Last month, a new media outlet called Tortoise Media launched a database called “Hot Air,” which it claims is “making sense of climate misinformation.” The database includes “274 online actors,” a group that includes David Turver, Roger Pielke Jr., Bjorn Lomborg, Jordan Peterson, Alex Epstein, Tom Nelson, me, and many others who are committing the sin of “frequently disseminating climate change counter-narratives.”
How dare me — or anyone else — provide a counter narrative to the orthodoxy around energy and climate! But here’s the real reason for the database: Tortoise says that “pressure on platforms to filter out misinformation has given way to an online ecosystem that favors free speech — sometimes at the expense of leaving falsehoods unchecked and allowing conspiracy theories to become widespread.”
What a load of flaccid piffle.
Above, this is one of the entries from the database about yours truly. It features a short YouTube video I made last December pointing out that the Osage Tribe’s win in federal court over Enel has not received any coverage by legacy media outlets. For reporting on it, the clip has been dubbed “delay.” The database includes 1,475 results for yours truly. Tom Nelson has more than 19,000 results, Alex Epstein has more than 7,000, and Bjorn Lomborg has nearly 1,500.
Let’s be clear: Tortoise, an online outlet based in the UK, is saying there’s too much free speech, and thus, it’s tacitly endorsing censorship for people who don’t toe the line on the official climate narrative. Of course, numerous climate NGOs, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund, claim that they, too, are fighting “climate misinformation.” EDF has even created what it calls the “anti-misinformation brigade.”
But Tortoise’s effort is different because it claims its database is “making sense of climate misinformation” due to its use of AI and the “CARDS2 LLM-based AI system,” which created a “taxonomy” to identify anyone who questions the climate orthodoxy. The database was created by the Centre for Climate Communication and Data Science (C3DS) at Exeter University with funding from a UK company that’s backed by Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management.
Before going further, let me be clear: I ignore critics. There are lots of people in the cheap seats. My critics (and I have a few) don’t deserve a single keystroke. I don’t reply to nasty emails, I block (or mute) trolls, and I immediately delete disrespectful comments on Substack. But the people at Tortoise Media deserve a medal for their mendacity and selective reporting.
Read the rest of this piece at Robert Bryce Substack.
Robert Bryce is a Texas-based author, journalist, film producer, and podcaster. His articles have appeared in a myriad of publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Time, Austin Chronicle, and Sydney Morning Herald.
Photo: Jed, via Wikimedia under CC 3.0 License.
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