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Exposing the lies

27 May 2020 | OP ED Watch

Naomi Oreskes, whose highly selective reading of a less than rigorous sample of paper abstracts first somehow spawned the 97% consensus figure, followed it up with a book Merchants of Doubt that spends 350 pages saying anyone who questions orthodoxy is a corrupt venal liar. It’s remarkable how inaccurate such pillars of alarmism can be when addressing details of the science rather than indulging their preferred pastime of smearing others’ character. But you’d at least expect them to be accurate recounting the details of their own writing. Russell Cook, who has devoted more than a decade to combatting this sort of character assassination, took a fairly detailed look at Oreskes’ fall 2019 Congressional testimony in which, in response to a question from Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez about an obscure 1998 memo from the American Petroleum Institute, she claimed that there were “Three hundred and 50 pages on that in my book ‘Merchants of Doubt’.” Except, as Cook explains, the memo is nowhere mentioned in the book.

Maybe what Oreskes meant was that the memo is typical of the lying lies of the liars who lie about climate, and her book is about the lying lies of these liars and they lie so much that they must be exposed as lying liars who lie so much. Or something of that sort. It was good enough for AOC and, Cook laments, many other members of Congress who simply didn’t seem well-enough briefed to ask useful questions. It’s also good enough for the halfwits who scrawl on our videos that we are driving Lamborginis paid for with Koch money or other such foolishness. But let us not get lost in the lying weeds here.

The real question is why, having supposedly discovered that virtually all qualified scientists agree that there’s a man-made, dangerous and urgent climate change crisis, Oreskes is not busy telling us what exactly the scientists are saying and what we need to do instead of blasting away at an imaginary army of scientific mercenaries no one ever seems to cite let alone hear from. Perhaps it’s because she had to walk her original 97% claim back, or rather her 75% claim that quickly escalated in the hands of Al Gore et al., to 20% explicitly endorsing the “consensus”, which just doesn’t have the same hair-raising quality. Or maybe she’s addicted to the adrenaline rush that comes with waging war on the evil to great public acclaim. Or maybe she’s finding that course of action, dare we say it, lucrative?

At any rate there’s one thing we will not say. We will not call Ms. Oreskes a liar, a fraud, a shill or any such thing. We will call her rude, inaccurate and unhelpful. But she is sincere. And if only she and those like her could say the same of us, we could get back to arguing about the substance of the debate.

Speaking of which, we discourage people from posting comments on our videos claiming climate change is a hoax. Despite the McCarthyite tactics of people like Dr. Oreskes, genuine conspiracies are extremely rare in large part because it is very hard to do something sinister on a grand scale while keeping it secret. To be blunt, paranoia is far more common than conspiracy. And while sincere, paranoia is very harmful, to you and to society. Indeed, climate alarmists ought to consider whether their smear campaigns are not in fact an obstacle to persuading people rather than their mightiest weapon.

3 comments on “Exposing the lies”

  1. A hoax, according to my online dictionary, is "something accepted or established by fraud or fabrication." In it's verb form, to hoax is to trick or dupe someone with falsehoods. There is nothing in the definition, or even the connotation, of the word 'hoax' that suggests conspiracy is an essential element. In fact, the conspiracy theorists in this game are those who claim that anyone who spreads doubt about climate change is in the pocket of Big Oil. The charge that "deniers" are "conspiracy theorists" is part of the climate-change hoax; it's a fabrication. Please stop siding with the climate-change alarmists on this point!
    Almost the entirety of the CDN website exposes climate change to be promoted by either fraud or fabrication. That doesn't mean that every story and every research article, or even any story or any research article, taken by itself on its own merits, is a fraud or a fabrication; it merely means that the gatekeepers in the discussion are deliberately creating a false narrative through a selective (and self-serving) reportage. As you so brilliantly illustrate every Wednesday, nobody can possibly believe that every effect of climate change is negative; so any source - any politician, journalist, media, or university which relentlessly hypes the negative and downplays or suppresses the positive is engaged in a hoax. Any institution that bans or demonetizes dissenting voices is engaged in a hoax. Anyone who pretends that the science is settled is engaged in a hoax. Anyone who claims that there is a 97% consensus is engaged in a hoax. These are all fabrications, whose purpose is to dupe people. There might be some genuine scientific work being done in the field of climate studies; but climate change as a political and social movement is a hoax, plain and simple.

  2. First, I do greatly appreciate your support for my work! The more people who know about the fatal faults within the political side of the global warming issue, specifically the inability of accusers to prove any conspiracy employing skeptic climate scientists exists for spreading corporate-created disinformation, the more likely those accusers can be held accountable for their actions.

    When Naomi Oreskes responded to AOC's question to say that all 350 pages of her book detailed the evil disinformation efforts of Exxon, it was merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg of problems besetting Oreskes. Read carefully though enough of her overall material aimed at skeptic climate scientists, or watch enough of her video content on her accusations, as I have, and a base-level problem becomes abundantly obvious that, at a bare minimum, undercuts her credibility as a historian. Her narratives about her own work within the issue are not consistent.

    If I may respectfully disagree, I'd say the jury is still out regarding the assertion that Ms Oreskes is sincere. In my long research into the smear of skeptic climate scientists, I try to see how their accusers first entered the issue and began their criticisms of skeptics. Oreskes has told her own tale of how she came into the issue multiple times, and I've recently categorized my blog posts dissecting those specific narratives into a separate category, "Oreskes' discovery odyssey" http://gelbspanfiles.com/?cat=156 . From all that I've uncovered, there is literally no way the series of events she describes could have occurred the way she described them. That either makes her a particularly unskilled historian, or it means she fabricated the story.

    I suggest the latter explanation may open up a window into the world of the accusers, because of a simple question about it: why would there be any need to concoct a story of how she entered this issue?

  3. Master good. Master good. Must never critically investigate who master is that appears on Tv. Must never critically investigate who master is who appears on Tv. Never say name of enemy of day-sky humanity. Never say name of enemy of day-sky humanity. Master good. Master good. API Media/Communications not central control story teller. API Media/Communications not central control story teller. Institution leaders not mafia-structured, covert-behaving world family. Put face diaper on, fear everyone and everything but master who tell you to put face diaper on and fear everyone and everything but your master. Good slave-Extra. Part II. Warm day-sky go to cold night-sky, the stars of the family rise again. Set/h is born, cursed Cain had his day killing off night-sky Abel. Repeat with Exodus of stars from star-suppressing day-sky to universe-loving (G.o.d., Yahweh, etc) night-sky, the frogs come out to mate/croak, Noah's night-sky flood over the day-sky and receding back to day-sky, then night-sky Shem again, and Revelation of the star's behaviour at night. The Earth turns. Our inbreeding Master's show called Mod Civ, a World Mafia Family matter. That's all they write.
    Not scientific, just mere detective work, political censorship called for. Poof, there goes the whole truth and just the truth. Never identify the culprit on the stage, our Master. Master good. Master Good.
    I have an older "friend" from a filthy rich Canadian family from Ottawa, given a choice at 21 to join his covert-acting male family business clan or not, he declined, couldn't stomach it, he was set adrift from the family to forge his own life, a fair bit of a spoiled-kid weasel, a peculiar fellow to say the least, a born sweet talker, still too honest to be a politician or an actor to his credit.

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