A point of amusement for me a week back on Twitter/X was a situation surrounding a volcanoes enthusiast going off topic by asserting the European heat deaths were ‘blood on the hands of people behind Big Oil-funded lies’ – meaning industry deception campaigns, no doubt. The famous Tom Nelson replied by pointing out how there was no evidence to back up the claim. I’ve detailed that problem right here at GelbspanFiles since 2013. Meanwhile, an environmentalist decided to counter Tom with ‘proof’ that ‘deception campaigns’ happened by recommending him to read the “a bit dated” Naomi Oreskes Merchants of Doubt book, implying the book compared Big Oil ‘misinformation mechanisms’ to ‘pro nuclear weapons / pro tobacco mechanisms.’ The comment there – likely well-intentioned and certainly believed by the person posting it – is a classic example of intellectual dishonesty – a person essentially lying to the public and to themself. I own a copy of that book, nowhere within it is evidence of skeptical climate scientists advocating use of nuclear weapons or even remotely being pro-tobacco. My response to that commenter was to read my SPM on Oreskes, to comprehend just how much disinformation Oreskes generates. But my recommendation goes much farther – the same basic accusation may end up in some form when the Supreme Court takes up a discussion about the Boulder v Suncor lawsuit.
Attorney presenting arguments on behalf of energy companies: … as it concerns so-called ‘evidence’ sourcing from Naomi Oreskes ….
Justices Sotomayor / Kagan / Jackson: “I must object here, what’s the relevance of bringing up her name?”
Attorney: “Goes to credibility. These cases hinge on her claims about industry-orchestrated misinformation – she’s the one putting out all the misinformation.”
She’s gotten away with all she puts out because nobody major – such as a potential reference to her authoritative assertions within arguments at a Supreme Court hearing – has ever illustrated just how hugely crippling the problem is.
Case in point is her 2024 University of Rhode Island presentation on (ironically titled) “Democracy in Peril,” in which her focus was on how ‘disinformation is a key factor eroding Democratic trust and transparency.’ That, coming from a person who’s real goal since 2004 has been to erode trust in the credibility of skeptic climate scientists through outright disinformation. It’s breathtaking to see this in action:
10:12 point, the host’s introduction: … Using diverse examples from corporate profit motives to public health crises, she examines how elites often purposefully use disinformation to undermine trust and to distort public understanding. Without sound information to draw upon, the core foundation of democracy, that people are the best judges of their own interests, is undermined.
If the bit there isn’t the perfect psychological projection of exactly what the enviro-activist elites themselves have done throughout the entire collective global warming issue, I don’t know what better summation could be made. By way of example, the PBS NewsHour news outlet has never provided its viewing audience with sound information on the issue, but has withheld vital information on it – the entire skeptic scientists side – for around three decades. This presentation here, meanwhile, couldn’t even get far enough along to actually have her speak before telegraphing exactly how she accuses others of doing exactly what she does.
12:52, Naomi Oreskes: … I think we all know that in the long run, denial makes things worse …
After all of the intros, her presentation didn’t start until the 12:31 point. She could not go farther than 20 seconds without offering an implication that skeptics of catastrophic man-caused global warming can all be slapped with the catch-all label of ‘climate change deniers.’ As Lord Christopher Monckton so ably once demonstrated, nobody on this side denies climate change – a 100% consensus.
12:59: … I think we know that the solution to disinformation is not to give equal time to both sides, and I think we know that more often than not, truth does not lie in the middle.
She’s channeling the late Ross Gelbspan about the ridiculous notion of ‘unfair media balance’ for skeptic climate scientists. The solution to disinformation is entirely to fairly examine both sides of the climate issue – those who say human activity is the primary and devastating cause, and those who say it isn’t – in order to determine who presents the most sound science argument. When you tell the public that skeptic scientist are paid to lie and should be ignored while not disputing their assessments or presenting viable evidence to prove their ‘industry-paid corruption,’ that is precisely what deceptive disinformation looks like. Oreskes has no climate science expertise, and her accusations about industry disinfo campaigns are totally without merit on several different levels.
13:18: … there are people who argue that studying disinformation is is a distraction, that it’s not the main event, and that focusing on on disinformation is polarizing. I’ve been accused of demonizing the fossil fuel industry to which I respond, “they kind of do that themselves”
Disinformation most certainly is the main event – it’s what kept the climate issue alive, by wiping out the validity of the skeptic side with anti-science notions about a “scientific consensus” and with outright character assassination of skeptic climate scientists. True, Oreskes most certainly has demonized the industry … but I’ve had to replay that little ‘demonizing themselves’ bit several times – it’s utterly nonsensical. And by default, nonsense statements offered as authoritative statements are disinformation.
13:46: … disinformation hurts people… and ultimately, it undermines democracy …
True statement, but nevertheless outright disinformation on her part because the disinformation in the climate issue comes entirely from her side – that the science is settled / that science consensus validates that ‘conclusion,’ and that the industry deceives the public with disinfo campaigns.
