It’s laughable when a sycophant makes an egregious goof on the timing of events in Gelbspan’s history, but it’s quite another matter when narratives by Gelbspan and another prominent “ally” of his about a fairly important meet-up are off by at least thirteen months. Continue reading
Did Gelbspan Prompt the BBC to Avoid Giving ‘Unfair Media Balance’ to Skeptic Climate Scientists?
In late 2012, an interesting scandal broke out concerning how the British Broadcasting Service – the BBC – was trying very hard to avoid releasing the names of ‘experts’ who had contributed to a report which concluded that the BBC wasn’t especially obligated to give equal time to skeptics on the topic of man-caused global warming. While the subsequent release of the names revealed the ‘experts’ were potentially quite biased, the question remains, what caused the BBC to heed the advice of such people in the first place? Continue reading
Why Imply “found” = “enlisted” When it Clearly Means “discovered” in a Coal Association’s Annual Report?
The situation is as elemental as it gets: Ross Gelbspan wants the public to believe the fossil fuel industry conceived and implemented a plan to save its own skin, and to carry this out, they found scientists who would spout any skeptic notion they were paid to say. To hammer this home in a way ensuring no one questions it, he says this plan is declared just that way in a Western Fuels Association annual report. End of story. But there’s a critical unspoken stipulation here, that no one should read the actual report or see the context in which the specific word “found” appears. Continue reading
Why Say Sinister Plans are in a Coal Association’s Annual Report… when they aren’t?
To recap: Ross Gelbspan accuses a prominent skeptic scientist of being involved in a global warming ‘misinformation campaign’, and he claims a key ‘leaked memo’ phrase he supposedly found is the smoking gun evidence for his overall accusation against skeptic scientists. But he swaps out the scientist’s name without explanation and the sinister top-down industry directive Gelbspan warns us about is not what it is portrayed to be. On top of all that, there is the small problem of Gelbspan’s “Pulitzer winner” designation.
So are these problems intensified if Gelbspan claims that the Western Fuels Association’s 1991 annual report declared it was going to “attack mainstream science” in regard to global warming, but no such words or anything remotely similar is actually in that report? Continue reading
Jonathan DuHamel Guest Post: “On being a heretic”
As I noted at the top of Lord Monckton’s 5/30 piece, it is my goal to have guest posts here about how enviro-activists are enslaved to character assassination as a first-resort tactic for avoiding genuine debate on the science of global warming. Jonathan’s is the second in what I hope will be an ongoing series. I’ve had my own fun with the ‘ignorant’ commenters he speaks briefly about in this guest post. Continue reading
Author’s Note: What Stays or Goes at this Blog, Compared to Others
A brief few words of about what might change in my writing here, versus what goes on at blogs and other pieces written by supporters of man-caused global warming. Readers who capture versions of my pieces via WebCite are wasting their time. Doing the same for various online pieces written by man-caused global warming supporters seems to be an absolute necessity, in order to catch their inconvenient truths before they disappear. Continue reading
When is a “Pulitzer Winner” not a Pulitzer Winner?
The March 26, 2006 ABC News quote I put in the main blog banner illustration above is a case study on how the news media repeats the basic accusation against skeptic climate scientists, and steers us to what is supposed to be devastating reporting by an unimpeachable source:
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ross Gelbspan blames a 15-year misinformation campaign by the oil and coal industries. […] To redefine global warming as theory — not fact — the industry funded research by “friendly” scientists…”
Perish the thought of the news media actually giving skeptics a fair shot at defending their science assessments, such as the way the PBS NewsHour has demonstrably excluded them from its program for 17+ years. Otherwise viewers might perceive a significant flaw with the “misinformation” accusation. But since we are talking about journalists who must aspire to do reporting worthy of a Pulitzer Prize, we have to wonder how they let Gelbspan’s “Pulitzer winner” label go unquestioned. Surely, if an ex-editor/reporter gains fame as a Pulitzer winner, we have a giant problem if he never won a Pulitzer, don’t we? Continue reading
Sycophants (yawn). Actual Witnesses of Gelbspan’s Accusation “Proof” are a Whole Other Matter
In my prior piece about the spread of Ross Gelbspan’s accusation that skeptic climate scientists are paid by the fossil fuel industry to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact“, I barely skimmed the surface of the sheer number of repetitions of it. The first time I threw the phrase into an internet search, a virtual ocean of sycophant repetitions could be seen, I forget how many pages it ran even without the trick of putting the phrase in quote marks. Three+ years later, I can almost count the total number of people who have every appearance of actually witnessing Gelbspan’s famous ‘leaked/secret coal industry’ memos on the fingers of two hands. Each person’s involvement in the matter is beset with crippling problems. Continue reading
Tried to Directly Ask Al Gore a Question about Gelbspan today
Straight from an email I received from Al Gore (Steve Milloy’s reproduced an identical one to him): I’m pleased to invite you to join me for an interactive Google Hangout with my good friend Jeff Skoll tomorrow, June 11, at 2pm EDT …. Most importantly, I want to invite you to participate in shaping the conversation by submitting your questions and watching the Hangout here. Well, I gave it a shot. Continue reading
If an Ironclad Accusation Repeatedly Quotes Specific Evidence, Why Take 22 Years to Finally Show the ‘Evidence’?
The accusation that skeptic climate scientists are paid by the fossil fuel industry to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” has two parts: the 1991-’95 span when it got little public interest, and late 1995 to the present, when it became far more widespread. During this entire 22-year stretch of time, I’m the only one quoting that fragment coal association memo sentence who told where the public could view that phrase and the rest of the ‘leaked memo set’. Among all the promoters of global warming out there, not one ever had a web link straight to the ‘leaked memo set’.
Until last Thursday. Continue reading