In Parts 1 and 2 here<\/a> and here<\/a>, I detailed how the re-emergence of the old Greenwire news brief really doesn\u2019t help the long-term talking point about \u2018industry-paid skeptic climate scientists,\u2019 despite being apparently the initial seed for that ongoing accusation which centers around a particular set of memos supposedly leaked out of the Western Fuels Association\u2019s \u201cInformation Council for the Environment\u201d (ICE) campaign. Now, let\u2019s briefly examine how its re-emergence undermines the credibility of one of the current figures who pushes that accusation.<\/p>\n Namely, Naomi Oreskes. As I\u2019ve already demonstrated in two<\/a> blog posts<\/a>, the storyline of exactly when and how she began \u2018examining the industry ties\u2019 of skeptic climate scientists has a fatal breakdown in it, and she has credibility problem of claiming the ICE memos were archived in a place<\/a> where they actually were not<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, along with other credibility problems<\/a> besides that. However, her fame of exposing \u2018merchants of doubt<\/a>\u2019 was impressive enough to catch the eye of lawyers persecuting big oil companies in the latest global warming lawsuits \u2014 they cite her 2010 guest author book chapter<\/a> for a particular allegedly damaging bit of evidence. She, in turn, cites<\/a> the Greenwire \u201cInside Track\u201d news brief. It\u2019s her same book chapter which also cites<\/a> the Greenwire \u201cInside Track\u201d news brief for the following claim<\/a> about the way internal ICE campaign documents gained sudden media attention:<\/p>\n Greenwire, an environmentally oriented news service, suggested that information had been leaked by industry executives<\/strong><\/span> who did take the threat of global warming seriously, such as the president of Arizona Public Utilities, who felt that the issue was too complex to be dealt with in a “slick ad campaign”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Again, here is the PDF file of the complete (albeit 974 word vs its stated 1074 word length) news brief in its full context<\/a> for all to read. What Oreskes seems to most probably be referring to is this paragraph<\/a>:<\/p>\n But the industry is already split on the propriety of such a campaign, with some organizations fearing it will backfire. Mark De Michele<\/strong>, president of Arizona Public Services, a big electric utility, has stated that the issue of global warming is too serious and complex<\/strong> “to be dealt with in a slick ad campaign,” according to a report by Becca Rothschild in the ARIZONA DAILY SUN. A spokeswoman for the Edison Electric Institute emphasized to GREENWIRE that the electric utility trade group is taking no part in the campaign except to provide survey results. <\/span>A number of electric utilities, including Southern California Edison, are already taking the global warming threat seriously enough to start emphasizing conservation measures to cut down on their combustion of coal and other fossil fuels.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ironically, back in 2010 it would appear that Oreskes perhaps wanted that middle sentence about the Edison Electric Institute \u2018taking no part in the campaign<\/em>\u2019 to look like evidence of where the leak might have been, despite the way current accusations say EEI spearheaded<\/a> the ICE campaign.<\/p>\n However, I leave it to all readers of the full context \u201cInside Track\u201d news brief to decide for themselves: Is there any concrete evidence offered within it<\/em><\/strong> which definitively corroborates the notion that the topic of its report, the infamous set of documents supposedly (but erroneously<\/a>) attributed to the ICE campaign, was actually leaked by any of the \u201cindustry executives who did take the threat of global warming seriously<\/em>\u201d, instead of some other individual, such as ordinary office staff or mail room workers who would handle the collective pile of documents, including ones that were rejected<\/a> from the ICE campaign?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Parts 1 and 2 here and here, I detailed how the re-emergence of the old Greenwire news brief really doesn\u2019t help the long-term talking point about \u2018industry-paid skeptic climate scientists,\u2019 despite being apparently the initial seed for that ongoing … Continue reading