14:11: … where disinformation has killed people, is tobacco. For decades, as we all now know … the tobacco industry bombarded the American people with disinformation and misleading marketing about tobacco products … that we didn’t really know smoking caused cancer, when in fact, we did …
Enviro-activists love this talking point, despite how totally irrelevant it is to the climate issue. Whatever time, money, and resources the tobacco industry spent on material to downplay the harm of smoking, it was totally wasted because the public still labeled cigarettes as “coffin nails” and smokers said – between bouts of coughing – “these things will be the death of me yet” (“Puff, puff, puff and if you smoke yourself to death …”) Heartless as it may sound, if people were so dumb as to believe that inhaling burning particulate big enough to see with the naked eye wasn’t harmful, then maybe they deserved their fate.
16:42: … if these people had known that smoking caused cancer … if we hadn’t had disinformation from the tobacco industry, would these people have all quit? …
If an audience member had interrupted her right there to say, “That’s a ridiculous question – they knew, but they were nicotine addicts,” the person would have been escorted out by Security guards. In Oreskes’ “democracy,” anything that undercuts her narrative is not permitted.
18:11: … those of us who wore our masks did it because we accepted the scientific recommendation that wearing masks could slow the spread of COVID-19 …
An individual flu virus particle has a measurement which is smaller than what the human eye can see. Cigarette particles are large enough to see, as are vape particles from e-cigarettes. When cloth masks and paper masks don’t stop such particles big enough to see, it means they are even less effective at stopping smaller particles. Like BBs being tossed through a chainlink fence.
19:28: … when the mask mandates were implemented, cases went down, hospitalization went down, and deaths all went down in the counties in the counties that enforced the mask mandate, but in all of the other counties, every single one, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths went up …
Right. Notice the lack of full context transparency there. What specific classes of people experienced the uptick, and what other factors had an effect on the rate in either direction? What specific evidence is there that everyone within a red or blue-politically leaning county strictly adhered to the mandates?
22:48: … Peter Hotez .. estimates that 500,000 Americans died in what were essentially preventable deaths. … It’s still a lot of people who died because of vaccine refusal. …
What assurance is there that these same people would have died from some other virulent form of the ordinary flu virus, which periodically happens but gets little media attention. But notice what she does not mention: populations of otherwise healthy people getting the Covid vaccine who then were afflicted with myocarditis and other heart complications – a problem apparently withheld from the public. Again, when vital info is kept hidden, that’s a form of deception/disinformation no matter what the topic is.
25:21: … why are so many Americans overweight?… one of the reasons this is associated with stigma is the sense that overweight people are blamed, that it’s their fault, that there’s a persistent negative stereotype associated with claiming that overweight people are lazy or undisciplined. But I want to argue that overweight people aren’t overweight because they’re lazy or undisciplined, but because of the food we eat.
It is their fault; they’re undisciplined. I eat exactly the same kind of food which fat people eat, I just don’t eat half the cake for dessert, or half a pint of ice cream in a single sitting. Or three cheeseburgers and a thousand calorie Big Gulp drink. Tempting as all of that might be, it only leads to one result.
27:13: … you may remember this ad, the Lay’s Potato ad, where the devil says, I bet you just can’t eat just one. … We couldn’t eat just one, because these potato chips were manufactured to be hyper-palatable. They actually did studies where they adjusted the amount of salt, sugar, and fat in the potato chips to figure out what recipe would make these potato chips so palatable that we would find it hard to eat not even just one, but just five or just ten. So you can think about who the true devil is in this story … while foods were being manufactured to be hyper-palatable, we were also bombarded with misleading advertising … that implied these foods were good for us, or at least that they were part of a balanced diet …
Potatoes are part of a balanced diet, and if the chips were delicious, there was no disinformation there. Want to cure obesity by the Oreskes Plan? Force food companies to make bland food. Or you could follow the GelbspanFiles Plan: eat a handful – a dozen or so – for lunch and that’s it for the day. Label yourself disciplined if you do.
28:06: … just for fun, I asked ChatGPT last night, as I was finishing my talk, can Lucky Charms be part of a healthy diet? And guess what ChatGPT said? Yes, Lucky Charms can be part of a balanced diet because they contain whole grains and are a source of nutrients …
Those contain whole grains and nutrients, but more sugar than I care for. Eat one bowl for breakfast, not three, and no obesity occurs, Alternatively, eat four bowls a day and two other 1500+ calorie meals per day …. but do something to work that all off.
