Background: Key Word / Names Checklist – what to look when prominent accusers yell “Big Oil disinformation” / “crooked skeptic scientists

[Updated 5/22/23] What follows in this post is a sort of work-in-progress, the “Background info” collection I referred to in my March 31, 2023 post. If I may suggest it for those who might end up investigating the clique of enviro-activists who’ve long accused skeptic climate scientists of industry corruption, bookmark it as a growing reference to utilize when the prosecution direction does eventually turn 180° against these accusers. Like I’ve implied more than once here at GelbspanFiles, the central promulgators of the false accusation about the fossil fuel industry employing shill scientists have been extraordinarily lucky so far, but what they recklessly push is simply unsustainable. It will sink. It is a mathematical certainty. Continue reading

“Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths” (a.k.a. “we still only have worthless evidence and suspect sources backing this.”)

The breaking ‘political climate news’ last week concerned the Harvard Law Review’s draft version of a scholarly paper (not due to be actually published until 2024) posing the idea that oil companies could be criminally charged with committing ‘climate homicide resulting from deceiving the public about the harm of burning fossil fuels.’ Particularly ludicrous to me was the statement in one of those news reports by one of the paper’s authors concerning the pitch of this idea to plaintiffs:

We have some indication they’re at least listening and curious,” said David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s climate program and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. “To someone who knows the criminal law, there’s a moment of ‘What!?’ and then, ‘It’s OK. It’s not crazy.’

Not only is this notion crazy, it would be an act of political suicide. Continue reading

Covering Climate Now, 3/2/23: ‘Fox News Lies About Elections & Repositions Global Warming as Theory (Not Fact).

For any of the folks at last week’s Heartland Institute climate conference (and any others I’ve contacted recently) who heard me say the worthless “reposition global warming” ‘leaked industry memos’ is the literal best ammunition that enviro-activist accusers have in their arsenal as evidence that the fossil fuel industry ran disinformation campaigns, that was no exaggeration. And as we all know, the primary hallmark of far leftists is the way they project their mindset onto the people they accuse of treachery, so when we see the Covering Climate Now group, a supplier of biased, one-sided climate info to 500+ news media outlets, publish a March 2 “FOX Doesn’t Just Lie About Elections” hit piece castigating the Fox News network with a subheadline that reads ….

The network is part of a climate disinformation ecosystem that journalism has to confront.

…. it is an arrow the size of Texas pointing to who it actually is who spews disinformation and who should be exposed for exactly what they are doing. Especially when Covering Climate Now feels totally compelled to support their accusation with ye olde “reposition global warming” memos that date all the way back to when the co-founder of CCNow first used them in a pure disinformation effort back in 1997. That’s how old this pathetic effort is, and why I put the comical “ye olde” modifying noun in front of those memos’ notorious name.

Continue reading

The Be-All / End-All “reposition global warming” & “victory will be achieved” Memos: Told ya so …

Call this post a follow-up to both my similarly-titled November 16, 2022 post and a sort of “corroborating new information addition” to my Sept 2021 post about the Democrat House Oversight Committee’s political suicide. It’s a point I cannot emphasize enough, as it relates to enviro-activists promulgating the idea that there’s a fossil fuel industry conspiracy to mislead the public – via industry-orchestrated disinformation campaigns – about the certainty of man-caused global warming. Always keep these two bits in mind when considering any prominent hurl of their accusation: first, a primary hallmark of enviro-activists his their psychological projection of their mindset as accusations aimed at others; and second; the very best evidence in their arsenal for their accusation about deceptive industry campaigns consists the above-noted memo sets. As I’ve detailed here at GelbspanFiles, both sets are literally worthless, neither were ever implemented anywhere, thus rendering them useless as evidence to prove deception efforts are rooted in the directives of those memos. Obviously.

So when these same two sets are put out front & center in one way or another by enviro-activists again and again and again, it is a valid concern to determine whether this is a conspiracy on their part to deceive the public about the legitimacy of the science-based disputes offered by skeptic climate scientists to counter the IPCC / Al Gore side of the issue.

Allow me to illustrate this troublesome situation once again, where what I found a couple of months ago, combined with the latest available info about those enviro-activists’ efforts (hold that thought until near the end of this post), reinforces the appearance of their apparent conspiracy efforts. Continue reading

It’s Cute, How Hard They Try.

