Naomi Oreskes: Merchant of Anti-Science and Censorship
ABOVE: Fossil fool, Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes is, at the most basic level, as anti-science as they come, yet she was welcomed to speak at Ted Talks and the World Economic Forum as some sort of trusted Minister of Truth on 'climate change'. When it comes to the question of anthropogenic climate change, she insists that the debate is essentially over and The Science™ is settled. It's happening and humans are to blame because she says so! Summarily attack and smear any and all conflicting facts and opinions as 'misinformation'! Case closed! Perhaps not surprising, according to Joseph Bast of the Heartland Institute, Oreskes is not a scientist. According to even the left-wing website Wikipedia, she is merely a historian of science (with degrees in mining geology, geological research and history of science). A historian reads about the past and reports on it. A historian generally would not be skilled or highly skilled at advancing science through hypothesis, testing, and observation. Similarly, for example, a music historian does not train to be a concert pianist.
Ignorant of Science 101: It reasons that if Naomi Oreskes was an actual scientist, she would know the most elementary rule of science, that science is never 'settled', especially when dealing with something as highly complex as the question of anthropogenic global warming. This is NOT something as cut and dry as Einstein's theory of special relativity or whether cigarettes are harmful to health. To make any such apples to oranges comparisons is ludicrous, yet she does just that.
Obnoxious advocate for censorship: What's worse is that, like a true communist, Oreskes wants to censor dissenting opinions (NOTE: Maybe that's why she's known as the Socialist historian). How convenient! When it comes to debates on things like climate change, the people who religiously promote it usually seem to rely on silencing the opposition. She's like a government figure out of the book "1984" or the movie "They Live" (hence the parody picture at the top of this page).
Perhaps Naomi Oreskes needs a refresher course on the history of science: For correctly supporting heliocentrism, Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy", and sentenced to house arrest until his death in 1642. Heliocentric books were banned and Galileo was ordered to abstain from holding, teaching or defending heliocentric ideas. Déjà vu! Does Oreskes have the mental bandwidth to reflect on her hypocrisy? You don't silence science!
Circular Reasoning: Oreskes would appear to be the very definition of circular reasoning. She used this child-like technique at the left-wing TED Talks conference to persuade her most naive listeners that global warming is real and man-made. Essentially, she says that 'experts' say it's true, therefore it is true. How convenient! Who are these experts? Cherry picked alarmists? Let's dive in....
TRUTH BOMB: Studies reveal that less than 50% of scientists believe that humans are causing global warming. Here are three:
According to Klaus-Martin Schulte, 2008, "the proportion of papers that now explicitly or implicitly endorse the consensus has fallen from 75% [Oreske's claim] to just 45%."
According to peer reviewed research by Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, on 54 scientific questions, just one third are alarmist, one third are skeptics, and one third say they are uncertain.
The peer reviewed journal Verhaggen, et al found that only 42% agree with the IPCC's claim to be highly confident that more than half of modern warming is due to human activity.
False equivalence arguments: Oreskes has said that we trust automobiles because of the collective of work and wisdom of hundreds of thousands of experts, therefore we should just trust what certain cherry-picked alarmist experts say about global warming. It's the same thing, you see. She has also childishly suggested that denial of the harms of tobacco is the same thing as the denial of anthropogenic global warming.
Creating false paradigms: Liberals are always very sneaky at using language to control debates. In her TED Talks speech, Oreskes insinuated that there is a settled consensus of scientists who believe that humans are heating the planet. These supposed cosensuses amoung scientists have been picked apart by Joseph Bast and others. Nevertheless, she used that as her springboard to declare that "The burden of proof is on the person with the novel claim". By using words like 'novel' she is summarily casting those who challenge anthropogenic global warming as oddball, outliers, and nonconformists. She further piles on by calling anything that would go against anthropogenic global warming ideology as a 'Paradigm Shift'. Having drawn this distorted line in the sand, she declared that "Really major changes in scientific thinking are relatively rare". Well, that settles the debate! Scientists are rarely wrong, therefore it is only logical that we should not question when cherry-picked alarmist scientists say that global warming is real and man-made.
Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength, Free speech is toxic: Is it any surprise that Naomi Oreskes attended the far-left-wing World Economic Forum of globalists where she was given a forum to spread her intolerance for free speech to other tyrants. Like a true fascist, she compared free speech to fascism. She demanded social media censorship. She called Elon Musk's Twitter a 'toxic place' that is 'exhausting'. God forbid anyone fact check the global warming propagandists, or question anything related to COVID! Oreskes also preaches to students on her climate beliefs at the woke Harvard University.
Above: Funny meme
Brainwash the kids with one-sided climate propaganda: Naomi Oreskes appears to want schools to teach kids that the debate is over and The Science™ is settled -- That humans are causing the planet to warm. You're not allowed to question climage change in schools! Anyone who argues otherwise is 'stupid', spreading Misinformation™, and must be silenced! How Orwellian! According to Dr. Peter A. McCullough, 'misinformation' is a similar term from the playbook of Nazi Germany used to grab power and moral superiority over someone else.