29:11: … the other thing I just want to point out, we’re not very happy in this country. If you look at any measure of happiness, the United States typically lands not even in the top 10 or 15, so lots of places in the world, virtually all European countries, but also Costa Rica, Kuwait, Chechnya, Lithuania, Slovenia. People are happier in all these other countries, some of which are not as wealthy as the United States. So, my conclusion is that happy meals do not make us happy …
A statement utterly devoid of any context, and thus is basically disinformation. What’s the ratio of Americans migrating to Costa Rica, Kuwait, Chechnya, Lithuania, Slovenia compared to the reverse, legally or illegally coming to America? That would be a fuller context indicator of where many outsiders would be happier. People in 3rd world countries would probably be deliriously happy to have immediate access to a range of hyper-palatable food. Perhaps as much as half of the American public would be happier if they weren’t being inundated with disinformation from a population which seeks to control everyone else.
29:41: … Now, advertising is not generally thought of as disinformation, but maybe it should be …
It’s amazing nobody in her audience burst out laughing at that. A person need only undertake an internet search for “tricks used in advertising to make things look better” to see the level of deception that’s been done in TV and print advertising for decades. This statement alone ought to bring enough pause to anyone concerning the rationale she uses. Meanwhile, immediately following the above line as rationale for why Covid deaths were greater for obese people was …
…. Advertising and marketing have contributed to our eating food that we thought was healthy, or at least we thought it was healthy enough, but in fact was making us sick …
Obese people are duped into eating too much yummy food, making them more susceptible to falling victim to Covid19. Blame for their deaths – using Oreskes’ rationale – is the result of advertising disinformation. Not the result of a Chinese virology lab losing control of their material.
29:56: … now let me talk a little bit about climate change. For the past 20 years I’ve worked on the question of the causes and effects of climate change denial … so it’s quite hard for me to talk about it for only five or 10 minutes but that’s what I’m going to do …
That’s disinformation. The only people who actually engage in climate change denial are those on her side, demanding a climate level that never changes from one chosen from 150 years ago. Nobody on the skeptic side denies climate change, thus technically the ‘work’ she did starting from some time in 2005 – 19 years – was on a non-existent situation. What she needs to be is honest with her audience, and say she’s worked on impugning the character of skeptic climate scientists since she has no climate science expertise to dispute their science-based climate assessments.
30:53: … views on climate science are highly polarized with science rejection correlating most strongly with political party or self-identified political leanings …
Yes. But she needs to aim that statement entirely at herself in the mirror. What is one of the more blatant forms of science rejection? Dismissing an entire side out-of-hand on the excuse that they are liars-for-hire, when that accusation is devoid of a scintilla of evidence to back it up.
And that right there is just the first 30 minutes of a 45 minute presentation where she essentially utilized disinformation to setup the notion that government science authority, and thus democracy, is under threat, and then used that to imply that anyone questioning the ‘science consensus’ on global warming is part of that threat … saying that these descriptions of threats are the shortest part of her presentation because it’s something everyone knows.
Of which every “threat” she offered as examples were not threats to democracy at all. If an audience member had interrupted her right there to say, “There are huge questions to be asked about the ‘Jan 6 attack on congress’,” the person would have been escorted out by Security guards – again reinforcing how the actual threat to democracy and freedom is governmental authority and sycophants working with them demanding unquestioned acceptance of their dictates and suppressing any efforts to question those dictates.
Oreskes didn’t stop there when it came to offering misleading points to the audience. During the nearly half hour of post-presentation discussion with her host, she claimed – no joke, starting at the 53:13 point – that basic ‘Hollywood rejection of harsh realities’ is what led to the election of Ronald Reagan. No, that would be a historian rewriting history there, it was the reality of double digit inflation under President Carter and his administration’s inept handling of relations with the Soviet Union and Iran which eroded basically all confidence that if he was re-elected, he could dig himself out of his collective political hole.
Why anybody would tap Naomi Oreskes to speak outside her ‘lane of climate disinformation expertise’ is a mystery, when she only erodes her own credibility by offering authoritative-sounding assertions which are really nothing more than items of disinformation.
The above presentation was in October 2024. What’s she been up to lately? Hoping yet another audience would accept her disinformation about a specific ‘attack on science’ without question:
June 22, 2026, Brussels Institute for Advanced Studies presentation, 56:59 point: … “There was one ad campaign that ran in the states in the 1990s around the time Congress was supposed to be voting on Kyoto said ‘why would you spend money fixing a problem that doesn’t even exist?’”
That’s her one-trick pony effort about the old 1991 Western Fuels Association public relations campaign which she claims to be an expert on, where she gets the name wrong for the actual campaign and claims it operated under a memo directive which it never did while showing a pair of newspaper advertorials falsely attributed to that campaign which were never published anywhere. One has to wonder if she inadvertently telegraphs that she is aware of her faulty claims about the advertorials, because the one she mentioned just last week in Brussels is one that actually was published. Except her paraphrase of its headline is essentially disinformation. The actual wording makes all the difference in the world. If a Brussels audience member had interrupted her right there to say, “What you just said is not what that actual advertorial said,” the person would have been escorted out by Security guards.
