Andrew Winston is considered “a globally recognized expert on how companies can navigate and profit from humanity’s biggest challenges. His views on strategy have been sought after by many of the world’s leading companies, including Boeing, HP, Kimberly-Clark, PepsiCo, and Unilever.” Here he gives a TED talk about “The big pivot”.
In one of his articles on medium.com he writes about dealing with “climate skeptics”: Why Do I Believe in Climate Change?
The short answer is because of science. Overwhelming, abundant, multi-generational science. And to clarify, that means evidence, assembled over 150 years, that:
a) The Earth is warming at a radically abnormal rate.
b) It’s almost entirely because of human-related carbon (and other gas) emissions.
I trust scientists and science itself. I trust them every day when I eat, get in my car, take medicine, fly in a plane, and do thousands of other things.
On climate change, the effort of the scientific community to figure out what’s going on has been historic. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has led what is likely the largest coordinated scientific effort in history. Read the basic IPCC story.
One of the best summaries I’ve seen on climate science came from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the “world’s largest general scientific body.” In a pithy, easy to read report, “What We Know,” the organization lays out three big conclusions:
1. Climate scientists agree: climate change is happening here and now.
2. We are at risk of pushing our climate system toward abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts.
3. The sooner we act, the lower the risk and cost. And there is much we can do.
Every major scientific body in the world agrees on the basics of human-caused climate change. Here’s a list of 200 of these organizations. Also, check out out the NASA climate site or this overview of the connection between climate change and extreme weather.
If it helps, here are some other people who trust the science: basically every world leader (except one), the vast majority of large company CEOs, huge swaths of the military and security apparatus, and the pope. His 2015 encyclical on climate and poverty is truly beautiful – says Andrew Winston.
In the article we cite here, he concludes that it’s not about whether he believes in climate change, but why he believes it’s important to act. More here.