While I place this 2017-filed lawsuit at the very last (currently) #46 spot in my “ExxonKnew” lawsuits list<\/a>, and it barely qualifies to be on the list from having only one<\/em> of the standard four accusation elements<\/a> regularly seen in these lawfare filings, it nevertheless has details which Federal investigators and\/or the defendants in this case and the defendants across the board in these lawsuits might want to examine at a deeper level than I can. Where there’s smoke, there may well be fire; I point out the problems in these but that’s essentially the tip of the proverbial iceberg in this whole lawfare litigation dating back to its present day iteration origins. <\/p>\n First, I’ll briefly show what qualifies this one as an “ExxonKnew” lawsuit, then I’ll show where its ‘other’ problems begin to stack up.<\/p>\n In the face of all the 1950s<\/a> \/ ’60s<\/a> \/ ’70s reports<\/a> about scientific concern over the prospects of global cooling<\/strong>, it’s abundantly obvious how Exxon et al<\/em>. could not have ever possibly known with any certainty that use of their products caused global warming<\/em>. It took a while for the handlers for this lawsuit filing to get past 140 or so mind-numbing pages about what Exxon knew about the valuations<\/a> of their assorted holdings<\/a> compared to what they supposedly told shareholders, but ultimately they felt compelled to make a pure basic assertion<\/a> they have no hope of supporting.<\/p>\n Exxon has a long history of publicly misrepresenting the long-term threats to its business prospects due to climate change-related concerns … Beginning in the late 1970s, numerous Exxon scientists confirmed the existence of climate change directly resulting from the burning of fossil fuels<\/strong> and advised senior Exxon management …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Aside: That latter bit is patently ridiculous. Absolutely no scientists anywhere working for anybody<\/em> have confirmed that climate change does not<\/em> exist. The only people in the entire climate issue who want to establish a never-changing climate are the enviro-zealots claiming a changing climate will kill the planet.<\/p>\n Next is their solitary accusation element<\/a>, and it was a hugely ill-advised choice for them to make, when it is rather easy to show how it’s a quite weak accusation.<\/p>\n In February 2015, a FOIA document request revealed that Exxon had also been secretly funding a purportedly independent scientist to research the role that the sun plays in climate change. The documents revealed that beginning in 2001, Dr. Wei-Hock Soon had been the recipient of more than $1.2 million in research funding from fossil fuel interests including Exxon and AP. Dr. Soon\u2019s research was exclusively funded by Exxon and fossil fuel interests which reserved the right to review his studies before they were published. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists<\/strong>, Dr. Soon\u2019s research methodology and conclusions were widely criticized and discredited by his scientific peers, yet for years his work was cited by climate science denial front groups to promote doubt about the role of burning fossil fuels in causing climate change. The clear conflict of interest with Exxon\u2019s covert funding of Dr. Soon\u2019s work was never disclosed in his published works or in his testimony to lawmakers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is no citation footnote for this bit, but notice its basic reference to the “Union of Concerned Scientists.” The UCS.<\/p>\n That<\/strong> UCS<\/em>, whose credibility went out the window in June 2015 (as I detailed here<\/a> in July 2015) when they demonstrated their enslavement<\/a> to the literally worthless, never-implemented<\/a> “reposition global warming” memos in their attempt to accuse the fossil fuel industry of running disinformation campaigns. Who did UCS say was their info source for that memo set? Greenpeace USA<\/a>, the place where Kert Davies (that<\/strong> <\/em> Kert Davies<\/a>) worked from 2000 to 2013<\/a>, of which Greenpeace indicated how their<\/em> source for the memos was the old Ozone Action group, where Davies worked from 1998 until 2000 when his boss John Passacantando merged it into Greenpeace USA<\/a>.