Old-school, hard-nosed, traditional reporters don’t merely accept superficial information without question, they spot inconsistencies in the material and go digging in order to find out why the details don’t line up right. Three weeks ago, The Weather Channel website featured a hit piece against the Heartland Institute authored by Pam Wright, which Heartland’s Jim Lakely dissected yesterday here. As ever with such dissections, there’s always more. From my own unique bit of expertise on the political side of the global warming issue, let my politely suggest that Pam Wright should not quit her day job as a propagandist to become an old-school reporter. Continue reading
Tag Archives: ICE
Flipping Daubert: Putting Climate Change Defendants in the Hot Seat
A student lawyer wrote a prize winning essay about how to get testimony from skeptic experts excluded from such cases. When you see what evidence this essay is based on, the question arises on whether the prize should be revoked and the writer reprimanded for not undertaking basic due diligence to find out if the “evidence” he cited was actually reliable. Continue reading
County of Santa Cruz v. Chevron Corp., et al.
City of Santa Cruz v. Chevron Corp., et al.
City of Richmond v. Chevron Corp., et al.
Might as well save the trees and lower the carbon footprint of ink by either having one big 60 page+ lawsuit printout labeled “Fill-in-the-blank v. Various Oil Companies, et al.,” or better yet, a single piece of paper brought to all future courthouses with “Fill-in-the-blank v. Any Energy Company We Can Think Of, et al.” at the top, and “See County of San Mateo v. Chevron Corp., et al.” in the middle. Problem is, the recent craze of communities suing to recoup costs associated with man-caused global warming only amplifies the fatal problem within all of these lawsuits. Continue reading
The Moral Imperative to Stop Global Warming Strikes Again … er, strikes out
“A big-money Catholic group just said it’s yanking all of its cash out of fossil fuels” — that was the headline of an early October 2017 CNBC News headline, referring to the Global Catholic Climate Movement organization (GCCM). With barely more than a glimpse at a quote within the article about “we feel strongly responsible to participate in tackling the issue of climate change,” I could already guess where this group was headed and who they relied on for their diatribe about the global warming issue. Continue reading
Naomi Oreskes’ Problems, pt 1 (3/10/15 update)
Naomi Oreskes seems to be enjoying a bit of new publicity* as the result of the “Merchants of Doubt” movie premiere (*where some review outlets allow critical comments while others do not), which is based on the 2010 book she co-authored with Erik Conway. But let’s get one thing straight, Oreskes is little more than yet another “cog in the wheel” when it comes to accusing skeptic climate scientists of being paid shills of the fossil fuel industry, enslaved just like all the other cogs to the same single source for the accusation, Ross Gelbspan. In this Part 1 blog post, I’ll re-emphasize this enslavement, and explain the necessity for subsequent posts about Oreskes at the end. [Update appears there now] Continue reading
Climate Skeptics’ Corruption Exposed by Gelbspan! (er, Ward) In 1995! (er, 1992) Or Something!
Declarations that skeptic climate scientists knowingly lie about the certainty of man-caused global warming as paid shills of the fossil fuel industry appear devastating…… but dig deep into the details, and all those claims look more like a “Keystone Kops-style” farce. I’ve already covered how the endless repetitions never offer physical evidence proving a quid pro quo arrangement exists between skeptics and industry funders, they only repeat Ross Gelbspan’s 1995 paper-thin guilt-by-association narrative. But now, let’s examine how Gelbspan can’t even keep the story straight on when this so-called “corruption of skeptic scientists” was first revealed. Continue reading
Greenpeace Loves Ross Gelbspan… sort of.
Since I have a small run of “Greenpeace USA née Ozone Action” blog pieces going here, and since I had some fun at Ross Gelbspan’s expense a few years ago using a line out of the old “Columbo” TV series, here’s one more “sorry to bother you, there’s just one more thing…” examination of who claims ownership over the ‘leaked industry memos’ that supposedly prove the corruption of skeptic climate scientists. Continue reading
The First, the Last, and the Only Accusation Against Skeptics. Repeat it Often, Inexplicable Errors are Optional
To quash the notion that no valid scientific criticism exists against the idea of man-caused global warming, enviro-activists often say “denier scientists” are paid by the fossil fuel industry to lie about the issue, insinuating a parallel to expert ‘shills’ who did the same for ‘big tobacco’. But the accusation has no punch without some kind of authoritative-sounding citation, so they inevitably invoke Ross Gelbspan’s narrative. Now, lets examine just how far and wide the successful spread of this accusation has been after Gelbspan’s first mention of it. Continue reading
Ironclad Accusations Need No Embellishments. Correct?
My first blog piece on Gelbspan’s unexplained “Singer/Idso name switch” between the hardcover and paperback editions of his “The Heat is On” book told how his supposedly ironclad accusation had a significant problem from its inception. Now let’s see how Gelbspan’s accusation repetitions contain an odd embellishment. Continue reading
Accuse a Scientist of Corruption. Later, Replace His Name Without Explanation. Everybody OK With That?
Dive into science-based criticisms of man-caused global warming or the methods used to gather and assess evidence (or lack thereof) for it, and you are soon neck-deep in very complicated analysis about why the issue appears not to be settled. The accusation that skeptic scientists are paid to lie about the issue is not hard to follow at all, basic scrutiny of it reveals inconsistencies that only lead to more problems.
Let’s start with how Ross Gelbspan’s most widely repeated accusation line initially contained a famous skeptic name, Dr S. Fred Singer, which was later swapped for a different name without a word of explanation. Continue reading