The Highwire with Del Bigtree - YESTERDAY COVID, TODAY CLIMATE CHANGE

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

As Covid restrictions wind down, the lockdown apparatus, and a dangerously empowered faction of public health and science, looks to transition what they learned into climate restrictions. Will it succeed?#Covid2Climate #ClimateChange #Lockdown #EnergyCrisisBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

For those of you watching who are wondering why we're transitioning sort of into the spaces of the climate conversation, rising energy prices, soaring food prices, things like this. We have to understand what we're laying out here, this evidence we're laying out here. This is the same apparatus, this same overlay, is being used to steer the conversation, to steer the science surrounding these debates, and to drive the new restrictions that we're seeing. So even in February of this year, you could see the prepositioning. This was in the hill. This was a headline.

Coming soon, climate lockdowns. Now, there's a question mark there, excuse me, but that's the prepositioning. And now we have the current headlines out of the European Union. We've reported on that. They're being hit very hard with energy restrictions. EU crisis chief calls for more power to fight climate impacts. Over in France, we have this great reset. French government to recruit 3,000 green police over climate change.

And so this conversation around climate change, the science, it's been in question for quite some time. 2014, there was a study looking at kind of the information surrounding this and how it's been presented. And even back then, the researchers in this article say, it appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, meaning it can drive policy. And that was in 2014, and that was way before this apparatus has been built. Now we have a very dangerous public health and science apparatus that can steer using outside organizations, the conversation and really the fate of millions of people in these directions.

One of those in the UK was the nudge unit, and the nudge unit was used. These were basically psychologically, they psychologically manipulated the public using fear. It's basically what it sounds like, right, nudging humanity in the direction that we need them to go. I mean, it's kind of gross. even that they would call themselves that. It's like nudging you off a clip. I feel like I'm standing waiting for a subway and I just get nudged onto the train tracks.

Oh, thank you very much. Was that my government that just did that? It's kind of a dirty, unsavory little situation. I mean, these are behavioral scientists that are brought in to find the best way to nudge people into accepting lockdowns, accepting masking, accepting things they don't really want to accept. And remember last year we reported on this,

after they saw what was done with their information, they came out and said that was a big mistake. They used too much fear. And this was the headline. We covered this several times in the show, but it's worth mentioning again. Use of fear to control behavior in COVID crisis was totalitarian, admit scientists. A woman named Laura Dodsworth. She's a writer.

She's a filmmaker in the UK. She has written a book. The whistleblowers in these nudge units came to her and spilled the beans, so to speak. She wrote a book called State of Fear, how the UK government weaponized fear during the COVID-19 pandemic. And it's interesting to look at the trajectory because obviously that was a big concern for her. She heard the stories of these of these scientists and she was concerned as well about this apparatus that was being built. Let's check in with her just recently. What is she concerned about now? Take a listen. I want to say something else about extending this scrutiny

beyond COVID. Back in 2011, not long after the inception of the Nudge unit, the Science and Technology Committee noted that there were serious ethical concerns with governments deploying behavioral science because what that effectively does is change people's behaviour in ways in which they're not aware. There has been no public consultation. There is no public mandate. There is no public permission. When we were frightened in order to comply with the rules. And when nudge is deployed continually from COVID to climate change,

it is without the public's consent and consultation. Do you think this will now be the start of the unraveling of lockdown and people looking into it? that Rishi has broken cover? I think absolutely. And actually, I think it's going to generate, hopefully, a lot more honesty about the damages of lockdown. It's going to be pretty difficult to avoid with the inflation where it is. But like I said, it's really important to not just to not assume this only happened with COVID. It's happening right now with nudging the public towards net.

zero goals. We have to be honest about this. The same tools are being deployed. You know, we're living in a world now where everything's colour coded to let us know whether on an amber warning or a red warning. There are reports jointly authored by broadcasters and the Nudge unit about how to change people's behaviour without them even being aware through TV programming. This has now become really insidious within government. And I really don't think it's any way to run a country to nudge the population and especially. to frighten them into following unpopular policies. Wow, I mean, I love it when you start seeing other news agencies that sound like the high wire.