One of the things the political far-left does, including enviro-activists, is seemingly make assertions that they have no hopes of supporting while crossing their fingers that nobody ever questions them about those assertions (which seems to be backfiring of late in an epic way on a non-environmental topic). Additionally, with regard to global warming activists, they seem to have literally no self awareness of how ironic their clamoring is about guilt-by-association tainting the credibility of the people they criticize, compared to their own hugely troublesome associations. It’s almost endearing, the way they valiantly attempt to keep their beloved issue alive in the face of potentially deep investigations which could expose their fatally crippled thought processes and their troubling associations.

I have my fun with using famous movie lines to illustrate my analysis points. One from Annette Benning’s character in the 2019 “Captain Marvel” movie applies to an article topic a prominent climate figure alerted me to. Continue reading

The Be-All / End-All “reposition global warming as theory” Memos: When It’s All You Got, You. Have. Nothing.

How’s it going to work out when you have to defend your accusation that this ‘leaked memo’ directive is smoking gun proof that the fossil fuel industry ran disinformation campaigns to deceive the public about what the industry knew about the certainty of man-caused global warming? Just askin’ … for potentially 218+ friends ….

No exaggeration there about that worthless-as-evidence memo directive phrase (it was never implemented anywhere) being the only thing enviro-activists have in their arsenal to support their accusation about the fossil fuel industry bankrolling disinformation campaigns, and I’m not kidding about the sheer repetition of it recently which proves just how devoid that mob is of anything else to support their accusation, and how desperate they’re becoming in using it to keep the accusation alive. Continue reading

Platkin v Exxon Mobil Corp.

At his October 18 video news conference announcement of his same-day filing of Platkin v. ExxonMobil, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin implied the science of catastrophic climate events caused by the burning of fossil fuels was settled, and that his seemingly stand-alone bold lawsuit action to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for knowing their harm and disinforming the public for decades was timely and meaningful for New Jersey residents. And he thanked a lot of attorneys for their help in bringing this case, including one particular law firm, “our outside council Sher Edling.”

To set up the political suicide of this situation – how it is not timely at all, and how he really could have thanked just the one law firm there – I paraphrase a scene out of a famous movie:

I have to say that’s the most amazing story I’ve ever heard. What amazes me most is that he was taken in by it. It’s obvious this fellow Platkin was impressed by the Sher Edling law firm. He hears their tales of woe about climate and tries to cheer NJ residents up with this announcement. He’s young, not terribly bright. It’s not surprising he wouldn’t know what a state he puts his supporters in.

Continue reading

Indoctrinate the Children Well (via one, and only ONE, highly dubious source)

Examine the climate issue at a miles wide / quarter inch deep superficial level – its so-called ‘settled science’ and its accusation that scientists who express doubt about the idea of catastrophic man-caused global warming are paid handsomely to push their skeptic disinformation by the fossil fuel industry – and the issue stays alive in zombie-like fashion.

The top-end pushers of the agenda count on the public doing exactly that.

When unbiased, objective examiners focus on the ‘corruption’ accusation and start digging into it at a much deeper levels, it begins to unravel at exponential rates around the core clique of people promulgating the accusation. Allow me to offer the following of just one faulty angle. Continue reading

DailyKos didn’t like my 9/26/22 WUWT guest post — and only possibly further aided in my intended goal

Filed under my “Can’t make this stuff up” category. First, the setup behind all of this:

I was alerted to the allegedly peer reviewed “Electric Utility Industry’s Role in Promoting Climate Denial, Doubt, And Delay” paper at the Environmental Research Letters science journal by a prominent scientist on the skeptic side of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) issue. When I immediately spotted big errors in the paper and suggested it was ripe for retraction, the scientist told me the effort would be difficult if not impossible to accomplish considering the apparent bias of the ERL editor. At that point, I could have simply tossed the paper into my giant notes file as the latest example to unquestioningly regurgitate ye olde “reposition global warming” memo set as [false] ‘evidence’ of fossil fuel industry disinformation campaigns. However, I reasoned that if enough people were to see my dissection of the paper at WattsUpWithThat (the world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change) such that some of them would afterward decide to contact ERL or the authors on their own, the pressure might then prompt voluntary removal of the paper from publication, selfcensorship in other words, out of sheer embarrassment about the errors. Arguably a long shot goal to accomplish, but still worth a try, nevertheless.

In a brilliant bit of not thinking their action all the way through, the leftist DailyKos website made my goal one more increment possible of achieving. It’s one of those instances where if there are any DailyKos readers who harbor even just small amounts of doubt about the “crooked skeptics” accusation, the readers might react to that piece with, “Dude, you didn’t actually dispute the guy’s main argument that there is a fatal fault with the ‘smoking gun’ leaked memos. What’s up with that?Continue reading