About Russell Cook

Russell Cook is a semi-retired graphic artist. His collection of articles and blogs about the Gelbspan/Gore/Ozone Action/Greenpeace accusation can be seen here: http://gelbspanfiles.com/?page_id=86

Watch this space: “Reposition Graduate Degrees as Theory rather than Fact — the Climate Homicide Litigation version”

For the latest readers arriving to this blog, I periodically have short descriptions of upcoming material under the “Watch this space” title. Up next: When I say …

• “Ye olde” leaked industry memos are the absolute best that enviros have in their arsenal to accuse the fossil fuel industry of running disinformation campaigns employing skeptic climate scientist ‘shills’
• that promulgators of this accusation about “fossil fuel industry-led disinformation campaigns” are separated by 3 degrees or less from the late namesake of my blog and his own meritless accusation
• that there’s a core clique of enviro-activists pushing this accusation about “fossil fuel industry-led disinformation campaigns”
• that investigators might be wise to pay close attention to how there are hugely ‘weak link’ subordinate individuals among that clique who might turn state’s evidence when it comes rolling on their bosses to save their own skins in larger civil or even criminal prosecution

….. I’m not exaggerating. The characters in this clique are gifts that keep on giving.

Meanwhile, please do scroll down this page for my completed posts, and return soon to see how the next one coming up will fill in this space.

City of Chicago v. BP PLC

Nice of the 2/20/24 Chicago Sun-TimesChicago sues five giant oil companies” article to inadvertently point directly to what the potentially lawsuit-killing combined problem is with this latest “ExxonKnew” lawfare effort: the apparent need to bring in the California law firm Sher Edling for assistance, and the collective idea that fossil fuel companies knew of the harm of “climate change” fifty years ago but hid that from the public. Same story at the Chicago Tribune. The same Tribune which reported fifty years ago (2024-50=1974) that the changes in the climate caused by the burning of fossil fuels was global cooling.

A climate changing to a cooler one in 1974. A climate changing to a hotter one in 2024. You can’t have it both ways. So much for elemental fact-checking / investigative journalism in 2024. And of course, neither newspaper could be bothered to check the veracity of accusations presented in this – yes it is – latest boilerplate copy filing straight out of Sher Edling’s San Francisco offices. How do I know it’s another boilerplate copy where Chicago’s own city lawyers very likely had little or no input to offer? Let’s dive into Chicago v BP PLC et al.: (my own PDF download file here, if that link ceases to function) Continue reading

Municipality of San Juan v. Exxon Mobil Corp.

Basically all of the other “ExxonKnew”-style lawsuits needed long dissections on my part — one needing a 2-part blog post to ultimately point out obvious faults with people who promote this law fare — to detail what fell apart within their accusations about what’s implied to be ‘liars-for-hire employed to carry out disinformation campaigns created by fossil fuel companies.’ When I say this ‘technically’ johnny-come-lately San Juan v Exxon lawsuit, filed on December 13, 2023, is easy for me to dissect, I’m not kidding. In fact, in the sheer simplicity of taking apart San Juan v Exxon only underscores the massive problem with the other lawsuit that needed two blog posts to reveal all its faults. So, the question needing to be answered about San Juan is: why it was filed at all? Continue reading

New York Times 2/16/24: ‘Ross Gelbspan, Who Exposed Roots of Climate Change Deniers, Dies at 84’

The NYT obituary for Ross Gelbspan is here here (full text archive link here in case the main article ends up behind partial preview login wall). The Washington Post obituary is here: “Ross Gelbspan, author who probed roots of climate change denial, dies at 84.” (also archived here). If you want a window into the world of how mainstream media news in the United States now operates, look no further than these obituaries – on what they told and what they omitted. Continue reading

Ross Gelbspan, June 1, 1939 – January 27, 2024

I am truly sad abut the death of the namesake for my GelbspanFiles blog, and I must first explain why, when some – critics especially – might guess I’d be dancing on his grave. That’s not the way I view life. I don’t just simply want to have a nice day myself, I want everyone to have a nice day, to be happy, and to do good not only for personal betterment but also for the benefit of everyone. If we make very unwise decisions which harm or mislead others, we all should be held accountable, myself included, and be allowed opportunities to atone for our mistakes. We all learn from these teachable moments and become better when forgiveness is sincerely asked. It makes us all better as a result.

Death is final. When ordinary people lived a life filled with dishonest choices apparently for no other reason than personal gain and did nothing to atone for this, they’re now a permanent embarrassment to family members, “someone never to be named” among former associates and former admirers. If they were duped into making supremely unwise choices, well, it’s sad that they were such a dunce. If they deliberately chose to be dishonest, their legacy is far worse. When this involves prominent public figures, their legacies become little more than teachable lessons: “you don’t want the public to learn about you this way.”

