I wrote about the main fault with the ludicrous draft paper submitted to the Harvard Law Review in Part 1, namely the paper authors’ enslavement to a particular set of literally worthless ‘leaked industry memos’, and the funding association of one of the authors, David Arkush. But as usual, there’s more. Arkush apparently has quite a basic problem with making authoritative statements — hold that thought for just a bit. First, let me say I don’t simply write about these collective situations, I try to get something done about them. Continue reading
Category Archives: American Petroleum Institute
Municipalities of Puerto Rico v. Exxon Mobil, et al. Part 2: RICO-teering
Bad enough that this lawsuit filing from the Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman LLC law firm has a no-win appearance of being either a mismanaged effort guided by the Sher Edling law firm without any disclosure of that partnership, or it appears to be a spectacularly inept and possibly unethical plagiarizing of the accusation content and other bits from the 16 boilerplate copy Sher Edling lawsuits. I detailed all of that in my Part 1 blog post (handily reproduced at WUWT, enabling me to reach a wider reading audience).
Exponentially worse for Milberg Coleman is the widespread news assertions that their lawsuit filing “is unique” because it is “the first climate case against fossil fuel companies alleging harms against cities as a class of plaintiffs, and the first climate case to include Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claims” as if this tactic is some kind of new idea. Many ‘news’ outlets belched out this RICO idea without questioning anything about it. It seems this mob is oblivious to the central hallmark of far-leftists, namely how they project what they do as accusations of what their political opposites do.
Why is all of this bad for Milberg Coleman? Because their RICO tactic doesn’t point to anything done by ‘Big Coal & Oil’ and skeptic climate scientists, it instead points an arrow the size of Texas at one of the core promulgators of the “crooked skeptic scientists” accusation. Continue reading
State Of Vermont v. ExxonMobil Corp. et al.
The U.S. House Oversight Committee wasn’t the only major governmental entity to bring up ye olde “victory will be achieved” leaked memo set within the last few weeks as a “smoking gun” piece of evidence to indict the fossil fuel industry of conspiring with skeptic climate scientists to spread disinformation undercutting the certainty of catastrophic man-caused global warming. Just two days before that Committee sent out its September 16th intimidation letters to energy company officials, which prominently quoted the “victory” memos, Vermont’s Attorney General Thomas Donovan Jr filed his Vermont v. ExxonMobil lawsuit on September 14th, which featured that memo set’s notorious phrase on page 28.
AG Donovan’s same day press release succinctly summarized his lawsuit:
The lawsuit alleges past and ongoing violations of Vermont’s Consumer Protection Act for concealing crucial information and disseminating misleading statements and advertising about fossil fuels and climate change …
“Vermont consumers were given false and misleading information about the dramatic effects of these products on the climate. Vermonters have a right to accurate information in order to make informed decisions about the products they purchase.”
The gift AG Donovan hands on a silver platter to the energy companies is how those last two bits could be turned 180° away from the fossil fuel industry and aimed instead at the enviro-activist global warming industry, emphasizing how AG Donovan apparently didn’t undertake elemental due diligence on whether his cornerstone evidence had any validity, and emphasizing how the mainstream media’s abject failure to ask tough questions about the origins of that ‘evidence’ and the core clique of people surrounding it has ultimately led to AG Donovan possibly relying on that core clique for the “smoking gun evidence” in his lawsuit. Continue reading
Interview with William O’Keefe, former American Petroleum Institute executive
That’s the same William O’Keefe who’s been despised by enviro-activists ever since 1998 as one of the main ‘culprits’ behind what they claim was Exxon’s alleged disinformation efforts to deceive the public that burning of fossil fuels wasn’t causing global warming when industry leaders actually “knew” what the harm was. Why is he vilified? Because in April 1998, Exxon’s CEO was the top member of the American Petroleum Institute (API) trade group, O’Keefe was its Executive VP and COO, and anti-oil activists have repeatedly said, from that year to the current time, in news reports, in various enviro-activist webpages, and even within many of the current 20+ “Exxon Knew”-style lawsuits such as Hoboken v Exxon, that API was engaged in a blatant disinformation campaign which was exposed by leaked memos known as the “victory will be achieved” set, a.k.a. the Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan (GCSCAP). O’Keefe is often misidentified as API’s CEO in places ranging from letters-to-editors and websites, to CSPAN and U.S. House Hearings, and in yet another example of how enslaved enviro-activists are to this memo set, it was featured just days ago in Al Jazeera’s full video post of an October 2020 documentary video which essentially was based on a notion that the memo set is still a driving force behind fossil fuel industry disinformation campaigns.
They consider this set to be “smoking gun” evidence comparable to the sinister efforts of the tobacco industry disinformation campaigns, in no less of a similar way they view the “reposition global warming” leaked memos — also seen in Hoboken v Exxon and nearly all the other current global warming lawsuits, notorious from the 1991-era to the present time. Al Gore very famously compared the “reposition global warming” set to sinister tobacco industry disinformation campaigns.
However, both memo sets are worthless as evidence of ongoing disinformation campaigns. Regarding the “reposition global warming” memo set falsely attributed to the Western Fuels Association (WFA), I’ve had firsthand confirmation for several years now from the top two people at the WFA and the people at their ad agency, along with independent confirmation that the “reposition global warming” proposal’s strategy and goals were rejected outright and the entire set was never even solicited by WFA.
