Backstory for this post here is that I set up a daily Google email alert over a decade ago for any stories concerning global warming, and for some reason on March 25th, that alert system plopped in Massachusetts Merrimack College professor Dan Sarofian-Butin’s “I’m A Professor. I No Longer Know What My Job Is” RealClearEducation website article about the apparent takeover of artificial intelligence in classroom teaching situations. Unfortunately, I deleted the whole email alert before reading his article, so I don’t remember what the climate-related tagline was for the article. I discovered in a two-days-later Google email alert that most likely its alleged “A.I.” robot program strangely selected Prof Sarofian-Butin’s article as a global warming story the same way it did with another RealClearEducation article result – despite how both pieces don’t even mention global warming at all. Chalk up Google’s strange inclusions there as one more indicator that A.I. is not half as intelligent as it’s portrayed to be. Nevertheless, Prof Sarofian-Butin’s article contained a gem quote from a student who’d used an A.I. system as a means to get more insight about one of his lessons. Uhhh, yeah, that system, which then reminded me that I should do something with what I gleaned a few months earlier out of the “AlterAI” system, which a friend initially thought might actually be an unbiased intelligent system.

It is not. A simple test proves that true. Using its one-time trial demo option, I asked “AlterAI” two questions, and copied its answers verbatim (including its overuse of asterisks). Watch this: 

  Request:
Who discovered the fossil fuel industry memos with the phrase Reposition Global Warming as Theory (Not Fact)? What is their importance?

Response:
Those notorious memos — containing the explicit strategy line *“Reposition global warming as theory (not fact)”* — were unearthed in the late 1990s by environmental reporter **Laura (Laurie) David and journalist John Stauber** and later publicized through works by **Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway** (particularly in *Merchants of Doubt*). They originated from internal communications among **fossil fuel industry front groups**, especially the **Information Council for the Environment (ICE)** — a PR front funded by **coal and utility interests** such as **the Western Fuels Association** — in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

🔍 What was discovered

The phrase came from a **public relations campaign proposal** by the ICE that laid out a communication strategy to manipulate public perception of climate science.
Its major points included:

– “Reposition global warming as theory (not fact).”
– “Target print and radio media for segments of the public who are most receptive to messages of uncertainty.”
– Using *“scientists who share the industry’s views”* to project doubt.

💡 Importance and broader context

1. **Evidence of coordinated disinformation**
The memos provided **concrete proof** that elements of the fossil fuel industry deliberately funded psychological and linguistic campaigns to turn scientific uncertainty — a normal part of research — into **public doubt** about the entire field of climate science.

2. **Blueprint for decades of manipulation**
The ICE strategy became a **template** for modern climate disinformation, much like the tobacco industry’s earlier “Doubt is our product” memos from the 1960s. It shifted the terrain of public debate from scientific data to cultural and political identity — a far more effective shield for powerful corporate interests.

3. **Institutional relevance**
These documents exposed how **corporate PR firms**, academic “consultants,” and think tanks were **paid to distort the discourse** rather than contribute to genuine scientific inquiry. They mark a turning point when **policy-based evidence** began to replace **evidence-based policy** within environmental regulation and media coverage.

4. **Moral and historical weight**
When future historians look at the climate crisis, these memos will likely stand as a **smoking gun** — showing that the global delay in climate action was not due to a lack of science, but to an **intentional campaign of deception**.

5. **Pattern of institutional behavior**
The strategy mirrors the same pattern seen in other industries: pharmaceutical, chemical, and even agricultural — where inconvenient scientific findings are blurred or rebranded to maintain profits and suppress public awareness. “Repositioning” truth is the cornerstone of modern corporate propaganda.

The “Reposition global warming as theory (not fact)” memo is not just a footnote in environmental history — it’s a **Rosetta Stone** of how power manipulates perception. It revealed precisely *when* and *how* the climate debate stopped being about science and became about persuasion.

