An innocuous-looking mention of a university professor in connection with one of Al Gore’s latest public appearances is worthy of a major second look.

The situation was an Associated Press announcement about Gore’s pending February 7th, 2018 talk at a university.

Kelly Sims Gallagher, a professor of energy and environmental policy at Tufts, will moderate the discussion with Gore, who was the subject of “An Inconvenient Truth,” an Oscar-winning documentary about global warming. ….

How pleasant, the main host for the talk has at least some related knowledge of the topic. Nothing else to see here, move along.

However, Kelly Sims Gallagher is not merely a coincidentally handy local Tufts University professor, she has direct connections with the same set of leaked industry memo phrases seen within the growing numbers of California global warming lawsuits — the “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” strategy phrase and the “older, less-educated males” / “younger, lower-income women” targeting phrases — which are widely repeated elsewhere as proof that the fossil fuel industry ‘pays skeptic climate scientists to participate in misinformation campaigns’ undermining the certainty of catastrophic man-caused global warming (despite those memos being worthless as evidence, but that is another matter).

Here’s Ms Gallagher’s connections, back when she was just going by the name “Kelly Sims”:

• She was one of the two headline names, along with Kalee Kreider (yes, that Kalee Kreider) in a media announcement from the old Ozone Action environmentalist group trumpeting skeptic climate scientists’ ‘associations’ with fossil fuel companies. Her quotation about one scientist in particular is seen just one sentence after the “reposition global warming” phrase:

Dr. Michaels and Balling were part of a July 1996 public relations experiment in 1991 which purported to “reposition global warming as theory, not fact.” According to Kelly Sims of Ozone Action, “Efforts by Fred Singer and others to cast doubt on the most thorough, sophisticated and internationally-based consensus on climate change is part of a well-coordinated plan to mislead the public and policymakers.”

• In a Fall 1996 piece she wrote for the “No Sweat News” publication, she herself quotes the strategy phrase in conjunction with the organization that never actually used those memo suggestions in its “Information Council for the Environment” (ICE) public relations campaign.
• She was an invited guest from Ozone Action on National Public Radio in 1997 in which Ross Gelbspan suggested the leaked strategy/targeting phrases were part of a sinister industry campaign.
• Ozone Action is the group which “obtained” the leaked strategy/targeting phrases from some undisclosed source, and which gave them their first arguably successful and subsequently ongoing media traction as evidence of ‘industry-corrupted skeptic climate scientists.’ And in case there’s any doubt about the possibility that someone else has the identical “Kelly Sims” name, her downloadable CV at her Tufts faculty page lists her time at Ozone Action, which followed immediately after her time spent at “The White House, Office of the Vice President.” Meaning, Al Gore.
• As a segue into Al Gore’s connections, Ms Sims Gallagher pointed out in her days-old talk with him (at the 27:01 point) that she was led into her activism as the result of reading his 1992 “Earth in the Balance” book.

What are Al Gore’s connections?

• His 1992 “Earth in the Balance” book quoted the targeting phrases:

Documents leaked from the National Coal Association to my office reveal the depth of the cynicism involved in the campaign. For example, the strategy memorandum notes their “target groups” as follows: “People who respond most favorably to such statements are older, less-educated males from larger households, who are not typically active information-seekers … another possible target is younger, lower-income women …

• His 2006 movie spelled out the strategy phrase full screen in comparison to a leaked tobacco industry phrase, but his movie companion book said Ross Gelbspan discovered it.
• In 2008, rather than pin the leaked memo set to the National Coal Association like he did in 1992, he authoritatively stated “ExxonMobil has funded 40 different front groups that have all been a part of a strategic persuasion campaign to, in their own words, ‘reposition global warming as theory rather than fact.’”
• In his 2010 New Republic “The Crisis Comes Ashore” article, rather than credit Ross Gelbspan with the ‘discovery’, he simply said, “a game plan spelled out in one of their internal documents, which was leaked to an enterprising reporter, that stated: ‘reposition global warming as theory rather than fact.’”
• In his 2011 Rolling Stone “Climate of Denial” piece, he seemed to back away from Gelbspan completely, saying the memos were “leaked to The New York Times as early as 1991. In an internal document, a consortium of the largest global-warming polluters spelled out their principal strategy: ‘Reposition global warming as theory, rather than fact.'”

The question today is, what does Al Gore know and when did he know it about where those supposedly leaked “Western Fuels / ICE” strategy/targeting memos actually came from?

The problem is, Gore might just say he doesn’t recall. Perhaps Ms Sims Gallagher could be prompted to tell what she knows about that situation. It’s interesting how John Passacantando’s Ozone Action group and Ross Gelbspan both seem to have ‘obtained’ those memos magically out of thin air.

What’s also potentially interesting — if Exxon’s lawyers elects to pursue it — about their pre-suit deposition of the key attorney seen in lawsuits against them, Matt Pawa,* may be his correspondence “not limited to” one particular person who’s also famous for repeating the non-“ICE” strategy phrase ….. supposedly archived at a place where they actually were not ….. while crediting a person for alerting her to them and related documents ….. who turns out to be a person with authority to add notes to those old ICE campaign leaked documents ….. who turns out to have a direct connection to Al Gore ….. when Gore was using those documents as a weapon against skeptic climate scientists in 1992 ..… which were much more recently re-suggested for usage as a weapon against Exxon ..… by the same person who Al Gore name-dropped not only in his appearance at New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s big March 29, 2016 ‘prosecute Exxon’ press conference, but also in this days-old talk with Kelly Sims Gallagher.

* (that Matt Pawa, of Kivalina v. Exxon fame with its enslavement to those non-“ICE” memos, in connection with that John Passacantando … etc.)

See where a possible cascade of correspondence connections can ultimately lead an investigator?

This is why any innocuous-looking mentions of people in connection with the accusation about ‘industry-paid skeptic climate scientists’ are worthy of second looks. Perhaps while some of the core pushers of that accusation won’t reveal damaging material about the entire situation surrounding those worthless non-“Western Fuels/ICE campaign” memos, there is very likely at least one or more weak members of that clique who are willing to turn on the others just to save their own skins.