Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; Climate activist Naomi Oreskes now has her own theme song, after the University of Utah commissioned a musician to compose a song about climate denial, to convince people to read “Merchants of Doubt”.
Does climate doubt have a sound? At least one composer thinks so
Alvin Powell Harvard Staff Writer
DATE June 22, 2021What does “doubt” sound like? Specifically, scientific doubt, the kind of intentionally seeded, stalling uncertainty that has become an integral — and to many, a frustrating — feature of the debate over climate change.
To composer Yvette Janine Jackson, it has the low, somber insistence of the bass clarinet, skittering flute that cranks up anxiety, sonorous cello to hold things together, and the deep, doubting rumble of double bass.
Jackson, an assistant professor of music at Harvard, recently added her musical voice to efforts to reach those uncertain about global warming despite the scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and its climate is shifting in unpredictable and sometimes destructive ways.
Jackson’s 15-minute piece, “Doubt,” was written in collaboration with Naomi Oreskes, the Henry Charles Lee Professor of the History of Science whose academic work, including her 2010 book “Merchants of Doubt,” has focused on the denial of climate science. The composition was commissioned for Earth Day by Artivism for Earth, a project of the University of Utah. Elisabet Curbelo González, a University of Utah assistant professor of music and a project director, said Artivism’s intent is to foster an interdisciplinary exploration of the environment and so asked a variety of composers to pair with scientists to create work that ranges from Jackson and Oreskes’ piece on climate denial to collaborations on pollution, melting glaciers, the plight of the world’s whales, and water scarcity, among others.
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Read more: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/06/challenge-creates-unusual-team-of-science-historian-and-music-professor/
I tried listening to a minute of the new music composition. It seems a very post-modernest piece, like one of those poems which don’t have a rhyme.
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I can’t deny that that song makes me doubt climate scientists. It gives me feelz about manipulation of data and minds. It’s soy moving.
Apart from the atonal music, I mostly noticed the impressive venue where the quartet played. Someone should point out to these folks that absent the great wealth generated by fossil fuels, they’d be living in a subsistence economy where there are no such venues, nor the spare time needed to engage in activities such as the arts. Oh, and as a general piece of advice, if you’re ever invited to a Charles Ives recital, run for your life.
I heard Naomi Oreskes theme song and I immediately thought of this…
I noticed that “climate believers” are trying to do everything they can to convince us that they are right except for the one thing that will work: verifiable and repeatable proof that can survive an assault by those who disagree.
I’m sure that this music will change the world … just as the Coke “I’d like to buy the world a coke” song and “We are the World” ended all human strife and warfare many decades ago.
Well, I haven’t ki!!ed anybody since I heard those songs.
First time I notice someone playing the bass clarinet with a mask on. Creepy.
Do we have a contemporary Shostakovich on our hands? Don’t think so. His music was censored but people wanted to hear, play and listen. This cr*p is rammed down our throats arriving to the masses from the palaces of Harvard but nobody seems to pay any attention.
I thought the face shield on the flutist was a nice touch.
Good to know how the academics spend their precious time, especially when collaborating!
I used to play bass clarinet, first chair (out of two people), in another life. But I’m not gonna watch the video.
Maybe this one would do it:
Deny deny deny
Hello! We are more than willing to debate.
It of course are the Alarmists who avoid any one on one or group discussion.
If you play the music backwards there will be a subliminal voice telling you to buy a SUV.
Which instrument represents the sounds of people starving because there is no practical way to produce, transport, and distribute food due to lack of petroleum fuels? What instrument represents the sounds of millions freezing when the wind doesn’t blow or the Sun is obscured be clouds and night? Is there going to be “an interdisciplinary exploration” of human misery?
Actually, they can “explore” human misery without the need of musical composition. All they have to do is travel to Africa and record it, then take it back to Harvard and listen to it while enjoying a nice meal in a warm house.
What is the sound of climate doubt?
It’s the sound of a brain being engaged.
That is the ugliest dude I’ve ever seen.
Meh. Sounds like a cross between standard elevator muzac and the background sounds played at a museum of nature exhibit. Hopefully, the musicians received proper remuneration for their efforts (not carbon credits).
It’s getting weird out there, but ‘global weirding’ is caused by climate change.
I prefer to Get My Kicks on Route 66.
NAT KING COLE ROUTE 66 – YouTube
Yup!
Oh yeah!
Should anyone feel the need to gift me a copy of this tragic bit of wasted art, I will make every effort to trade it for a 3 hour recording of nails scraping on a blackboard intermixed with styrofoam rubbing on styrofoam.
“It seems a very post-modernist piece, like one of those poems which don’t have a rhyme”… or one of those scientific papers with results that can’t be repeated.
I think it is only fair us deniers get our own theme music. Climate hysterics have had the Colonel Bogey March as theirs for decades. (ask any Aussie for more details).
So, Do I ‘deny’ climate. Nope. Do I deny that climate changes? Nope. Do I question the extrapolation based off of models and incongruent data in a multi faceted complex fluid dynamic system where the BASE increase in temperature is almost SOLEY attributed to a trace gas that may add some warming. Which by the way I do not deny ‘Captures’ a band of radiation that would normally not as easily be absorbed in the atmosphere without said gas…
So what tune would this line of thinking sound like?
Wow. They’re really going full Wag the Dog, aren’t they?
Opera music for horror movies helps them to wallow in their own grief about the merchants of doubt who seem to have upset them more than the melting glaciers have.
“I think it’s incredibly important for artists to be involved in the conversations about these issues because I think one of the problems with climate change as an issue is that people don’t always really understand why it matters for them and for their lives,” Oreskes said”
“The way scientists talk about climate change is very dry, but climate change is actually a very emotional issue …..These are issues scientists are not well-equipped to discuss, but artists are.”
Being a professional musician myself, I can follow up on 3 points.
1/ The “music” as such is crap, but who knows (?) shovel fulls of crap sells well.
2/ Pseudo scientists as Feynman stated so well, always claim to know better.
3/ The first 2 words are oxymoron. “I think”, well obviously you don’t think!
4/ There are already 100s of “artists” already climbing on the climate emergency bandwagon. She seems totallly unaware that ship has already sailed.
5/ “Angst music” doesn’t make people happy.
Even that great “angst” philosopher (who that fell for Lou Salome), Nietzsche was a lousy composer.
6/ Making great “angst”-woosy music usually is best under the influence of syphilis or dying of TB.
Being as it’s now out of fashion to die of anything but some virus maybe escaping from a scientific experiment, musicians and scientists appear to be totally on the wrong track.
From the article: “Jackson’s 15-minute piece”
That’s funny! Fifteen minutes of this stuff!
Naomi should write a book about her own exploits and those who are on her side of the “climate” issue.
I’ll even help her with a title – she should call it “Merchants of Manure.”
I just observe the following:
The value of the Yvette Janine Jackson composition “Doubt” is approximately equal to the value of all AGW/CAGW claims about “climate change” that have been made to date.