Pinned post-if you’re a long-ago reader returning here, please reacquaint yourself with my work via my “Background” posts. If you’re entirely new here…==> Continue reading
Town of Carrboro, North Carolina v Duke Energy
This Dec 4, 2024 filing is a bit different. But not different enough to save it from potentially being wiped out the same way the other 34 current “ExxonKnew” lawsuits could fall. Continue reading
State of Maine v BP P.L.C.
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey was probably crossing his fingers that during his office’s likely weeks- if not months-long preparation of this filing before the November 5th general election, that the joint Senate/House investigation into the San Francisco law firm Sher Edling would become toothless as the result of the U.S. Senate remaining Democrat majority-run and the U.S. House switching to Democrat majority. AG Frey was probably also counting on a VP Harris winning the White House, swept in with her lightly questioned claim about suing Exxon but still having the zeal to do so someday. No such luck. Instead, with this newest Nov 26, 2024 “ExxonKnew” lawsuit being yet another outright Sher Edling boilerplate copy filing, AG Frey provided even more fodder for Senator Cruz and Rep Comer to investigate. The Maine AG office’s press release only had a download-to-read PDF file of this lawsuit at the bottom instead of a regular internet link, so I downloaded it and created a direct-read link to it here.
I”ll first go through the main items in my checklist ‘certifying’ this one as a boilerplate copy … but then I’ll show its new utterly unwise copy ‘n paste bit out of another supposedly ‘unconnected’ seven year-old+ “ExxonKnew” lawsuit. This newest apparent plagiarism maneuver on their part is an open invitation for Senator Cruz / Rep Comer to dig into how these lawsuits are assembled and who it is doing the actual assembling. Continue reading
The Al Gore Problem just got one increment larger: “The Climate According to A.I. Al Gore.”
If you are a nationally or internationally recognized hero / heroine who’s exposing a crisis situation caused by bad operators that not enough of the public is aware of, and you decide to tel the story of what specific event led you onto your current heroic path, that event had better not be something which somebody will say, “wait a minute, that is not the way it actually happened.” Because if someone does, and presents compelling enough evidence which totally undermines your oft-repeated narratives about what inspired you to do what you do, increasing amounts of people who trusted you are going to wonder what else you’ve said are embellishments or outright fabrications designed to make you look heroic.
Such is the major problem presented in Joel Gilbert’s ‘unauthorized bio-pic “The Climate According to A.I. Al Gore.” (available now for DVD or live streaming purchase). The setup is elemental: Al Gore himself does not like questions from anyone he suspects is an unfriendly interviewer, so filmmaker director Gilbert’s opted to ask an A.I. version of Gore to tell his life story and then to answer some tough questions about the climate issue angle of his saga. But that’s not all —this film reveals a huge legacy-crippling problem in Gore’s longtime ‘hero’ story he tells concerning what exactly propelled him into the climate issue. At GelbspanFiles, I’ve detailed the legacy-crippling problems of the others who’ve told heroic tales of how they got into the issue, along with briefly mentioning a key problem with Gore’s outrage against industry entities that allegedly sought to “reposition global warming as theory.” What follows below is how these ‘hero/heroine’ stories all seem to dovetail together in a much more troubling manner now. Continue reading
Summary for Policy Makers (SPM): the Sher Edling law firm
On Oct 7, 2024, news reports (e.g. Thomas Catenacci’s “Anti-Energy Lawfare“) described the same-day release of Senator Ted Cruz’s / Rep James Comer’s investigation analysis Sher Edling, the San Francisco law firm that is – by my current count – ‘boilerplate-copying’ 18 “ExxonKnew”-style lawsuits from one place to the next, and ‘assisting’ in 4 others.
Elections matter. At the time of the Oct 7 news reports, pre-general election, the U.S. Senate was in the minority. With the Senate now firmly set in the majority and with Senator Cruz having subpoena power, that changes the situation. While his and the joint investigation with Rep Comer focuses principally on the dark money funding of Sher Edling, that focus could broaden to cover what I consider a far bigger set of fatal faults surrounding that law firm. So, first is my brief number lineup, followed by more details below for each, which include screencapture image links and blog post links supporting the particular items at greater depth: 1) provably false accusations of industry-corruption behavior. 2) Hidden original citation source. 3) Subsequent text omissions. 4) deceptively cropped images. 5) The Naomi Oreskes Problem. 6) The Dr Willie Soon false accusation. 7) Matt Edling and Victor Sher. 8) (stay tuned, I’ll likely add more to this post at a later date) Continue reading
The Political Suicide of Pushing “Reckless Climate Endangerment”
It’s a 100% certain bet that none of the folks at the Public Citizen ‘consumer advocacy organization’ read my GelbspanFiles blog about the 100% certain inevitable crash of their prior ‘prosecute for Clima-Homicide™’ proposal (my post got even wider worldwide viewing as a guest post at WUWT, complete with a handy ‘you people that stupid?’ meme image at the top). Otherwise, they would not have come up with this announcement on October 15, (er … hold that thought until the very end of this post) October 17, 2024 regarding their latest proposal idea to prosecutors:
“We’re building the case for criminal prosecution of Big Oil brick by brick. Here is the first “prosecution memo” that lays out the case for filing, and winning, criminal charges for “reckless endangerment.” The law is clear. Barriers are only political.”
What the law is actually fundamentally clear about is that when presenting a case to a judge, the evidence you present must actually support your accusation. If it does not . . . the case is dismissed. If you’ve got no alternative evidence, that’s the end of the line on your effort. Period. What these people at the Public Citizen group are either oblivious to – or actually know but hope nobody notices – is that their ‘evidence’ for the claim that the fossil fuel industry ran disinformation campaigns in collusion with skeptic scientist ‘shills’ is literally worthless.
