Public lecture The Big Myth: "How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market"

Professor Oreskes* will discuss the role of corporate America in promoting the myth of the “free market” in order to prevent government regulation of dangerous practices and products, including fossil fuels.

She argues that, to address the climate crisis at the necessary scale and rate, we must reject that myth and re-embrace the essential role of governments in addressing market failure.

When: Thursday 8 February, from 18.00 to 19.00 hrs.

Where: in the foyer of Rijksmuseum Boerhaave

Costs: free with a museum ticket (or free with a Museumkaart, students pass, etc.)

Photo credit: Jonathan Sachs

This public lecture is part of the workshop Fact, Fake and Fiction.

*Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. An internationally renowned scientist and historian, she is a leading voice on the reality on anthropogenic climate change and the history of efforts to undermine climate action and scientific truth.

Oreskes is an author of nine books, including, Why Trust Science? (2019) and Science on a Mission: How Military Funding Shaped What We Do and Don’t Know about the Ocean (2021), and over 150 scholarly and popular articles. Her opinion pieces have been appeared around the globe, including on The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times (London), and the Frankfurter Allgemeine.  In 2015, she wrote the Introduction to the Melville House edition of the Papal Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality, Laudato Si.  Her 2010 book with Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt, has been translated into nine languages, sold over 100,000 copies, and made into a documentary film. In 2018, she became a Guggenheim Fellow, and in 2019 was awarded the British Academy Medal. Her new book with Erik Conway, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loath Government and Love the Free Market, was published by Bloomsbury Press in February 2023.