Credit Ross Gelbspan for apparently consolidating the brilliant 3-point set of talking points that have arguably kept the global warming issue alive all this time, (1) the science is settled; (2) skeptic scientists are paid by fossil fuel industries to ‘reposition global warming as theory rather than fact’; (3) journalists are not obligated to give equal time to those skeptics because of points 1 and 2. But that mantra would have been worthless without a network of associates spreading it wherever and whenever they could. First up on that list, Kalee Kreider.
For each piece in this particular series of “The Company You Keep” I’ll try to keep them moderately brief, detailing various highlights of people having close ties to Gelbspan. Be assured, there’s much more to each person’s involvement with the smear of skeptic climate scientists.
Gelbspan’s various narratives often cover his first two talking points in some form within a single sentence, when he mentions skeptics in comparison to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) having more than 2,500 scientists from more than a hundred countries. This statement takes on a comical turn when, despite Ms Kreider having no more than a BA History degree*, she is found in a 1997 IPCC special report within its Annex H USA section of authors, contributors, and expert reviewers, listed in association with, of all scientific organizations, Greenpeace.
[*10/27/16 Author’s edit: that link for her online resumé no longer works, but this one does** and I have a screencapture of the Education section there for good measure. **3/12/18 Author’s edit: Except not any longer. Seems Ms Kreider altered the url now so that it additionally has her middle initial, but is otherwise the same as her prior resumé link. Author’s 6/27/19 addition: LinkedIn now requires free membership login, so for those who haven’t joined, here’s a screencapture composite showing the former and altered page urls.]
The larger problems with environmental groups associating with the IPCC have already been very nicely shown in detail by Donna Laframboise.
Kalee Kreider’s LinkedIn resumé is oddly missing a reference to the job she had between her departure from Al Gore’s office and her current “Kreider Strategies, LLC” position: her prominent* June 2012 return to Fenton Communications. *[Author’s 6/27/19 addition: It was big agency industry news at the time. And it is still missing in her latest updated resumé … in which her time at Greenpeace and Ozone Action are also missing now. Both were in her oldest LinkedIn resumé version now preserved at the Internet Archive.] Who knows? It must not have worked out well. I’ll leave that particular resumé glitch for others to muse about.
Meanwhile, Al Gore expressed quite an appreciation of her work, to an extent that sounds like it extended further back than her actual March 2006-July 2012 spokesperson position:
Kalee Kreider ( who has been of invaluable service in all of my climate work)
(Entertaining how that same page 411 of his 2010 “Our Choice” book has “author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist” Ross Gelbspan in a lengthy list of people who “undertook a complete review of the manuscript“.)
But Gore’s “climate work” extends back to, well, at least 1992-’93. Actually it goes back further, but I mention 1992-’93 here to drive home another problematic situation, the spot in Kreider’s LinkedIn resumé where she says in regard to her work at Ozone Action (bold emphasis mine),
February 1995 – August 1996 (1 year 7 months) Washington D.C. Metro Area
Created and deployed the first media strategy for a start-up NGO working on atmospheric issues—climate change and ozone depletion placing stories on network broadcast and mainstream print outlets. Assisted in all aspects of the start up.
This August 2000 NY Times article says (5th-from-last paragraph) Ozone Action was founded in July 1993 by John Passacantando and Greenpeace’s Karen Lohr. No mention of Kreider. Another Passacantando bio places the start date at 1992. But this Spring 2009 Rollins Magazine interview (her college alma mater’s publication) says in its 8th & 9th paragraph (bold emphasis mine),
After graduating, … she worked on the Clinton Crime Bill, then parlayed that experience into a post at the Justice Department. “I had a friend who was starting up a small nonprofit and he wanted me to help him run it,” she said. “People said, ‘What are you thinking? You’re leaving the Justice Department for a little NGO?’ But I knew I had to do something I was passionate about.”
After building Ozone Action, Kreider was ready to take another risk—this time with Greenpeace…
What a semantics mess. Are we to believe she helped create Ozone Action overall in ’92/’93? Or her LinkedIn resumé, about arriving in 1995 to ‘create and deploy their first media strategy’? Which happens to be within the same the year Ross Gelbspan first gained fame for accusing skeptic climate scientists of industry funding corruption.
Ross Gelbspan’s association with Ozone Action likely began sometime between their switch in December 1995 from pure focus on ozone depletion to one which also concerned climate change (happening in the same month that Gelbspan first publicly mentioned his ‘industry corruption’ findings), and their March 1996 “Ties That Blind” report mentioning that he and they “obtained” industry documents. The latter situation certainly takes on the appearance of a media strategy effort to marginalize skeptic climate scientists in the eyes of the public.
Not long after, Kreider enjoyed her send-off from Ozone Action, and then blessed us with this Greenpeace press release gem about Gelbspan’s book weeks after its publication,
PULITZER WINNER’S NEW BOOK DOCUMENTS OIL AND COAL INDUSTRY’S CAMPAIGN TO DERAIL GOVERNMENT ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
WASHINGTON, May 5, 1997 (GP) — The coal and oil industries have mounted a multi-million dollar misinformation campaign to dismiss the threat of global climate change and derail international action, according to a new book by a Pulitzer prize winning journalist. In his book, “The Heat is On,” published by Addison-Wesley, author Ross Gelbspan says…
…”In the aftermath of the catastrophic Red River flooding, `The Heat is On’ has immediate relevance for the American people and our leaders,” said Kalee Kreider, Climate Campaign Director for Greenpeace USA.
So, you take a media strategy effort to marginalize skeptic climate scientists from a little outfit called Ozone Action, and you then broadcast it through the worldwide speakers of Greenpeace. Then, get it into a major movie.
Whenever her association with Gelbspan started, it remains to this day. Oops, who else is seen in that last photo link? Ozone Action’s founder John Passacantando.
No tidy answers in this particular examination, just ever-deepening problems.