Meet The Lady Doctor Who Has BLINDED Us With SCIENCE!

You're gonna want to take a minute with this one.

Yr Dok Zoom had just finished up his piece on Donald Trump's latest Fox News nominee when Yr Editrix had an important message for him! "Uh oh, Dok, you are wrong!"

Well, here at Wonkette, we just HATE being wrong, so we looked at the email Rebecca had pasted right there in the Wonkette Sekrit Chatcave, and blue blistering barnacles, she was right! I had wasted most of yesterday afternoon preparing this morning's long post about Jay Inslee's climate plan for absolutely nothing. While the email wasn't actually about that post, it arrived on the same day, so there's a message, all right.

May 17, 2019
Green New Deal Is Neither Joke nor Hoax

If you believed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "joke" about the end of the world in 12 years, you have "the intelligence of a sea sponge," she says now. And President Donald Trump called the Green New Deal a "hoax."

The "joke," however, is being taught as truth in schools, and children are marching in the streets to demand "climate action" to save their future. The Green New Deal has been endorsed by Democrat Presidential hopefuls and dozens of lawmakers.

It is hardly new. In large part it was lifted from a 2009 UN publication. In the Jan 3 issue of the prestigious British journal Nature, its author, Edward Barbier, calls it "the first time a major western economy has proposed a comprehensive 10-year plan for a green transition."

As "renewables" (wind and solar) cannot possibly generate more than a tiny fraction of the energy we now get from oil, coal, gas, and nuclear, the Green New Deal means energy starvation. Proponents of the UN Agenda 21, on which the GND is based, envision a world in which people are allowed 320 square feet of living space and about 1 ounce of meat per day.

For more information, see Civil Defense Perspectives, January 2019, and press release.

Please respond to [redacted] or [also redacted]. I would be happy to discuss these issues with you.

Jane M. Orient, M.D., Tucson, AZ
President, Physicians for Civil Defense

Well then! Incidentally, Ocasio-Cortez did have a slip of the tongue where she said young folks think the world will end in 12 years without action on climate; obviously, that was shorthand for the dozen or so years UN scientists say we have to prevent the worst possible outcome by the end of the century. That "intelligence of a sea sponge thing" comes from a recent tweet where she mocked people taking the misstatement in bad faith.

This is a technique of the GOP, to take dry humor + sarcasm literally and “fact check” it. Like the “world ending… https: //t.co/Ouedwxn9uV

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) 1557676896.0 

Needless to say, the Usual Suspects were quick to announce AOC had now said anyone who's worried about climate has the intelligence of a sea sponge, and the Elevated Discourse continues.

Now, back to this important Science Doctor and president of "Physicians for Civil Defense." We'd never heard of her, so we decided to find out more about Dr. Jane Orient! Google had some suggestions!

Hoo boy. We felt a bit like Robyn must when she finds a new "prophetess" with a joyous message of whackdoodlery. And my, what a prodigious profusion of pseudoscience craziness we found! It turns out Dr. Orient is a veritable nexus of connections to the science-denying Right. She's got herown pageat the Heartland Institute, which fans of   Merchants of Doubt  know got its start denying the links between tobacco and cancer, and which since has become one of the chief outfits peddling denial of climate science.

She's also a "Professor of Medicine" at the "Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine," an outfit run by Art Robinson, the guy who wants tocollect your pee and freeze it to find the secret of longevity, and whose libertarian leanings got billionaire Robert Mercer interested in politics. Mercer and Robinson also think radiation can be good for you, which may soon be Trump administration policy.

Oh, there's so much more! Orient, it seems, is also one of the signatories of an anti-evolution manifesto called "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism," published in 2011 by the creationist Discovery Institute. (Don't worry, we've only linked toRationalWiki's discussion of that nonsense, because we fear the truth. )

What's more, Orient is the Executive Director of the "Association of American Physicians and Surgeons," the fake medical organization to which both Ron and Rand Paul belong. It's listed as a "quack organization" by Quackwatch, and while its main focus is ranting about the horrors of socialized medicine and Obamacare (same thing), the AAPS also opposes the HPV vaccine, which could cause sluttiness, and promotes the medically invalid lie that abortion causes breast cancer.

Heck, Jane Orient even helped Donald Trump win the 2016 election, in her own humble way. Looks like she was one of the originators of the Hillary Clinton is Dying RIGHT NOW conspiracy story. Breitbart cited her, after all:

The executive director of a physicians' organization questions how the mainstream media can ignore signs of what could be a traumatic brain injury in the Democrat nominee for president.