<\/p>\n UCS’ dossier about Dr Soon plows into that same problem – its source is no less than Greenpeace and the benign-sounding “Climate Investigations Center”<\/a> (CIC) which is absolutely nothing<\/em><\/strong> more than the\u00a0Greenpeace \/ ExxonSecrets material<\/a> which Kert Davies brought with him into his next self-created workplace, the CIC<\/a>. The other item seen in my above ‘UCS-cites-Davies’ screencapture inadvertently reinforces this, namely the first bit in UCS’ two-part “Gillis and Schwartz 2015; Smithsonian 2015<\/em>” reference. Gillis & Schwartz<\/a> is the Feb 2015 New York Times<\/em> article in which they – mimicking others as I detailed here<\/a> – cited Kert Davies for their info, without ever disclosing<\/a> he worked previously at Greenpeace. What is UCS’ “Smithsonian 2015<\/a>\u201d? That’s Dr Soon’s employer, the Smithsonian Institution, and its 2015 press release<\/a>\u00a0(posted just five days after the Gillis\/Schwartz NYT<\/em>\u00a0‘expos\u00e9 article’ and taken offline<\/em><\/strong><\/a> at some point after March 4 2020) which is actually worthless<\/strong> as evidence for proving illicit funding activity happened; it only notes that the Smithsonian was beginning<\/em> its inquiry<\/a> into Dr Soon’s funding disclosures. Why did they take their press release offline five years later? Dr Soon adamantly says its departure resulted from Smithsonian’s internal investigation finding no wrongdoing<\/a> on his part.<\/p>\n Who also utilized the Smithsonian press release in their 2017 lawsuit filing just nine days before<\/strong> Ramirez<\/em> was filed? The Sher Edling law firm, in the first of their filings<\/a>. They’ve filed the bulk of the “ExxonKnew” lawsuits, and they later used all three<\/em> of the citation links seen in Ramirez<\/em> in their 2025 State of Hawaii v BP<\/em> filing<\/a>.<\/p>\n That actually hints at where there’s a potentially larger behind-the-scenes problem with this Ramirez<\/em> filing. To prove subsequent Sher Edling filings were essentially “boilerplate copies” of their very first one, I showed not only their repetitions<\/a> of their<\/a> four predictable<\/a> accusation elements<\/a>, but I also showed how their other<\/em> ‘documents evidence’ on what ‘Exxon knew’ were routinely repeated in their filings across the country – the Joseph Carlson “Exxon Position”<\/a> memo\u00a0 and the 1977 \/ 1978 James Black<\/a> ‘presentations.’ One other repeated Sher Edling element I have not shown<\/em> until this blog post is the MB Glaser report \/ Roger W Cohen docs – first seen in Sher Edling’s July 17, 2017 San Mateo v Chevron<\/em> citing the Inside Climate News PDF files back-to-back<\/a> for those docs, then they switched to Kert Davies’ Climate Files website page for the docs in their Jan 22, 2021 Annapolis v BP<\/em> filing – where those two citations were still back-to-back in sequence<\/a>. What prompted Sher Edling’s switch? The ICN page scan of Glaser<\/a> and its Cohen scan<\/a> are identical<\/strong> to Climate Files’ scans for Glaser<\/a> and<\/strong><\/em> Cohen<\/a>. Davies’ Climate Files page for Glaser – according to the Internet Archive<\/a> – dates back to at least June 18, 2017<\/a>. His Roger Cohen page<\/a> is earlier at April 22, 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n Want to see where else the Glaser and Cohen citations appeared outside<\/em> of Sher Edling’s filings? Look no farther than within Ramirez v Exxon<\/em>, back<\/a>\u2013to<\/strong>\u2013back<\/a>, filed just nine days<\/strong> after Sher Edling’s first San Mateo v Chevron<\/em>. Ramirez<\/em> also has the Joseph Carlson “Exxon Position” memo<\/a> (oddly devoid of a citation source), and the 1977 \/ 1978 James Black references<\/a>.<\/p>\n Quite a set of coincidences<\/a>, yes?<\/p>\n But there’s always more to consider in this situation, starting with the date it was filed, July 26, 2017. It was easier for me to add this one into my big “ExxonKnew” lawsuits list at the very bottom because it would’ve been quite a chore to place it within the list based on the date it was filed relative to the others, which would have then obligated me to renumber the rest and the the numbers I assigned to the lawsuits that were dismissed. Regarding its July 26, 2017 date of filing, Ramirez<\/em> would actually be the fourth one filed in the ‘modern era’ of the climate lawfare litigation efforts after Sher Edling’s same-day-filed July 17, 2017 trio of San Mateo<\/em> \/ Marin<\/em> \/ Imperial Beach v Chevron<\/em> filings (the pair of 2006-filed 2006-filed Comer v Murphy Oil<\/em> \/ 2006-filed Kivalina v Exxon<\/em> being what I’d term the ‘original era’<\/a> of the climate lawfare efforts).