BELOW: The far-left-wing Guardian article that she reposted
Oreskes spreading what appears to be misinformation: At the Davos Forum, Oreskes said "We've seen organized disinformation campaigns by industries with a vested interest in denying The Science™ and it's most centrally focused around the fossil fuel industry, but we've seen it from other industries as well. And so this makes it hard for scientists because they're up against very powerful forces that are much more well organized.... and much more well-funded." This is nonsense! US government spending on climate studies alone has dwarfed oil and gas company lobbying. We know that from 1989 until 2009 the U.S. government spent more than $32.5 billion (with a B) on climate studies alone. That's about 1.625 billion per year. This does not include funding from other governments and is not adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, the five largest oil companies spent $201 million (with an M) in 2019. So, the US government spends about 8 times more per year!
Upon review, most would agree that government-funded climate studies are the climate propaganda. According to experts like Dr. Roy Spencer, in order to get on the government payroll and continue to get paid, you generally must agree with the government's global warming hypothesis. Much of the debunking work is left to grass roots volunteers. The US government is heavily involved in financing the position that global warming is dangerous, and is caused by industry, transportation, and the generation of electricity by carbon-based fuels. Thousands of scientists are being paid handsomely to find a connection between human carbon emissions and the climate.
“80% of all science research in the United States is in universities. In these universities, you cannot get a [monetary] grant about climate unless you are on the scare story side. It just won’t happen. Not only that, you will be ostracized by your peers and sent out with a pitchfork in your rear end if you do such a thing as to counter the narrative” -- Dr. Patrick Moore
"Tens of thousands of jobs depend upon global warming right now." -- Professor Patrick Michaels, Department of Environmental Sciences - University of Virginia, US
“It’s a manufactured consensus” -- Judith Curry
From 1993 to 2014 the US government spent 166 billion dollars (in 2012 dollars) on climate change.
Media organizations receive millions from anti-fossil fuel foundations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation. A 2018 study found that 19 major foundations provided significant funding to oppose the fossil fuel industry and promote renewable energy. More than 500 news and media outlets (representing an audience of 2 billion people in 57 countries) partner with Covering Climate Now, which is funded by billionaires. Covering Climate Now encourages reporters to connect climate change to every extreme weather event.
The Washington Post is partners with the Rockefeller Foundation to advance its coverage of climate change. The Associated Press was paid 8 million dollars by the Rockefeller Foundation to promote claims of global warming. The Guardian also has received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation.
Omission of facts: At the Davos Forum, Oreskes said "The thing I always say about climate science... It's actually not that complicated. Carbon dioxide traps heat. If you trap heat, the thing that the heat is trapped in will get hotter. That's really simple. It's like putting on a coat or putting on a blanket. It's really not that complicated."
What she conveniently failed to mention is that since 1880, CO2 levels have increased by a teenie-tiny 1.29 parts per 10,000. It's too minuscule of an increase to have moved the thermometer! This is not hypothesis or 'misinformation' -- This is actual data from NASA. This is what 1.29 parts per 10,000 looks like....
Lying by magnifying the minority: This truth suppression technique is covered in Chapter 5 of the book "How to Lie with Statistics". When you have a slight change in something, you stretch the graph in order to make an insignificant change look significant!
At Davos, Naomi Oreskes presented a chart that uses this sneaky technique to inflate the minute greenhouse gas level increase over the last 100+ years. How would 1.29 parts per 10,000 look like if presented in a graph that goes from zero to 100%? It would look like a straight line. Then, people would see that there is actually no correlation between alleged 'climate change' and CO2. how do you create something out of virtually nothing.
75% of 8% of cherry-picked articles is not a consensus: There is NO consensus among scientists on whether humans are causing the planet to warm. For an in-depth understanding, watch this You Tube video by Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute. Yet, some alarmists have creatively managed to create studies that erroneously claim otherwise. Bast says that Oreskes created essentially a false consensus of scientists by cherry-picking articles on global warming. Oreskes claimed that 75% of scientists believe that humans were responsible for most of the observed warming of the last half-century. She searched for "global climate change" instead of "climate change". In doing so this would have weeded out 92% of articles! Furthermore, since she is not a scientist, she misinterpreted many articles. A follow-up study aimed at updating her 75% figure found that only 7% of recent papers support the "scientists agree" claim. Furthermore, we ask how many of those cherry-picked 7% of papers were written by scientists who were given government grants (AKA financial bias)? Probably all of them!
To survey biased scientists is inherently flawed. Similarly, you could survey priests to find out if they think God exists. Priests are the experts aren't they? Close to 100% will say yes, but this proves nothing.
Science is never settled based on 'consensus' anyway. A 'consensus' of NASA scientists did not believe that falling fuel tank foam could damage the space shuttle wing. After actual testing, they were found to be wrong!
