After reading the transcript of her radio interview, I think she’s finally had her “jumped the shark” moment. From Andrew Bolt’s report in Australia, Oreskes sounds even more off the rails than the always wrong doomer Paul Ehrlich. Bolt writes:
Just how crazy are the world’s leading global warming alarmists? Tony Thomas investigates the strange case of Naomi Oreskes, and how the ABC’s Robyn “100 metres” Williams didn’t even blink an eye:
Global warming is going to “wipe out” every Australian man, woman and child, according to Naomi Oreskes, the much-quoted Professor of the History of Science at Harvard. Revered by catastropharians the world over, she was a guest on a recent edition of Robyn Williams’ Science Show on Radio National…
The glum forecast is in her latest book, The Collapse of Western Civilisation (co-author Erik Conway)…
What Oreskes predicts is that some people in northern inland regions of Europe, Asia and North America, plus some mountain people in South America, will survive the killer warming. These lucky ones are able to “regroup and rebuild. The human populations of Australia and Africa, of course, were wiped out,” she says, writing from a viewpoint some 400 years into the future…
But Oreskes forecasts something much worse than the death by climate for every Australian human. She prophesises the climate deaths of puppies and kittens…
“The loss of pet cats and dogs garnered particular attention among wealthy Westerners, but what was anomalous in 2023 soon became the new normal. A shadow of ignorance and denial had fallen over people who considered themselves children of the Enlightenment.”…
Radio National’s Williams was delighted with Oreskes’ pet-panic strategy. He chimed in,
“Yes, not only because it’s an animal but it’s local. You see, one criticism of the scientists is they’re always talking about global things…And so if you are looking at your village, your animals, your fields, your park, your kids, and the scientists are talking about a small world that you know, than it makes a greater impact, doesn’t it…”
Oreskes starts The Science Show by reading from her book. Be afraid:
“By 2040, heatwaves and droughts were the norm… In wealthy countries, the most hurricane- and tornado-prone regions were gradually but steadily depopulated… Then, in the northern hemisphere summer of 2041, unprecedented heatwaves scorched the planet, destroying food crops around the globe. Panic ensued, with food riots in virtually every major city. Mass migration of undernourished and dehydrated individuals, coupled with explosive increases in insect populations, led to widespread outbreaks of typhus, cholera, dengue fever, yellow fever, and viral and retroviral agents never seen before… The European Union announced similar plans for voluntary northward relocation of eligible citizens from its southernmost regions to Scandinavia and the United Kingdom…”
The ever-credulous Williams, instead of asking Oreskes, “Mmm, you’re smoking something good?” merely observed that all of the above is “fairly shocking”…
Read more here
Sounds like the introduction to “War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells
Intersting cause it was the cold saved us in that book too….
Cold as in climate or as in common?
Due to the exponential growth of a credible skeptical opposition, it’s becoming harder to back the fear campaign with real science. Now they turn to plausible fiction to keep the fear alive.
What’s plausible in her fantasy? At best it’s remotely possible but very unlikely fiction but it’s really about as believable as Sharknado so that would put it in the so stupid it kills brain cells fiction category.
Unless she’s been time-traveling, her book is fiction. As in Sharknado. As in any Guardian issue. As in “just makin’ up stuff.” What’s sad is that an historian can’t tell the past from the future.
In comparison, Paul Ehrlich looks like a reasonable, logical, rational doomsayer, just aways wrong, mostly because he forever extrapolates current processes into the future assuming no changes (like global warmists) and no advancements in agriculture yields, birth rates, etc.
Is Naomi Oreskes thought of just like Ward Churchhill or any other far-left campus speaker? Do people actually take her seriously? If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around does it make a noise? If Naomi Oreskes falls in the middle of Times Square would anyone notice?
“Do people actually take her seriously?”
Robyn Williams seems to…at least enough to give her book a plug on national airtime that would cost many thousands on commercial radio.
Well… Robyn Williams has no name recognition with me but as you pointed out he does have an audience down under.
History professor? Strange, I thought we were to learn from history and history teaches us that none of the doom prophets ever predicted their armageddon correctly.
