Background: Was It All One Big ‘Oopsy’?

Call this blog post a combo ‘editorial’ / ‘backgrounder’ on the overarching inevitable problem the accusers of “industry-corrupted skeptic climate scientists” will face. It’s simply a matter of time before any one of the 29 current “Exxon Knew”-style lawsuits finally does go in front of a judge or jury to decide on its merits. This blog post concerns what the deciders need to know about the political accusation angles within these cases. I doubt that the people behind the “growing tide” of ExxonKnew-style / “growing pool” of lawsuits actually have any intention of winning via jury decisions; the objective quite likely is to intimidate the smaller of the defendant companies into thinking if they just cry “uncle” and pay out what they believe is a settlement fee they can somehow afford in order to keep their company alive for the foreseeable future. This was an effective tactic to force the tobacco industry into submission, an inevitable conclusion since tobacco smoke is harmful and Big Tobacco knew it, and the people filing lawsuits against Big Tobacco knew Big Tobacco knew it. Everybody knew it. A person would have to be spectacularly stupid to believe inhaling nothing bad could result from inhaling burning particulates big enough to see.

What the fossil fuel industry knew and what they did is an entirely different and uncomparable situation. Therein lies the problem for the pushers of the “Exxon Knew”-style lawsuits and the core clique of enviro-activists who’ve promulgated the “crooked skeptic climate scientists” accusation for decades, which is one of the two pillars these lawsuits stand on, and on which arguably the entire ‘climate crisis’ issue stands on. The core clique of enviro-activists may sincerely believe with all their heart in the soundness of the other pillar, namely the notion that “the climate science of man-caused global warming is settled.” None of them are climate scientists or have any expertise in the field, but as true believers, it’s fair to say their innocent ignorance about the full science is forgivable. The democratic right speech to free speech includes the right to be incorrect about a matter. The potentially fatal problem for them, and the key to comprehending why the whole tobacco industry settlements tactic will ultimately backfire in epic fashion is what’s seen in the truism statement below, as it pertains to the accusation that ‘fossil fuel executives employed skeptic climate scientist shills who spewed falsehoods in disinformation campaigns just like the tobacco industry did.’

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Why would Kalee Kreider leave Ozone Action?

Just askin,’ yet another in my series of posts asking questions that not only the inquisitive public and unbiased reporters should be asking, but also the law firms working for the defendant energy companies in the current 25 “Exxon Knew”-style global warming damages/cost recovery lawsuits, along with unbiased, objectives members of the US House Oversight Committee. You’ll never how weak and indefensible that situation is until you know what and who led to the current situation.

Kalee-who? You’ll be glad you asked. I covered her problems back in September 2013, but there’s always more to cover, especially when it is relevant to current-day situations and questions that should be asked in courtroom settings and congressional hearings. Continue reading

Ross Gelbspan & his seemingly larger Ozone Action connection

First, some elemental background info on this: folks might wonder why I focus so narrowly on the one set of supposedly ‘leaked fossil fuel industry memos’ which enviro-activists say are smoking gun evidence proving disinformation campaigns (and other alleged attacks against ‘settled global warming science’) operated under the widely adopted directive to “reposition global warming as theory (not fact).”

My reason is elemental. It’s because the enviro-activists are so focused on that specific phrase and the worthless accusation surrounding it. It’s the most damaging weapon they have to use in their relentless effort to steer the world away seeing whether the science-based climate assessments from skeptic climate scientists are worthy of serious consideration.

If the sole excuse – ‘industry-paid skeptic scientists’ – implodes as the reason the public and policymakers and journalists have for ignoring skeptics’ climate assessments, then the ‘man-caused global warming’ issue is imperiled, perhaps to the point of imminent collapse. For influential investigators/prosecutors to begin to realize how vulnerable the egregiously false ‘crooked skeptic climate scientists’ accusation itself is to total collapse, they will need to fully comprehend why repetitions of accusations surrounding that memo set looks like an ongoing deliberate conspiracy, and they need to know exactly who the core people are in that situation, and how that core group apparently steered those memo phrases into the way that’s still exploited today. Continue reading

Headline: “U.S. House Panel Commits Political Suicide; Expands Inquiry into Climate Disinformation by ‘Big Oil’”

That was the widespread news headline, in one form or another (minus the ‘political suicide’ bit, of course) on Thursday, September 16th, 2021. The main news item was that Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, and sophomore-term House member Ro Khanna, D-Ca, sent letters hours earlier to four major fossil fuel companies and two lobbying groups, demanding that they appear in front of the Oversight Committee on October 28, and that they bring documents with them showing how they were engaged in — no joke! — “in a long-running, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming.” Those were the actual words in the nearly identical letters, which can be viewed in their entirety at the links within the Oversight Committees website page’s press release.