Until just the recent few weeks, though, I could only refer to secondhand reports about the status of the so-called API memo set. Now, let’s hear directly from William O’Keefe about that entire situation: Continue reading
County of Maui v. Sunoco LP, et al.
Just three weeks ago, enviro-activists applauded the October 12, 2020 filing of the Maui v. Sunoco lawsuit. No doubt the residents there would see the logic of sharing pretty much all of the lawsuit details with the neighboring Honolulu v. Sunoco one — same Table of Contents format, same Introduction wording, same accusatory section, etc. Makes sense, Maui and Honolulu are neighbors supposedly suffering the same catastrophic man-caused global warming harm. But wouldn’t the residents of Maui be a little disappointed to find out their lawsuit appears to be little more than a pure hand-me-down copy of Delaware v. BP which is also handled by the same law firm handling their case? After all, Delaware has nearly the same accusatory section, nearly the same Introduction wording, and nearly the same Table of Contents. Continue reading
City of Hoboken v. ExxonMobil, et al.
These lawsuits suing energy companies ‘to recover the costs’ of damages from global warming are really stacking up now. In addition to Imperial Beach, San Mateo, Richmond, Santa Cruz, Rhode Island, Baltimore, Honolulu, the District of Columbia — just to name a few — Hoboken, New Jersey is among the very latest communities to unwisely join this collection with their with their September 2 filing, Why is this unwise? If the industry defendants’ lawyers decide to prominently challenge the veracity of the core accusation within the lawsuit, namely that fossil fuel industry executives employed ‘shill’ skeptic climate scientists in disinformation campaigns to deliberately deceive the public about the harm of global warming, it could not only expose how Hoboken officials didn’t undertake basic due diligence to check the basic veracity of the accusation, it could also torpedo all the rest of the lawsuits across the country in a similar manner, while further exposing how the mainstream media completely overlooked the obvious faults in these lawsuits and in the 25 year+ history of the basic accusation and the core clique of people who’ve promulgated it. Continue reading
D.C. v ExxonMobil, et. al Pt 2: the “17,000 Scientists” Source Problem
It doesn’t take more than a few seconds of internet searching to discover how the Oregon Petition Project had over 31,000 signers, corroborated not only at the Home Page of the website for the petition itself, but also at sites highly biased against it such as Wikipedia and Desmogblog (that Desmog). But as I showed in my Part 1 dissection of that lawsuit, the District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine’s lawsuit only placed the number at 17,000, with no citation source for that number.
Where could that hugely outdated figure originate? Continue reading
District of Columbia v ExxonMobil Corp, BP Plc, Chevron Corp, Royal Dutch Shell Plc (10/17/20 update)
[10/17/20 Author’s update: see red asterisked items below near the end]
Unlike Minnesota vs. API, et al. which I dissected only days ago in my prior blog post, this DC v Exxon et. al lawsuit only crashes half as badly concerning worthless ‘leaked memos’ it relies on for its claim that the fossil fuel industry hired shill skeptic climate scientists to engage in disinformation campaigns. It still completely crashes on that angle nevertheless. Here’s how. Continue reading
State of Minnesota v American Petroleum Institute, ExxonMobil Corp, Koch Industries, Flint Hills Resources
Note: See my Dec 29, 2020 update on how this filing became a “Sher Edling assistance” one.
The more frequently these global warming lawsuits appear claiming fossil fuel industry executives paid skeptic climate scientists to participate in sinister disinformation campaign efforts to undercut the ‘settled science,’ the easier it is to show how the ‘evidence’ for that accusation implodes. This Minnesota vs. API, et al. lawsuit, filed on 6/24/20, ends up being a case study on how to commit political suicide, first via its enslavement to the same two sets of worthless ‘leaked industry memos’ which have been floated ever since the 1990s as proof of that corporate / skeptic conspiracy, and second, via its links for copies of those memos from one of the central members of the small clique of enviro-activists who’ve been promulgating them that whole time.
If the Minnesota AG’s office had undertaken the most basic kind of due diligence to find out if the ‘leaked memos evidence’ actually proves the existence of disinformation campaigns, it might not have wasted any taxpayer money filing the lawsuit. Without that ‘evidence,’ the lawsuit would struggle to disprove hugely detailed assessments from skeptic climate scientists, while also trying to prove API and the other defendants ever actually accepted the ‘science’ of the IPCC / Al Gore side of the issue. Continue reading
Making my Case for Me
When I say there is only one source for the idea that a fossil fuel industry conspiracy exists where skeptic climate scientists are instructed and paid to lie to the public about the settled science of catastrophic man-caused global warming, I’m not exaggerating in any way. Today, I offer a one-two punch: first, part of a presentation at The 2015 Conference on Communication and Environment in Boulder where I will highlight a particular line with red letters which inadvertently proves my point, made by a “doctor of Rhetoric and Composition.” Then, a days-old video I was alerted to which features not only a couple of the usual suspects whose efforts to smear skeptic climate scientists date from nearly a decade / nearly two decades back, but also a line seen within the video dating from the 1991 origins of the smear. Continue reading