Rush Limbaugh on coronavirus: “The bias I have against modeling is justified, because it comes from climate change”
Rush Limbaugh admits his climate denial shaped his response to coronavirus
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From the March 30, 2020, edition of Premiere Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show
CALLER: You know, the press conferences that the doctors give, I think if they were more forthcoming, even about things they don't know — and I realize that sounds paradoxical — I think it would go a long way, because reasonable people still don't see the numbers supporting the measures that are being taken to the degree that they are. Does that make sense?
RUSH LIMBAUGH (HOST): Yeah, I know what you're saying.
…
LIMBAUGH: Essentially, what you've brought up is modeling.
CALLER: Yes.
LIMBAUGH: You're upset with the doctors for these wild-ass numbers here that we don't seem — don't see verified in the real world. We're talking, "100,000 could die, 200,000 could die, 2.2 million could die," and yet we don't see anything like that yet. And you're wondering, what do they know that they're not telling us. And if they would just tell us, then everything would be a little bit better, because we wouldn't have to speculate on what they're holding back. Because that creates, “What do they really know? How bad is it, really, that they're not telling us because they're afraid of a full-on panic?” Is that what you're thinking basically is here?
CALLER: Yes, pretty much. I mean, thinking, reasonable people are actually coming to the conclusion of, “There's got to be something we don't know.”
LIMBAUGH: Now, why, why are you saying that?
CALLER: Well, because the numbers don't support the measures being taken.
LIMBAUGH: They don't, yet.
CALLER: They don't yet, that's correct. But I mean, ironically, they went either way, because you know, I heard that I'm right, and you know, this goes quicker than anticipated.
LIMBAUGH: All right, well look, let me weigh in on this very quickly. I appreciate the call, thanks very much. The minute I hear anybody start talking about models, and modeling, I blanch. And I have to fight an immediate bias against it. And the bias I have against modeling is justified, because it comes from climate change.
Sorry to introduce another subject here, but folks, the whole subject, the whole topic, the whole business of climate change — everything you think you know about climate change is based on models. There is not a single scintilla of data yet to back up these outrageous claims of rising sea levels by 2050, by 2030 — it's only in the models. The melting glaciers. We know of the fraud in Al Gore's movie, with the fraudulent pictures about supposedly melting ice for the polar bears — we've got more ice at the poles than we've had in a long time. It's modeling.
And it's political. The left has politicized everything, in order to advance their political agenda. And the reason why climate change predictions are 20 years out, 30 years out, is because it isn't happening. Man-made climate change is not — climate change is happening. The climate change is constantly — the Earth is constantly changing, the universe is never static. The debate about whether man-made climate change is the reason — American-made climate change — I just, I've never bought it for a whole host of reasons I am not going to bore you with now.
But it's all modeling data. And it's no different than garbage-in, garbage-out. So, we have a bunch of people here in the medical community, in the National Institutes of Health and so forth, who are data-driven. It's their business. And they are using models to give us these numbers. Dr. Fauci on CNN this morning, “I wouldn't be surprised to see 100,000 deaths, I wouldn't be surprised to see 200,000 deaths.”
Yesterday at the briefing, the number 2.2 million deaths was used. But it's no longer an active number. It should not have been used. That's a number if we did nothing. That's a number if there weren't any social distancing. That was if we didn't shove anything down. That number, 2.2. million, is irrelevant now because we are doing things. We are social distancing, we are staying at home, we are sheltering in place.
So the 2.2 [million] death number is up there as a top-tier outlier now, sort of as a baseline where everybody can say, “We've been successful,” when the actual numbers are known and come in.