Oreskes parrots the notion that CO2 is a 'pollutant': No. CO2 is vital for plantlife. Even if you believe that earth has been warming because of the minuscuel 1.29 parts per 10,000 increase in CO2 since 1880, warmer weather increases biodiversity.
'Doctor' Oreskes has blind trust in the left-wing media's rush to dismiss anything that isn't a vaccine: In lock-step with the Washington Post, Naomi Oreskes, the non-scientist, regurgitated the far-left-wing media's rush-to-judgement derogatory and false claim that Hydroxychloroquine doesn't work, by completely ignoring its use as a treatment. In reality, Hydroxychloroquine has been shown to be 90-95 effective in treating outpatients (within the first 5 or 6 days of symptoms) when used in conjunction with zinc, vitamin D, an antibiotic like Azithromycin, and perhaps with steroids and other medications. A French study of 30,423 patients found that hydroxychloroquine lowered death rate by 6 times. Numerous other studies support the use of Hydroxychloroquine. Even Pfizer now recommends hydroxychloroquine!
SLEIGHT OF HAND: Hydroxychloroquine use was always about treating COVID -- not preventing getting it! If Oreskes was well-versed in how people lie with statistics, maybe she wouldn't have fallen for this propaganda trial promoted by the far-left-wing Washington Post -- Or, maybe her hatred of Trump would have clouded her judgment anyway.
Scorched-earth public policy: Lock everyone down regardless of age or health status! Why do we need Big Brother Government to choose if I can leave the house or not? In lock-step with Washington Post anti-Trump political propaganda, Naomi Oreskes, the non-scientist, non-medical officer, and non-public policy 'expert', asserted that allowing the healthy to go out and develop herd immunity against COVID was such definitively bad policy that is was 'misinformation' to even consider it! In reality, children in general were at extremely low risk of dying of COVID, and healthy people (of all ages) were an additional 94% less likely to die of COVID. By locking everyone down, you stiffle developing herd immunity, you create collateral health damage (delayed cancer screenings, etc), and help destroy the economy... but you damage Trump. Is this why Oreskes is so in favor of draconian lockdowns?
BELOW: Again, Oreskes cites Washington Post far-left-wing anti-Trump propaganda with words like 'controversial'. Oreskes also uses the power grab/moral superiority term 'misinformation'.
Oreskes rushed to falsely claim that it is a 'fact' that masks work. There are studies that suggest they do not work.
In lock-step with leftists, Naomi Oreskes reposted propaganda regarding the violent, Marxist group, Black Lives Matter...
Oreskes reposted the REI company's race-mongering racial equity campaign...
Like a true leftist, Oreskes is anti-NRA...
As predictable as flies on sh**, Oreskes hates Donald Trump...
'Left-wing' does not exist in her vocabulary: Oreskes has numeous Tweets raging, complaining about, and smearing anything 'right-wing'. She complains about everything from 'right-wing' funding, to 'right-wing' recklessness, rhetoric, screaming, trivialization, small-minded thinking, etc. But, in typical leftist fashion, she has zero Tweets about anything 'left-wing'. That's because she is a leftist!
In conclusion, Naomi Oreskes walks, talks, and quacks like just another propagandist from the climate change cult. She seemingly lacks critical thinking skills when she blindly trusts that data is reliable and/or hasn't been fudged or misinterpreted. Is she aware of urban heat island effect? Has she ever examined Tim Ball's climate chart? Is she aware that alarmist climate charts attach thermometer data to reconstructed tree-ring data? Is she aware of the fact that the rings of one single alpine tree was used as a proxy for Northern Hemisphere temperature data before the year 1421, and this could have negated the Medieval Warm Period in order to help create the alarmist 'hockey stick' chart. Is she aware that tree ring data suggests cooling over the last 50 years, in contrast with thermometer data, and how this calls into question the reliability of using tree ring data for figuring out how warm it was 1,000 years ago? Is she aware of the study that found that due to margin of error alone, there could be no global surface warming from 1880 to 2000. Is she aware of the massive financial bias that favors scientists who affirm the CO2 warming narrative? Is she aware of how CO2 levels have only increased by 1.29 parts per 10,000 since 1880? Is she aware of how graphs are stretched in order to in order to make a minuscule change look like a lot? Has she ever read Chapter 5 of the book How to Lie with Statistics? Has she watched Joseph Bast's explanation on how her and other scientist's 'consensus' studies are fatally flawed? Anyone who holds themselves out as an 'expert' on global warming but yet is unaware of or at least dismisses these facts ought to be regarded as either hasty and/or an intellectually dishonest zealot.
"Profits don’t matter if civilization collapses"
-- Elon Musk, on buying Twitter to fight censorship
|
|
Related: Melissa Fleming: Sanctimonious, Open-Borders, Anti-Science, Anti-Free Speech, Unelected Tyrant
Related: There is no 'disinformation' exception to the 1st Amendment.