First, to fully understand how worthless the memo set is, the context in which it is presented it must be understood. I\u2019ve been asked many times in various ways<\/a>, \u201cWhy would anyone who\u2019s skeptical about the idea of catastrophic man-caused global warming as established fact not<\/strong> want to reposition it back into the unsupportable theory that it is?<\/em>\u201d Two problems there: 1) the word \u201creposition\u201d is an outright false premise implying the idea is<\/em> established fact and requires any movement at all, and 2) Al Gore & crew aren\u2019t speaking about fact vs. theory in some abstract way, they are using that specific alleged strategy phrase as a weapon, accusing skeptic climate scientists of criminal corruption no differently that the situation in the old tobacco industry.<\/p>\n Gore, An Inconvenient Truth movie, 1:12:41 to 1:13:15 point, with an intervening slide of an old acutely egregious Camel cigarettes advertisement<\/a> (click image below to enlarge):<\/p>\n The misconception that there\u2019s disagreement about the science has been deliberately created by a relatively small group of people<\/strong>. One of their internal memos leaked, and here\u2019s what it said, according to the press. Their objective is to reposition global warming as a theory rather than fact<\/span>. This has happened before. [laughter, at the sight of Camel ad]<\/em> After the Surgeon General\u2019s report. [Gore chuckles, audience applauds]<\/em> One of their<\/strong> memos leaked 40 years ago. They said, \u201cDoubt is our product, since it is the best means of creating a controversy in the public\u2019s mind<\/span>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Gore\u2019s error about the tobacco memos’ timeline notwithstanding<\/a>, there is no doubt on what he was implying. The tobacco industry \u201csmoking gun\u201d memo<\/a> on obfuscation of a known deadly problem is not one bit different than the \u201creposition global warming\u201d memo.<\/p>\n Gore isn\u2019t the only one implying this. Despite the lack of mention in either Naomi Oreskes\u2019 \u201cMerchants of Doubt\u201d book or movie, it was reported back in 2009<\/a> how she was saying the same thing<\/a>:<\/p>\n Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history and science studies at the University of California, San Diego, compares the strategy of these early groups to that of the tobacco industry, which for decades argued that cigarettes didn’t cause cancer. “Doubt is our product<\/span>,” Brown & Williamson stated in an internal memo in 1969, “since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public.” In 1992 a scientific consensus was emerging around the seriousness of global warming, and President George H.W. Bush attended an international climate change conference in Brazil that laid the groundwork for the Kyoto Protocol. Around that time the Western Fuels Association–a consortium of coal producers–introduced an ad campaign to “reposition global warming as theory (not fact)<\/span>,” Oreskes details<\/strong> in a forthcoming paper…..<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Nearly a decade later right at the current time, the Events and News page<\/a> for Marin County in California has a link<\/a> to a page touting its ongoing lawsuit against oil companies where it equates<\/a> the \u201creposition global warming\u201d strategy to tactics the tobacco industry used in spreading global warming misinformation. Marin County is one of eight communities<\/a> using identical wording about those memos<\/a> in global warming lawsuits to imply skeptic climate scientists are paid shills of a fossil fuel industry effort to spread global warming misinformation.<\/p>\n Why are these memos worthless as evidence to prove fossil fuel industry executives paid skeptic scientists to mislead the country about the harm of man-caused global warming?<\/p>\n Quite simply, neither the scientists or the executives ever saw the memos. How can there be a conspiracy to operate under the direction of such memos if they were never used by the \u2018participants\u2019?<\/p>\n In 2009 when I first learned that Ross Gelbspan had \u2018exposed\u2019 this ‘conspiracy<\/a>,’ I didn\u2019t simply accept it without question, I took the extra step to directly ask the scientists (accounting for name swaps<\/a>, of course) allegedly involved what they knew about these memos.<\/p>\n But I didn\u2019t stop there, as it might be plausible that the scientists could have been only generally instructed on what to do by fossil fuel industry administrators who operated by those memos\u2019 guidelines. So, my relentless pursuit of this ultimately exploited the expertise and clout of article writer<\/a> \/ researcher extraordinaire<\/a> Ron Arnold, who secured personal interviews with several key figures involved in the Western Fuels Association\u2019s pilot project \u201cInformation Council for the Environment\u201d (ICE) public relations campaign that supposedly operated under those memos\u2019 strategy and targeting phrases. As Arnold reported<\/a> in his \u201cLeft Exposed: Naomi Oreskes Warps History<\/a>,\u201d<\/p>\n … the WFA CEO never even saw it<\/span>, and when interviewed and I asked about it, he said WFA would never use<\/strong> \u201cReposition global warming as theory (not fact)\u201d<\/span> because it was too abstract and egg-headed for its rural audience. WFA\u2019s communications director says that, unlike his CEO, he saw the page and had no idea how to \u201cReposition global warming as theory (not fact),\u201d so he left it in the pile<\/span> \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This corroborates what was already reported back in Matt Wald\u2019s 1991 New York Times<\/em> article<\/a>, where another person associated with the ICE campaign called the memo set (which also suggested<\/a> name alternatives) \u201cunsolicited and not followed<\/a>.\u201d And it corroborates what Ross Gelbspan was told<\/a> about the memo set\u2019s targeting goal.<\/p>\n See the problem? Al Gore says Exxon itself was guided<\/a> by this \u201creposition global warming\u201d strategy in efforts to orchestrate fake front group misinformation persuasion efforts. How can this be possible, if all but one of the key people accused of initially orchestrating it never even saw it, and the one who did was baffled by what the strategy meant?<\/p>\n Then, pile on all the rest of the problems associated with it:<\/p>\n This all boils down to an elemental set of questions: Is it not plausible that Al Gore, upon failing to prompt a national news media figure<\/a> to effectively trash skeptic climate scientists, felt a need to resort to \u2018Plan B\u2019 in which an already friendly-to-the-cause<\/a> ex-reporter – Gelbspan – could do the deed<\/a> instead? Was this \u2018Plan B\u2019 further molded to fit a documentary movie presentation in which an already friendly-to-the-cause academic<\/a> – Oreskes – could be prompted to generate a science journal study<\/a> that Gore could use<\/a> as a segue straight into a comparison<\/a> of the old tobacco industry leaked memo to the allegedly ICE \u201creposition global warming\u201d memo directive? Was the entire goal overall to leave the public with the easily repeated talking point, “there’s a scientific consensus about this settled debate, naysayer ‘scientists’ are shills paid by fossil fuel interests to spread misinformation, thus journalists may ignore these shills<\/em>\u201d?<\/p>\n And ultimately, did Oreskes, Gelbspan and Gore know this \u201creposition global warming\u201d memo subset was never used at all, and thus is not the sinister industry directive out of the ICE campaign that they portray it to be, but used it to maliciously impugn the credibility of skeptic climate scientists as part of a larger effort to deliberately distract the public away from material which seriously undercuts the idea of catastrophic man-caused global warming? Al Gore and the people supporting and following him all but plead with the public to have total trust in this: the only opposition to the idea of harmful man-caused global warming is a handful of shill \u2018experts\u2019 who receive … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ClimaPollu-Reposit.jpg\")
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\nFifth*<\/span><\/em><\/strong> in a four part series<\/a>. *<\/strong><\/span>[1\/25\/19 Author\u2019s addition:\u00a0 But wait, there\u2019s still more<\/a><\/em>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"