The first peer-reviewed publication to survey the industry’s messaging specifically” … showcases the worthlessness of “peer review”

[Author’s note: Unlike prior instances where WUWT reproduced some of my blog posts here as guest posts there, this one is the opposite – I submitted it straight to them first, and it now appears there as “Peer Reviewed Science Journal Report: ‘Electric Utility Industry’s Role in Promoting Climate Denial, Doubt, And Delay.’” I reproduce it here from WUWT.]

Enviro-activists who claim human-induced catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) is happening, is harmful, and should be stopped, also say evidence to support their claim is found in peer reviewed, recognized science journals. It’s their gold standard for validating the credibility of scholarly papers on the topic. They admonish anyone offering criticism outside this system — if it is not peer reviewed and published in a science journal, it has no credibility and is likely corrupted by dubious outside influences.

They would say that another term for peer reviewers is “fact checkers,” outside experts not associated with the paper’s author(s) who ascertain whether there are errors in the paper prior to publication in a climate science journal, on any area related to the issue. Peer reviewed approval = no errors. Continue reading

The Big Naomi Oreskes Hole in PBS Frontline’s Part 3 “The Power of Big Oil” Train Wreck

Predictably, Frontline’s Part 3 program offered viewers only half or less of the full story they were telling, which is why the program as a whole could be labeled “disinformation,” but the program lost all the focus it had in Parts 1 and 2 on the ‘corrupt fossil fuel industry spreading disinformation’ accusation angle. I’ll cover that bizarre twist in highlight form toward the end of this post. The far larger problem overall now is the very weird “Naomi Oreskes Hole” that Frontline and Oreskes herself inexplicably dug for themselves. Her inability to keep her mouth shut on various items is the gift that keeps on giving; ammo handed on a silver platter to potential congressional investigators and law firms defending energy companies in global warming lawsuits. Continue reading

An Ingenious Feat of Investigative Reporting” … that was not.

Matt Pawa, a leading lawyer in four current global warming lawsuits aimed at fossil fuel companies, described elsewhere as the main motivator behind such action, has already been admonished for attempting to push ‘evidence’ in one of his lawsuits which wasn’t what it was insinuated to be. I also covered this problem in detail in my March 30, 2018 post, and briefly noted in my prior blog post how Pawa’s 2008 Kivalina v. Exxon global warming lawsuit indicated how he was apparently impressed enough with Ross Gelbspan’s work to cite a prominent article of his directly in the lawsuit which supported the idea of fossil fuel industry funding and orchestrating ‘shill scientist experts.’

Like so many other facets of the ‘corrupted skeptic climate scientists’ accusation which enviro-activists hope nobody explores in any depth, Pawa’s citation of Gelbspan’s article doesn’t lead to a tidy explanation of the ‘corruption,’ it prompts the question of whether Pawa has once again been caught citing ‘evidence’ that isn’t what it professes to be. Continue reading

Pawa’s pro-/anti-Gelbspan Weirdness

That’s Matt Pawa, who’s increasingly gaining fame as the leader of four current global warming lawsuits, and who was described in a December 2017 Huffington Post article as the main driver behind such legal action. “Wierdness”, because there is much about Pawa’s manner of establishing how ‘fossil fuel companies conspired with skeptic climate scientists to hide the harm of man-caused global warming’ in his landmark 2008 Kivalina v. Exxon lawsuit which makes no sense. And “Gelbspan” is the person who’s self-described as the first one to reveal that conspiracy.

What’s weird here is how Pawa can’t bring himself to give Gelbspan that direct accolade to this day, regarding Gelbspan’s evidence which appears plausible enough to nail fossil fuel companies to the wall for the whole world to see. Continue reading

King County v. BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch and ConocoPhillips

Here we go again, with yet another lawsuit attempt to say ‘the science of global warming is settled, the fossil fuel industry knew this all along but paid skeptic climate scientists to say otherwise, thus victims can sue that industry to recover the costs associated of dealing with this settled science.’ The otherwise uninformed general public expects – rightly so – such lawsuit accusations to stand on their merits beyond any shadow of a doubt. They’re supposed to be open-and-shut cases, welcoming independent corroboration and never having the remotest appearance of hoping nobody checks the veracity of the accusation evidence, or look like they’re using shell game tricks to obscure the origins of a highly questionable solitary evidence source, or give any impression, however slight, that the so-called evidence is actually part of an orchestrated long-term effort to advance a political agenda by marginalizing critics through baseless character assassination.

This latest case not only fails on all those points ….. Continue reading

“SEPP is exploring if, as a party possibly slandered in the City of Oakland complaint …”

That’s one of the pair of global warming lawsuits I covered in my October 6, 2017 “People of the State of California v. BP P.L.C., et al” blog post. The People of the State of California v. BP P.L.C., et al. San Francisco Superior Court Case is the other one; both are basically identical. Within that post toward the end, I briefly described what was suspect about a particular line in the lawsuits, regarding Science and Environment Public Policy (SEPP) founder Dr S Fred Singer. Since the news over the weekend concerned SEPP’s mention of “slander,” I thought it would be worthwhile to show why it is that SEPP would say such a thing. 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

County of San Mateo v. Chevron Corp., et al.
County of Marin v. Chevron Corp., et al.
City of Imperial Beach v. Chevron Corp., et al.

It’s one thing for assorted article writers, amateur private bloggers, prominent professional bloggers, reporters, and political advocacy groups to regurgitate the unsupportable insinuation that skeptic climate scientists are paid by Big Coal & Oil to lie to the public while working the old “leaked memo phrase” reposition global warming as theory rather than fact into the narrative, but it’s much more serious when this comes up in major global warming “costs” court cases. Continue reading