And who was that executive director? Jane Orient, of the quack group. Funny, no mention of the group's history of dubious claims. 

RationalWiki also notes that the group's office, in Tucson, Arizona, has a whole bunch of other "nonprofit" groups at the same address, and look who the contact person is!

Its physical address [...], a suite in a medical center, is shared with a lot of other equally weird organizations including Doctors for Disaster Preparedness , the American Health Legal Foundation, the AAPS Educational Foundation (contact: Dr Jane Orient), Physicians for Civil Defense (contact: Dr Jane Orient), [and] the Southwestern Institute of Science (contact: Dr Jane Orient)  

We looked at the website for "Doctors for Disaster Preparedness," and we see they're having aconference in July. In Tucson, naturally. One of the featured speakers is Patrick Moore, who earned our mockery just the other day ; he'll be speaking on "Twelve Invisible Fake Catastrophes and Threats of Doom." And George Gilder, the founder of the Discovery Institute, will be there, but not talking about "Intelligent Design." Nope, he's gonna explain Bitcoin, a truly novel topic these days. And yes, of course Arthur Robinson, the pee collector, will be there, speaking on "Truth in Education." Please be sure to sanitize after.

The whole thing looks depressing! We also see that Dr. Orient, in her position as president of Physicians for Civil Defense, has sent a petition to the American Museum of Natural History calling on the institution to please keep Rebekah Mercer on its board, and not to bow to protests by climate "extremists." Small world!

Big surprise! Orient also received an "award for courage and achievement in defense of scientific truth and freedom" from Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, which was nice of them. Another recipient was — if you can believe it! — Arthur Robinson, yet again.

And then there's the Physicians for Civil Defense, which was behind a happy little website called "The Good News About Nuclear Destruction," which assures us that most Americans would probably survive a nuclear attack, so stop worrying so much and love the Bomb. Theyeven put up billboards — in Salt Lake City, for a change.

Also, they have a fun article about a very useful single-dot radiation-exposure badge that everyone should have with them at all times to help them deal with a nuclear attack. It looks like a fine conversation starter, if nothing else:

OH SHUCKS indeed!

Finally, we found a video of Dr. Orient at the 2013 annual meeting of "Doctors for Disaster Preparedness," as you'd expect. We like the part where she suggests 9/11 might not have been such a huge disaster if only beautiful, beautiful asbestos had never been banned. And then there's her important point about 9/11, which we're frankly not sure is coherent enough to qualify as a "conspiracy theory."

DDP 2013 Welcome Message - Jane Orient, MD    youtu.be 

Somehow, Orient finds vast, possibly sinister significance in a Bible verse that was quoted, in part, by several Democrats as a metaphor for hope and rebuilding after tragedy, but horror of horrors, those nasty monsters didn't put it in context, because the real verse is proceeded by the "arrogance in their hearts," followed by divine retribution and wrath, did you fools learn NOTHING? Also, a line about the "skies darkening" reminded her of Obama's horrifying "war on coal," which seems to suggest she thinks smoky skies are GOOD news. Of course they are, because prosperity.

Then she moves on to condemn the religious dogma of climate science, which seems like a perfectly reasonable lesson to take from 9/11, and no, we did not leave a step out of her argument. And the real foundation of science? That's easy! Has nothing to do with peer review or any of that stuff. REAL science comes from John 8: 32, duh: "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Orient makes a point, offhand, about how she asked a "very prominent Muslim" if the Quran contains anything like that, and no it does not, so Muslims can't do science.

Therefore, we are on the path to destruction, the end. Clearly, this is a lady who knows her science, so you had best not be fooled by the crazies who think climate is real.

Oh, yes, we're sorry, we didn't even address the important point in her email, which is that the Green New Deal was actually promoted by the UN in 2009 to promote Agenda 21 and take away all your houses and beef. We'd better do that if we're to have any intellectual rigor at all!

It's bullshit.

There you go, done!

[ DeSmogBlog / RationalWiki / Bloomberg / SkepticalRaptor / American Loons / DesmogBlog / Buy Merchants of Doubt   with Wonkette kickback!]

Yr Wonkette is supported by reader donations. Please send us money so we can keep YOU informed about the latest in hooey, hoohah, and hooliganism. Be careful where you leave your pee.