Continue reading

A. – somewhat lacking in – I. “Exposing the Influence: Skeptic Climate Scientists and Fossil Fuel Funding”

As I’ve said many times here at GelbspanFiles, no matter where you go in the angles of narratives from prominent people about ‘liars-for-hire scientists on the payroll of Big Coal & Oil’ you’ll see the accusations are only separated by three degrees or less from Ross Gelbspan’s beloved accusation which launched his second career. Add “Artificial Intelligence” to that list of prominent accusers. At the end of this post, I’ll point out a bigger problem with this development. Continue reading

Makah Indian Tribe v. Exxon / Shoalwater Indian Tribe v. Exxon

No rest for the weary. Back on December 21st, I thought the little-publicized news of the fisherman’s trade association plaintiffs’ self-withdrawal of their PCFFA v Chevron global warming lawsuit was a Christmas gift to the skeptic side of the climate issue. Maybe the plaintiffs fully comprehended the futility of their lawsuit while also finding out how their choice of lawsuit handlers, the San Francisco Sher Edling law firm, was perhaps not qualified to handle the case. However, the situation is instead one step forward and two steps back when, it comes to being done with this climate lawfare litigation war. It turns out Sher Edling had filed a pair of brand-new lawsuits on Dec 20 for two Native American communities in Washington state, Makah Tribe v. Exxon and Shoalwater Tribe v. Exxon.

The news of this latest pair of filings was also oddly little-publicized in minor news outlets, compared to widespread news of the prior-most-recent one, the ‘watershed momentCalifornia v Exxon sensation ( ahem – keep an eye on the apparent grand unifying theme). But these two lawsuits might be also be considered a ‘Christmas gift’ that’ll keep on giving, not only to the defendants’ law firms, but also to objective journalists and potentially GOP House investigators. Continue reading

I Stand More Informed, Part 2 — and it doesn’t help Ross Gelbspan’s climate issue legacy at all

I’ve implied it on several occasions relating to several people; it bears repeating in this situation — when a person tells the tale of a particular significantly noteworthy personal history event which is consistent in every retelling, notwithstanding minor errors about minor details, it’s a good indicator the event actually happened. When significant details are noticeably inconsistent from one telling to the next, we’re left to wonder if the event never actually happened at all the way the person describes it. Was the narrative instead just a script handed to the person to read, where he or she is ineptly acting out the tale?

My Part 1 post was a look into Ross Gelbspan’s earliest mentions of ye oldereposition global warming” memos – the memos that, from late 1995 to just over a week ago (stay tuned here for more about that latest blunder) – are the literal best that enviro-activists have in their arsenal to accuse skeptic climate scientists of being paid fossil fuel industry money to spread ‘disinformation which causes the public to doubt the certainty of catastrophic man-caused global warming.’ No. Joke.

I’ve already written how Gelbspan is seemingly unable to keep his narratives straight about his discovery odyssey of ‘industry-paid skeptic climate scientists.’ What he additionally said in the November 1995 C-SPAN interview I covered in Part 1 didn’t clarify any of the problems in his subsequent retellings of his discovery story. It added one more major angle of inconsistency to them all. Continue reading

I Stand Corrected — and it doesn’t benefit the ‘corrupt skeptic climate scientists’ accusers at all

The setup here is elemental. In the movie companion book for Al Gore’s 2006 “An Inconvenient Truth,” he said outright that the namesake of my blog, Ross Gelbspan, had discovered the notorious ‘leaked fossil fuel industry memo’ “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact,” one page in an extended set attributed to a coal industry public relations campaign which allegedly had sinisterly targeted (Gelbspan’s words, in a 1997 radio show interview) their ‘disinformation’ very narrowly at “older, less-educated men” and “young, low-income women.” It turns out that the PR campaign never operated under a directive to ‘reposition’ anything, and in one obscure instance, Gelbspan himself revealed that an official of the PR campaign said their climate issue information was directed at everyone within their audience.

On many occasions here at GelbspanFiles when I’ve said Al Gore’s story doesn’t line up right (e.g. the screencapture example below) about Gelbspan’s ‘discovery,’ I’ve pointed out that Gelbpsan’s earliest-seen quotes of those memo set phrases trace back as early as his December 5th, 1995 National Public Radio interview.

I’m not wrong at all about Gore quoting the never-implemented audience targeting phrases from that memo set years before Gelbspan ever said a word about them. The unanswered problem remains: how could Gelbspan discover memos which Gore already had? What I need to correct is when Gelbspan’s earliest mention of those phrases happened. Continue reading