How could this House Oversight Committee stunt be revealed to be act of political suicide? If the ‘defense witnesses’ at the October 28 hearing decide to seize the leadership opportunity on this, they could show how the ‘industry executives colluded with skeptic climate scientists in disinformation campaigns‘ accusation only points a huge arrow at where the real disinformation efforts are apparently seen in this issue, a core clique of enviro-activists who’ve pushed a pair of never-implemented, ‘leaked industry memo sets’ that are worthless to prove any “industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation” exists anywhere. Plus, the sheer lack of viable evidence behind the accusation points an even bigger arrow at the basic journalistic malfeasance on the part of mainstream media news reporters, when it comes to their decades-long failure to ask probing questions about the basic accusation, which dates back to the 1990s. Continue reading

Among the quality resources for a global warming essay include … National Geographic

What’s one way to spread outright propaganda on the climate issue? Offer a statement just like the title above to the larger public who may not be aware that a once-highly lauded magazine has been turned into a vehicle of biased information about global warming. And to make doubly sure a particular political angle of the issue is put out, place a person formerly associated with an environmental propagandist organization into that magazine as its “Chief of Content, Communications and Public Affairs.” Continue reading

The Roll Call of a Single Source Wipeout, Part 2

In the middle of the summer of 2016, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse participated with his comrades in a U.S. Senate floor speech stunt decrying the hazards of man-caused global warming. His speech contained a roll call of people who supposedly exposed the complicity of skeptic climate scientists in a fossil fuel industry-funded disinformation campaign. I’ll note why this older event is still relevant today at the end of this post, and for the newer readers arriving here, please do click on my links, as many are quick-glance screencaptures of text details I refer to, or are fuller context posts about my references. Continue reading

Amicus brief, Brule, CCI, Farrell, Franta, Lewandowsky, Oreskes, Supran

Here we go again. When I said in my December 14, 2018 blog post (and its Part 2), that enviro-activists only have a one-trick pony to use in their character assassination efforts against skeptic climate scientists, that’s no exaggeration. Their lack of diversity isn’t restricted to only minor league ‘reporters’ lately, it’s the only thing the most famous accusers have in their arsenal as evidence of a ‘skeptics / fossil fuel industry executives disinformation’ conspiracy. Look no farther for that than the 1/29/19 “Brief Of Amici Curiae, Robert Brule, Center For Climate Integrity, Justin Farrell, Benjamin Franta, Stephan Lewandowsky, Naomi Oreskes, and Geoffrey Supran* for the San Mateo / Imperial Beach / Marin / Santa Cruz v Chevron, California global warming lawsuits. Instead of presenting a more convincing argument for repeated use of the same old ‘leaked memo evidence,’ this little amici curiae group only amplifies how much of a problem it creates. Continue reading

Background: The WORTHLESS 1998 American Petroleum Institute “Victory Will Be Achieved when …” leaked memo

Among the five major ‘leaked memo’ situations which enviro-activists try to say are proof of sinister fossil fuel industry collusion efforts with skeptic climate scientists to spread doubt about the certainty of man-caused global warming, only two stand out at least on a superficial level as being particularly damaging. The one with seemingly the most devastating appearance is the so-called “Information Council for the Environment” (ICE) public relations memos of 1991, supposedly detailing Western Fuels Association (WFA) efforts to push misinformation that would achieve the goal to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” among a nationwide audience of gullible “older less-educated men and young low-income women.” Problem is, those memos are worthless as evidence of that conspiracy because they were never part of the short-lived, small three-city-only pilot project ICE PR campaign.

The second most damaging, laughably so when its actual content is taken into consideration in an objective manner, is the 1998 American Petroleum Institute (API) “Victory Will Be Achieved when …” leaked memo. Continue reading

The Repeaters vs the Pushers

I’ve said it many times, the entire global warming crisis can be boiled down to a three point mantra, “the science is settled” / “skeptics are industry-corrupted” / “everyone may ignore skeptic material because of points 1 & 2.” With the latest fixation on using racketeering laws to persecute companies and organization siding with skeptic climate scientists, a fourth talking point could be added, “when deniers persist with their industry-bought and orchestrated lies, they should be charged with crimes against humanity.” But the entire notion hinges on the insinuation that scientists who had even the most tenuous financial tie to industry donations were corrupted – paid to lie in a manner no different than shill ‘experts’ working for the tobacco industry who said smoking didn’t cause lung cancer. An insinuation so memorably compelling that ordinary citizen enviro-activists can regurgitate it with ease. Continue reading