Naomi Oreskes can do no wrong in the eyes of her supporters with her Merchants of Doubt book / documentary movie efforts that supposedly exposed the corporate-bought corruption of climate scientists skeptical about the idea of catastrophic man-caused global warming. In the eyes of people she accuses and people who see through her smear tactics and clumsy science pronouncements, she can’t seem to do anything right. Mere discussion of her antics accomplishes very little — she is emboldened to continue her accusations in the most reckless way because she’s met with practically no significant public opposition. The golden opportunity to hold her accountable, however, is arguably in the hands of the public hearing officials she faces, who might be able to do something about this problem. Making false statements in congressional hearings is actually a crime. Continue reading
Author Archives: Russell Cook
Scientist Falsely Accused
Do an internet search for nothing simpler than the name “Willie Soon,” or the variant of “Wei-hock Soon,” and uncountable numbers of results pop up repeating some form of the accusation or insinuation that Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysicist Dr Soon was paid industry-sourced money in exchange for falsehoods designed to undercut the certainty of catastrophic man-caused global warming. The following video by Dr Terry Gannon addresses aspects of Dr Soon’s actual funding, which the spectrum of accusers out there never tell their audiences about, and it mentions a name of one of the most prominent accusers that loyal readers of GelbspanFiles will readily recognize, Kert Davies:
We first see Davies at the 1:45 point as a guest on the Democracy Now program …
…. with a few more details spoken about him after the three minute point, and again in a bit more depth a minute later. However, much like any other aspect of the ‘crooked skeptic climate scientists’ accusation, I’m compelled to say, “but wait, there’s more …..” Continue reading
When ‘Reporting’ looks more like Propagandizing
“Ok, student reporters — here’s everything you need to know about the fossil fuel industry’s sinister disinformation campaign to spread lies undercutting the certainty of man-caused global warming which employed shill skeptic scientists, and here’s the professional researcher who can assist you with writing a report about that very conspiracy.”
Anybody spot the main problem there? Yes, we might wonder about the fate of the student reporters/researchers or the postdoctoral researchers/faculty members if they dared to question anything presented to them, but a bigger question remains at the end of this excise concerning the ‘professional researcher,’ and the nature of his involvement in the work these reporters/researchers undertook. Continue reading
Dr S. Fred Singer and the Ordinary Citizen
The ‘ordinary citizen’ isn’t merely me, but is likely many other people who met and/or had the opportunity to correspond with the late atmospheric physicist Dr S Fred Singer. He died at 95 years old on April 6th, and many tributes to him are collected at his SEPP organization’s April 11 newsletter, while others are seen at AmericanThinker by Marc Sheppard and Michael Widlanski, and elsewhere such as at The Reference Frame and the American Council on Science and Health – my apologies for fine tributes I omit. In a technical sense, I owe a good part of my current situation to Dr Singer, since it was his initial kind response back in 2005 that corroborated what I thought was a fatal problem in the notion of man-caused global warming. I have little doubt that he offered the same kind of kind interaction with countless other common citizens – and that’s why the global warming issue is about more than just science.
The integrity of any given authoritative statement can be measured by how well it stands up in debate about it, and how open to discussion the person is who made the statement. Dr Singer readily made himself available for such discussions, even with ordinary citizens, and he set the standard for how people receiving his inquiries and challenges should react. A standard, I soon discovered, that was not held by people I posed questions to on the IPCC/Al Gore side of the issue.
When the ‘Aim to Disrupt Fossil Fuel-Funded Misinformation’ looks more like Propagandizing
In an amusing bit of irony, Dave Anderson, the policy and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute — the place claiming its aim is to “disrupt fossil fuel-funded misinformation” — has decided follow my GelbspanFiles Twitter account. Probably not for long; believers of catastrophic man-caused global warming like him tend to vanish immediately when they discover the material I tweet about undercuts everything they believe. There’s a backstory to this particular situation and how I’m prompted to create a new post category here, “What $5 mill might buy.” Continue reading
What Does Nearly $5 million Buy?
There’s another good question to ask corresponding to the one in my blog post title: how many times does a pattern have to be repeated before it stops looking like just a coincidence and instead looks like something resulting from a prepackaged set of talking points assembled as part of a larger coordinated propaganda effort? Continue reading
City and County of Honolulu v. Sunoco LP et al.
Politicians in Hawaii were threatening to sue Big Energy companies last November for damages from the effects of man-caused global warming. As seen in their press release last week, March 9th, they finally delivered on it. Poor timing for those City/County officials, since the Coronavirus news is overrunning all other news now, but far more important is their poor judgement and lack of due diligence regarding their politically suicidal decision to jump on the bandwagon of the nine other boilerplate global warming lawsuits, which are being handled by the Sher Edling law firm. Continue reading
The Interchangeable Hood Ornaments of the leaked “Victory will be achieved …” / “Reposition global warming” Memos
It’s a propagandist’s dream to see reporters repeat blatantly false stories about supposedly devastating leaked industry documents revealing hidden corruption, even when the reporters get basic details of the docs wrong — so long as neither the reporters nor anybody else questions those basic details. It’s a propagandist’s nightmare when too many storytellers describing the revelations can’t keep the overall story straight, whereupon the revelations cease to resemble a bombshell story and instead increasingly look like an orchestrated propaganda disinformation effort. Continue reading
Pt 4: Greenpeace People, for their API Memos Scans before they were Against Them
A major indicator that authoritative narratives are in need of tough, objective scrutiny is when important details within the narratives start disappearing. Evert Wesker – to borrow a line made famous by U.S. Senator John Kerry – was ‘for Shell before he was against Shell,’ similar to the way Greenpeace people favored their links to their own scan copies of the notorious American Petroleum Institute’s (API’s) “Victory Will Be Achieved …” memos before they seemingly turned against them. Since my Part 3 in this series concerned Wesker’s role in linking to the API memos, let’s start with another problem I spotted with his specific narrative. Continue reading
Pt. 3: Victory Will Be Achieved when …
… narratives about ‘Big Coal & Oil paying skeptic climate scientist shills to spread disinformation‘ are purged of all distracting details which prompts the public to take their eyes off the basic thrust of the accusation. If enviro-activists want to convince everyone that skeptic scientist villains have zero credibility after being caught working within ‘fossil fuel industry disinformation campaigns,’ that’s the ultimate victory they must achieve, because they begin to look like sinister villains themselves if cancerous credibility holes are found in various parts of the accusation. Continue reading