Obama on Dealing With the Climate Change Naysayers

While I was away last week, a climatologist I know called me up and asked if I'd heard President Barack Obama's "cleantech" speech at MIT. I hadn't. So what's up? My caller suggested that I might find this section interesting:

The naysayers, the folks who would pretend that this is not an issue, they are being marginalized.  But I think it's important to understand that the closer we get, the harder the opposition will fight and the more we'll hear from those whose interest or ideology run counter to the much needed action that we're engaged in.

Only opponents have interests or are benighted ideologues? Of course, the defenders of the status quo climate have no interests other than the public's and no ideological commitments whatsoever. But the president continued:

There are going to be those who cynically claim—make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary.

So we're going to have to work on those folks.

My climatologist caller was wondering what the president might mean by "work on those folks"? Hmm.