Naomi Oreskes’ Problems, pt 1 (3/10/15 update)

Naomi Oreskes seems to be enjoying a bit of new publicity* as the result of the “Merchants of Doubt” movie premiere (*where some review outlets allow critical comments while others do not), which is based on the 2010 book she co-authored with Erik Conway. But let’s get one thing straight, Oreskes is little more than yet another “cog in the wheel” when it comes to accusing skeptic climate scientists of being paid shills of the fossil fuel industry, enslaved just like all the other cogs to the same single source for the accusation, Ross Gelbspan. In this Part 1 blog post, I’ll re-emphasize this enslavement, and explain the necessity for subsequent posts about Oreskes at the end. [Update appears there now] Continue reading

James Hoggan’s Monster Error of Assumption

Climate Cover-Up” book author James Hoggan offers a bold pair of statements on pages 164 and 230, “If someone tells you to be skeptical, be skeptical of them. For that matter, be skeptical of me,” and “… survey a variety of sources just to help confirm – or challenge – what you have read in this book. I am confident that it will stand up to scrutiny…” However, such bravado is odd, Continue reading

Why are non-tobacco documents in The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library?

Just askin’. But perhaps part of the answer is found in the critical necessity of the man-caused global warming issue to say a parallel exists between the paid tobacco industry expert shills who said there was no cigarette smoking / lung cancer tie, and alleged ‘industry-paid shill scientists’ who supposedly lie about the harm of man-caused global warming. Imagine what happens if the larger public has no faith that any such parallel exists. Continue reading