<\/p>\n I’m using from the Climate Policy Radar’s PDF file for my screencapture illustrations \/ specific page links in this post. Eagle-eye readers (I have those<\/a>!) may spot how the PDF file url address for this 7\/26\/17-filed Ramirez v Exxon<\/em> has a “2016<\/strong>” date within it:<\/p>\n https:\/\/cdn.climatepolicyradar.org\/navigator\/USA\/2016<\/strong>\/ramirez-v-exxon-mobil-corp_f4fb78fc4677c0ad2beb8a69ce107430.pdf<\/p>\n Why is that? First off, lawyers could explain better than I can as to why the title name “Ramirez” only appears twice within the entire 183-page filing (for the title and email contacts<\/a>) while the very first paragraph says the lead plaintiff is the “Greater Pennsylvania Carpenters Pension Fund,”<\/a> without any mention of why that group is the lead plaintiff in a case with somebody else’s plaintiff name at the top. What I see within the Court Listener website<\/a>\u2019s handy oldest-to-newest court records timeline is that Pedro Ramirez Jr filed his own little<\/em> 26-page lawsuit on November 7, 2016<\/strong><\/a> where he said – without specific citation sources<\/a>:<\/p>\n In the fall of 2015, a series of articles reported that, as far back as the 1970s, Exxon, an avid purveyor of climate change skepticism in the 1990s and 2000s, had been investigating the impact that burning fossil fuels was having on the environment. According to these articles, Exxon … understood that efforts to address global warming could negatively impact fossil fuel use. … As the threat of regulation grew, Exxon spent tens of millions of dollars funding think tanks and advocacy groups that published white papers questioning the existence of climate change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n ‘They knew, but spent money to distract the public about what they knew<\/em>.’ As a lawsuit containing that as evidence in the Northern District of Texas U.S. District Court, the complaint could be called “all hat and no cattle.” The “series of articles<\/em>” he refers to was the Inside Climate News (ICN) “ExxonKnew” series which I<\/a> and others have shown<\/a> omitted material showing Exxon knew no such thing. Worse, Pedro Ramirez made the ridiculous assertion that ‘think tanks \/ advocacy groups published papers questioning the existence of climate change.’ Places such as the Heartland Institute and its publications<\/a> have never<\/strong><\/em> questioned the existence of climate change, and Ramierez Jr could not prove they do if his reputation depended on it.<\/p>\n This little 26-page case should have been thrown out of court on those two basic faults alone.<\/p>\n But here’s were the larger problem comes into play – notice that after his vague reference to the Inside Climate News article series, Pedro Ramirez Jr’s paragraph mentions New York AG Eric Schneiderman<\/a>. Just 20 months earlier, the Director of the Rockefeller Family Fund paraded Kert Davies in front of AG Schneiderman’s attorneys as having killer accusation evidence<\/a> against skeptic climate scientist Dr Willie Soon …. and yet Ramirez Jr didn’t insert the subsequent worldwide news about the accusation against Dr Soon into his little 26 page lawsuit.<\/p>\n Somebody else apparently had to do that for<\/em> him.<\/p>\n On January 6, 2017 – before<\/em><\/strong> the first of the three Sher Edling boilerplate copy lawsuits were filed (with their own regular tell-tale collection of indicators<\/a> which potentially indicates the lawsuits are just repeated from an original template) a Motion was made<\/a> in the Texas court to have the “Greater Pennsylvania Carpenters Pension Fund” (GPCPF) appointed as the lead plaintiff. Just short of six months later on July 26, 2017, the Ramirez<\/em> filing exploded out to its 183 page<\/strong> length, and included<\/strong> the above false accusation against Dr Soon … which I showed near the top of this blog post.<\/p>\n That GPCPF group’s arrival on the climate lawfare scene is beyond my abilities to explore, so I’d advise investigators with real power to examine exactly how that group<\/em> entered the situation and why they put their faith in the accusation against Dr Soon. Did somebody dupe them into it directly? And why did GPCPF not simply check the veracity of the accusation before using it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While I place this 2017-filed lawsuit at the very last (currently) #46 spot in my “ExxonKnew” lawsuits list, and it barely qualifies to be on the list from having only one of the standard four accusation elements regularly seen in … Continue reading