Barking…the pair of them. Mad as a box of frogs.
She’d probably quite happily laugh at the loony on the street corner proclaiming the end of the world. I think most people are actually laughing at her now. You know you’ve won a public debate when people start laughing at your opponents.
Here in the EU – aka as the Community of Foolery – we have decided to ban vacuum cleaners requirng power above a given wattage in a bid to reduce climate change. They wish to extend this to electric kettles as well. Of course what these fecking idiots don’t seem to realise is that if you wish to boil a litre of water it takes a given amount of energy – the heat capacity of water is fixed – it doesn’t matter what rate the energy is supplied at. So whether you boil it slowly (lower wattage kettle) or quickly (higher wattage kettle) you’ll need the same amount of energy using the similar device. In fact the most important issue when saving money is to use a bigger kettle and make more teas at once as less energy is wasted trough the surface of the kettle.
I think everyone is slowly starting to realises this is a joke.
Only thing, we must keep it a secret that it takes ~six times the energy to make water at 212 F (100C) actually boil. They may put thermostats on the kettles to avoid wasting the additional energy to make your tea. To some, not boiling the water gives a different taste. Gases in the water being evolved in boiling?
If by ‘evolved’ you mean driven out of solution, then sure.
If, however, you mean the more precise chemical definition of evolved, then I don’t think your tea kettle gets hot enough to evolve any gases from the water.
Probably the smaller kettle would use more energy because there would be a longer time for heat to be lost via the exposed metal surfaces. Maybe this is what you meant and I did not interpret your words perfectly.
Ian M
European apparatshiks bureaucrats don’t make jokes. Never ever. Doing so requires some intelligence at least.
Living under “A shadow of ignorance and denial …”
Yep, sounds like a good description of CAGW Alarmists condition..
Sad to think some poor fool is paying 200k plus for people like this to educate their child. When sci-fi is taught as fact, the system has failed from the top down.
The real disaster here related to her citation of potential plagues is how R&D money has been diverted away from medical research and biology to build while departments of climate change along with the Solyandra level boondoggles. Antibiotic resistance is a real threat now, not a hypothetical.
On the money! There are a host of problems not getting needed attention due to resources going to the alarmists.
To be fair, bioscientists of various stripes are trying to game the system, too. The ice bucket challenge tries to increase funding for ALS research at a time when no one has a frigging clue how to seriously make a dent into this problem. Meanwhile, the bacterial resistance problem is not only much larger and more pressing but also much more approachable – we have developed successful antibiotics, and we can do it again if we put our minds to it.
“The ice bucket challenge tries to increase funding for ALS research at a time when no one has a frigging clue how to seriously make a dent into this problem.”
http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/27/why-legal-pot-is-better-than-the-ice-buc
“Writing in The Hill, Andrew Gargano talks about an existing, effective way to ameliorate the disease’s devastating symptoms: Medical marijuana.”
Medical marijuana may “ameliorate the symptoms”, at least subjectively, but it will not change the course of the disease.
Not true. It also alleviates the symptoms objectively–and it slows the progress of the disease:
What this illustrates is the “dumbing down” of the media. In days gone by the media would hold this Oreskes feet to the fire. Where’s the credential checking, fact checking, two source required, and your critics are asking media of yesteryear?
What irritates me about Ms. Oreskes and her book is that there are enough people out there who are wedded enough to climate catastrophism to actually buy this book. Watching this woman cash in on the scientific illiteracy of those people this way is enough to make my blood boil.
If she actually believes everything she says in the book, her conscience probably isn’t bothering her much as she does this (if she has a conscience). And if she does believe it all, she is far too disconnected from the scientific reality of the Earth’s climate today to be writing about it in the first place….especially since her background is actually in the field of history.
Unfortunately, this is all to common in academia today for Harvard to see any problem with her and do anything about it.
She’s only partially correct. Only the adorable, loving, gentle, kittens and dogs (the ones with the longing eyes) will die from global warming. The rabid, barking, growling, unbrushed and ungroomed, dogs and cats will not only survive, they’ll increase in range and numbers.
