facts in a way that successive is sticking memorable scientist like myself recognize now that the debate over climate change isn't really about the science, it's a proxy war over policy and id, ology. and it's essential that you recognize that if you're going to target the denial isn't the delay is and yeah, it's important to talk about the science, but it's not sufficient. we have to help the public connect the dots or the journalism community itself has become wise in increasingly recognizes that you

don't need to have a climate change, deny, or quoted. and every story along with main street in climate scientists that when you do that, you're really skewing the discourse in the direction of this information misunderstanding. we look to scientists to solve how to change it, because we thought they could just explain it. then we'd act on it. most people were pretty slow to recognize it as a clue of time because it was faint and the get towards the scientific question. they get a little frustrated actually, when journalists go back to climate scientist asked about what, what do we do now? you're not actually asking the right people now, you really need to get people engaged with being involved in social movements to understand politics. who study political dynamics was very social change. we need much more of that expertise right now. yes, we actually need the science for sure. but we need to better understand that the solution space is not a question of physical science. it is not as catastrophic itself to rule as i did

the research for this episode. it became clear to me that climate psychology is really at the heart of what the series is about. seeking to understand why our response to this. it's a central process. it's the way that it is. there's been a pretty sophisticated psychological operation going on for decades. these skepticism parts that somebody else is dealing with. this whole thing used against us. some cases with magazine now though with time is tied to cities and the need for understanding an action incredibly urgent. getting a group on outside is key and working at a strategy to counter the installation. so there's a lot of lessons that we can learned from the communications experts when it comes to obviously science communication. and one of those lessons is the importance of narratives important story telling fossil fuel and st. they have funded so much

research. they do focus groups, they do polls, they understand which messages work. they understand how to tell compelling stories . and if we don't do the same, and we're going to lose this battle for the hearts and minds of the public. the in nature 9 made catastrophes. and the rate was quite severe weather events are resulting, in other words, think devastation. the variety of human factors means the intensity and impact. is it purely natural and the politics behind normalizing climate change? as was to fact, if i was supposed to be seen as normal, but if that's something that should have to happen to any one, is it really a natural does all stuff all hell the permits on al jazeera functions in your launch took hold of me. i'll heading to the polls with the far right to expect you

to make is the biggest gain since the 19 thirty's, the german election to restrain your state without is there for the latest updates on things that phenomena of the german federal election the . there's no limit to how a dream contains sta in your own adventure, you know counter and the

. ringback the, the, israel's military says that one or 4 bodies handed over by her mouse on thursday, did not belong to sheree the boss. as expected, the, you're watching l g 0 life or my headquarters in delphi and getting you navigate to also coming up multiple explosions on buses and tell a v if no one is injured. but israel's prime minister says notary operations will be intensified in the occupied.