How massively wrong are the above assertions? Oh, brother. Let me count the ways:

1. The memos were not unearthed in the late 1990s, they were first seen in fax newsletters in May 1991.
2. The memos were not unearthed by either Laurie David or John Stauber, and at no point in his own self-created LinkedIn online resumé does Stauber ever show a journalist job postilion he held. At neither Laurie David’s own most recent available website bio page, or in her own book bio or in pages elsewhere is she described as an environmental reporter. Laurie David was one of the film producers of Al Gore’s 2006 movie, and in Gore’s movie companion book, he falsely credited Ross Geblspan as both the discoverer of the memo and as a winner of a Pulitzer Prize. Gelbspan won no such prize, and when it comes to the ‘audience targeting’ suggestions in that memo set which Gelbspan so famously quoted, Al Gore quoted those same words years before Gelbspan ever said a word about them.
3. The memos were never publicized through the Naomi Oreskes’ / Erik Conway’s 2010 book / 2015 documentary *Merchants of Doubt” work, only via Oreskes’ 2007-’08 “You Can Argue With The Facts” college campus lecture series and in her 2021 UK Guardian article, and within her Friends of the Court briefs.
4. The memos do not originate from internal communications among fossil fuel industry front groups, they were a rejected proposal sent singly by the Edison Electric Institute to the Western Fuels Association as suggestions for the Information Council for the Environment (“ICE”) public relations campaign, but WFA rejected them outright and tossed their copy into the trash.
5. The actual “ICE” PR campaign was not some ‘front group’ “in the late 1980s and early 1990s” simply funded by WFA, it was a direct operation of WFA which only operated between January and late May 1991, where the publicly seen newspaper ads and the radio ads portion of it happened just between May 12 and May 29, 1991, and only within the small cities of Flagstaff Arizona, Bowling Green, Kentucky and Fargo, North Dakota.
6. The actual “ICE” PR campaign was never “to manipulate public perception of climate science,” its goal was to provide viewpoints that the news media and luminaries such as then-Senator Al Gore was withholding from the public.
7. The “reposition global warming” phrase never came from the “ICE” PR campaign, it was a collective set of ill-conceived suggestions from the Edison Electric Institute which, beyond undertaking early survey work, had no subsequent participation in the campaign.
8. By virtue of never being implemented in any form, the memos are not “concrete proof” evidence of any coordinated disinformation effort by anyone. A person does not need a degree in rocket science or climate science to understand that massive fault right there.
9. By virtue of never being implemented in any form anywhere, they therefore could not become a “blueprint/template for decades of manipulation” when nobody in the industry operated under any of the memos’ directives / suggestions.
10. By virtue of never being implemented in any form anywhere, they therefore cannot serve as evidence that anyone was “paid to distort the discourse rather than contribute to genuine scientific inquiry.” Nobody on the Greenpeace / Al Gore side has the climate science experience to say that the scientists who stand accused of the accusation put out material that did not contribute to genuine scientific inquiry.
11. By virtue of never being implemented anywhere, the memos therefore cannot mark a turning point from fact-based policy to “policy-based evidence.” If anything, the false corruption accusations against skeptic climate scientists are what marked that turning point. As far back as 1994.
12. By virtue of never being implemented anywhere, when future historians look at the false accusations stemming from these never-implemented memos, they will likely stand as a ‘smoking gun” for the way defamation of skeptic climate scientists became an immoral tactic to keep ‘climate action’ as a subject alive that was not to be questioned.
13. By virtue of never being implemented anywhere, these memos cannot serve as a ‘mirror’ comparison to other industries ‘disinformation’ actions, period. However, the insidious use of them to “reposition” the truth about the credibility of skeptic climate scientists is the cornerstone of modern enciro-activist propaganda.

If the “AlterA.I.” responses got one single thing right, albeit inadvertently in its conclusion about the ‘importance and broader context’ of the memos, they are indeed a Rosetta Stone of how power – in the hands of enviro-avtivists – manipulates public perception. The start of the accusations which were enslaved to the ‘existence’ of those memos revealed exactly when and how the climate issue stopped being about debating science and became about persuasion via character assassination against good people who simply used science-based facts and observation to show how the concerns about man-caused global warming were completely overblown.