I want to comment here, but I do not believe in using ad hominems when talking about another person. It is just really difficult NOT to use them when speaking about Naomi Oreskes. Okay. Taking a deep breath. Here goes:
Naomi Oreskes is a moron!
Damn!
Wait. Give me a minute. I know I can do this. Okay. Take two:
Naomi Oreskes is a Professor of Science History, but her writings appear to be devoid of any of the lessons one would glean from an understanding of the history of science. These lessons include the importance of skepticism, the essentials of observation, the restriction of emotion and the absolute necessity of rational thinking. She ignores these lessons of science history in all of her arguments. Any credibility she had as a history professor has long since been eroded by her inability to understand science history, and she has never had any credibility as an authority on climate. The only reasonable explanation for her behavior is that Ms. Oreskes has abandoned everything she once new about the history of science in order to embrace a radical agenda of fear mongering for the sake of self aggrandizement.
…And she’s a twit!
(Arrgghh!)
Another victim of Climate Change is 70s Kitch pop group Bonny M.
Their top selling hit By the Rivers of Babylon. Babylon is actually in modern day Baghdad.The rivers they refers too are the Tigress and Euphrates.Apparently some climate experts claim that by 2040 the Tigress and the Euphrates will have completely dried up.So Iraq 2040 another date to keep for your diary.
Bonny M fortunately will still have the royalties from Ra Ra Rasputine Lover of the Russian Queen and Ma Baker.
They only covered Rivers Of Babylon. Old ska and reggae versions of it; great stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_of_Babylon
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=end+of+the+world+as+we+know+it&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=vhkHVKCKJtCq8weQi4HIBw
Talking pop and world disaster here is a video to cheer us all up.
Well, climate change won’t kill our pets per se, but it will force us to eat them, so it’s the same thing, right? /sarc
So where’s Mosh condemning this fact-challenged consensus science?
This is just more of the “Believe in manmade climate change or the kitten gets it” emotional manipulation garbage by people who have no qualms about lying for the Cause, and thus no moral fiber, who know they are losing, and whose response can only be to double and triple down on the lies and emotionalism. Shame? They don’t know the meaning of the word.
whats so upsetting is that there ARE people who do believe this stupid crap!
and not just now, a few years ago a poor elderly woman living alone and frail was worried sick her only companion her dog would suffer from climate change effects and rang in to a vet show to ask how soon should she euthanase her pet to save it the horrible death some absolute bastard agw shill had convinced her was coming. I cried for her and her state of distress.
id like to be in a room with ms oreskes for a few minutes..really I would.
I’m convinced now…. I’ve been converted to climate alarm-ism (sarcasm). Kittens and puppies… oh my! I am pretty sure more kittens and puppies died due to climate in the US last winter than all of the summers of the last decade.
But shouldn’t fewer abandoned kittens die due to global warming? I hear young kittens cannot regulate body temperature and must be kept warm.
I had my suspicions Anthony and here it is!
Though winters came back with a vengeance.
Pet parrots are doomed to thrive in the UK.
She’s a good illustration of the origin of the madness. Fear has clearly overcome whatever reason she ever had in her mind.
Now I don’t really believe that. She has been a vicious power-grabbing ideologue from the gitgo, willing to pervert science and history to her own dark aims. I doubt she believes any of that crap she wants hoi polloi to buy.
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She has invented a new literary genre, catastraphiction
There in Oreskes is the stark evidence that the Great Scam is well into its death spiral. Don’t be tempted to feel sorry for them.
[snip -over the top -uncalled for -mod]
Sorry – my bad.
A beautiful word, “catastropharians”…
To the point, however, it is good for her that she has no credibility at all. I once encountered a pit bull terrieir that had gotten into by back yard and was making a credible threat on the life of my cat Merlin. I attacked the pit bull bare-handed, but with such fury that it fled and did not ever return. (The cat survived, minus a leg.)
I am not sure if it’s because I’m Irish, or a Texan, or ex-military, but I simply cannot tolerate a credible threat to those I love, even my pets.