As I implied at this blog way back in 2013, I will never bury any of my errors or pretend they never happened. (Not so for the New York Times lately, but that’s a whole other matter)
In light of a particular revelation out of the very recent interview I conducted with former American Petroleum Institute VP / COO William O’Keefe, I need to basically correct what I’ve long said about the 1998 “victory will be achieved” memo set being unsolicited by API. Continue reading
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
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
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
… 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
Among the five major ‘leaked memo’ situations which enviro-activists try to say are proof of sinister fossil fuel industry collusion efforts with skeptic climate scientists to spread doubt about the certainty of man-caused global warming, only two stand out at least on a superficial level as being particularly damaging. The one with seemingly the most devastating appearance is the so-called “Information Council for the Environment” (ICE) public relations memos of 1991, supposedly detailing Western Fuels Association (WFA) efforts to push misinformation that would achieve the goal to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” among a nationwide audience of gullible “older less-educated men and young low-income women.” Problem is, those memos are worthless as evidence of that conspiracy because they were never part of the short-lived, small three-city-only pilot project ICE PR campaign.
The second most damaging, laughably so when its actual content is taken into consideration in an objective manner, is the 1998 American Petroleum Institute (API) “Victory Will Be Achieved when …” leaked memo. Continue reading
… we can keep the inconvenient truths buried. In digging further into this situation, I see an entertaining irony concerning one of the latest global warming lawsuits and the old worthless 1998 American Petroleum Institute (API) “Victory will be achieved …” leaked memo, and I now see something in my work that needed to be corrected (sort of – it isn’t helpful to the people’s actions I dissect). Continue reading
My December 14, 2018 blog post illustrated how ‘journalist’ Amy Westervelt’s narrative about fossil fuel companies orchestrating disinformation campaigns to undercut public belief in man-caused global warming is a one-trick pony, enslaved to a particular set of worthless ‘leaked memo’ evidence for the notion that fossil fuel industry executives colluded with skeptic climate scientists in this conspiracy. But let’s not stop there. Westervelt also exposed how she is enslaved to one other set of worthless talking points for her narrative, which only ultimately points yet another giant arrow back to the origins of the smear of skeptic climate scientists. Continue reading
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