Public Citizen is not building a case ‘brick-by-brick,’ either, they appear to be doing nothing more than copying line-by-line from what already serves as ‘cornerstone evidence’ in one form or another about ‘industry-led disinformation campaigns’ in basically all of the currently filed “ExxonKnew” U.S. lawsuits, from Hawaii to Puerto Rico and points in between. I’m not exaggerating. What Public Citizen is doing is committing political suicide by again emphasizing the fatal fault plaguing the collective effort to accuse Big Oil of running disinformation campaigns to deceive the public. Continue reading
Multnomah v. Exxon, version 2.0: Oregon County Suing Exxon Now Suing Art Robinson’s Oregon Petition Project
On Oct 4, Multnomah County amended their filing to add a gas utility company as a defendant, along with Art Robinson’s Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM); more specifically, as I will detail below, his Oregon Petition Project. My response: Oh, brother. Redux. I already dissected the spectacular blunders surrounding the 2023 Multnomah v Exxon lawsuit; that bizarre filing effort looks like little more than a cloddish plagiarized copy of Puerto Rico v Exxon, which itself was so maladroitly cobbled together that I needed to do a two-part dissection of that one, plus I had to place an additional detail three months back at the end of part 2. I didn’t cover Puerto Rico‘s sections mentioning Art Robinson’s Oregon Petition Project because my two dissection posts were long enough already. I’ll admit error on failing to mention it now, it involves one more problem potentially tying their ineptness to that of the supposedly unassociated San Francisco Sher Edling law firm and their boilerplate-copy lawsuit filings. Since somebody within the Oregon law firms seems particularly bent on pointing an arrow the size of Texas at their inexplicable apparent plagiarism blunder … well, let’s now examine that angle and where it blows up in their faces, in four distinct ways. The full amended complaint is here. Continue reading
Pay the Man … Another $50 Grand
For the benefit of any new readers here unfamiliar with the people I cover, first and foremost — the man I’m referring to is the ex-head of Greenpeace USA, John Passacantando, who (with former subordinate Kert Davies, it turns out – *ahem* – his subordinate and him) was behind a false accusation seen in the New York Times and widely repeated elsewhere in early 2015 claiming skeptic climate scientist Dr Willie Soon was paid dark money to spread disinformation.
Passacantando left Greenpeace in January 2009 without ever fully explaining why or what his next venture was going to be. But after that time, within his mystery “Our Next Economy LLC” company, he’s amassed just short of $20,000,000. I just discovered I needed to ad another $50,000 to that tally, which is still incomplete without current year IRS 990 income disclosures. While this new added amount might look like chump change compared to his main growing pile, there are more onion layers to peel back around this event. Let’s start with how this might not be just a grave problem for Passacantando, it could be a “Lisa Graves” problem for him, the Sustainable Markets Foundation, and the Park Foundation, which only draws even more attention to the question: what is he up to, and was his odd name choice for his LLC actually an indicator of his plans, which he’s seemingly still treating like some kind of state secret? Continue reading
California v Exxon v.2 — the plastics waste/pollution crisis lawsuit’s “Chicken Little” problem
There’s some irony to California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s 9/23/24 lawsuit speaking of “the plastic waste and pollution crisis” while only mentioning the other ‘crisis du jour’ “climate change” four times (the first instance is actually just a reference to a Canadian organization’s name). The lawsuit makes no comparison to alleged deception by the fossil fuel industry over their ‘knowledge’ of the harm of human-induced global warming. So, what possible connection(s) could there be to the efforts to smear skeptic climate scientists as ‘shills’ working for Exxon? Allow me to illustrate. Be sure to click on each link, the screencapture images will set up the big problem for AG Bonta. Continue reading
The prima facie Case for ‘Industry Disinfo Campaigns’ Implodes — AGAIN.
It’s a case study on how the “ExxonKnew” lawsuits can implode – no matter where and when you land in this accusation effort hurled by enviro-activists, it always traces back to the usual suspects.
What I find astounding regarding anyone prominent regurgitating the accusation about “crooked skeptic climate scientists” / “fossil fuel industry disinformation campaigns” is how they expect no readers to ever question anything they say. It’s a reckless high wire act, potentially devastating to their credibility if any part of their narrative starts to unravel. Allow me to explain, using the example of the hapless “environmental / energy policy expert” Leah Stokes, who could not keep her mouth shut about the “peer-reviewed” paper she co-authored which hurled the accusation that the “fossil fuel industry ran a disinformation campaign to – her words – “reposition global warming as theory and not fact.” Continue reading
Summary for Policymakers: Naomi Oreskes
If you say another person is a liar and can’t keep their personal stories straight, no matter what the topic is, you can’t hurl this as a drive-by shot, you must extensively prove it, because your own reputation now depends on it. People might regret demanding proof if it then sends them into extensive reading, but that’s the price they pay to become fully informed. If they dismiss the mountain of evidence as “too deep into the weeds,” individuals like “Merchants of Doubt” documentary movie star/book author Naomi Oreskes pray for this kind of dismissal — ceding the moral high ground to her.
So, first, a brief number lineup, followed by more details for each, with screencapture image links to back up my specific points, and blog post links which back up what I point out in deep detail:
1. Oreskes’ science consensus 2. Ties to Al Gore 3. False accusation about the “reposition global warming memos” 4. Fatal problems with her “Merchants of Doubt” documentary 5. Her two mutually exclusive ‘discovery’ of who the doubt merchants were 6. Oreskes – the communist .. or something 7. Why would lawyers hire her? 8. Her clumsy amici curiae efforts & global warming/cooling inconsistency 9. The Fred Singer email chain problem 10. The 3 little words she omitted from LBJ’s 1965 speech 11. RICO-Teering, Oreskes-Style Continue reading