Yale scientist tells Bill Moyers we need to end the silence on climate change

In an interview with veteran journalist Bill Moyers on Friday, scientist Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, described the dire need to reinvigorate communities across the globe in the fight against climate change -- a subject Leiserowitz says is as much a communications challenge as it is a scientific one.

“[A] pervasive sense up to now has been that climate change is distant — distant in time, and distant in space,” Leiserowitz tells Bill. “And what we’re now beginning to see is that it’s not so distant."

Specializing in the psychology of risk perception, he knows more than most whether or not people are really willing to make climate change a significant part of the national conversation again and then change their behavior accordingly.

"I have a nine-year-old son — he’s going to be my age in the year 2050," Leiserowitz said. "I don’t want him to live in the world that we’re currently hurtling towards.”

Watch the full interview uploaded to YouTube on March 15:

[Anthony Leiserowitz interview with Bill Moyers via YouTube]