…. or at least attempted to do so by every available means available to me. At least one roadblock slowed me down. Continue reading
Author Archives: Russell Cook
BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit Responds, re Radio 4’s “How They Made Us Doubt Everything” Ep. 6: ‘Reposition Global Warming’
Did the BBC finally admit fault or effectively defend their broadcast podcast report from August 3, 2020 (and its days-earlier internet-only release), in which the fossil fuel industry stood accused of colluding with skeptic climate scientists to spread disinformation that undercut the otherwise ‘settled science’ of human-induced global warming? Read their official response for yourself. We report, you decide. Continue reading
“Prescient journalist Ross Gelbspan …”
An authoritative portrayal like that simply begs for the question, “when is ‘journalism’ nothing more than environmental issue propagandizing?” Continue reading
Ask One Tough Question, and Particular Accusation-pushers Flee in Terror ….
… which is a hint for energy company defendant lawyers and objective news reporters to deeply consider. If “li’l ol’ private citizen me” can apparently prompt such a response, imagine what official investigators with far more influence or subpoena power can accomplish. Continue reading
When you display no intellectual curiosity about glitches in the items you report about …..
…. you end up mindlessly regurgitating propaganda talking points about long-dead false news items while claiming it is “original reporting + analysis on the climate crisis.”
And, I should add, astute observers could use that wipeout to illustrate what is entirely wrong with the notion of ‘industry-orchestrated disinformation campaigns,’ where the ultimate result is that it appears to be the enviro-activists who’ve been spoon-feeding disinformation on the global warming issue to gullible ‘reporters’ and others who also never questioned it for them to regurgitate at a later date. Continue reading
Status Update: my complaint to BBC, re Radio 4’s “How They Made Us Doubt Everything” Ep. 6: ‘Reposition Global Warming’
Within my “Part 1” July 31, 2020 blog post / Aug 1 2020 WUWT guest post — just short of one year ago — I noted how I had made a formal complaint to the BBC about four egregious errors within Radio 4’s Episode 6 podcast report, where my complaint challenged the report’s insinuations that a pair of ‘leaked industry memo sets’ proved the fossil fuel industry deceived the public about the harm of global warming. It took two months for the BBC to at least partially admit that the guest featured within the podcast, ex-Greenpeace staffer / ex-Ozone Action staffer (the group that first gave the “reposition global warming” memo set its first major media traction in the late 1990s) Kert Davies, had inserted a racially-charged label into one of the supposedly ‘leaked memo sets’ that is demonstratively not anywhere in the set. I detailed that angle in my “Part 3” October 6, 2020 blog post, and further noted within it that my three other complaint points had not been addressed by the BBC at all, and I also directly alerted the BBC about that problem.
The BBC is a giant bureaucratic operation, it takes a while for complaints to get to the proper people. In October and November 2020, I received auto-replies from the BBC saying they would consider my other complaint points when they had time. Having not heard a word after that all the way up to May 22nd this year, I again reminded them at that time how my complaints remain largely unaddressed. I got yet another “we are currently dealing with a higher than normal volume of cases” auto-reply June 1st ………… and then received what your see verbatim below on July 7th, in the italicized, indented paragraphs. Continue reading
The Day when Naomi Oreskes’ Luck Ultimately Runs Out
At the end of my June 10, 2021 blog post, I noted how there were more faults with a claim that science historian Naomi “Merchants of Doubt” Oreskes made within a February 10 interview published at Paul Thacker’s* ironically named “Disinformation Chronicle” website (*who is arguably not the standard journalist the public might expect him regarding particular people in global warming issue, but that’s a whole separate story).
Here’s part of what I can detail based on readily available online facts, Continue reading
What’s old is not new again, no matter what direction you try to spin it
Another way of putting today’s blog post topic is to say that if global warming believers demonstrate how they only have one or two sets of leaked industry memos from the 1990s to support their assertions about the ‘inherent racism of the fossil fuel industry‘ or that ‘the industry’s publicity is a complete lie’ …. well, then that’s all they got. One of these days their enslavement to those memo sets — the “reposition global warming” set and the “victory will be achieved” set — will experience a ‘jumped the shark’ event that will be reported by more prominent people than me, but in the meantime, this blog will have to suffice for reporting on such things.
No joke, two separate spin efforts just within the last 35 days: the underlying racism of the fossil fuel industry, and the effort to smear that industry as complete liars. Continue reading
Naomi Oreskes – the gift that keeps on giving, redux
When historians specialize in researching and reporting about a particular range of history events, they are universally expected, as a basic tenet of their profession, to always be able to place specific events with considerable accuracy on a timeline. If they are praised as heroes from their reporting of otherwise ‘hidden’ situations, they should never put themselves in the awkward position of appearing to embellish their ‘heroic status’ via superficial, self-serving analysis of criticism of their work, and they should certainly never display hypocritical positions about their analysis of criticisms, relative to their own personal actions. Continue reading
Why Would Naomi Oreskes Be On Retainer With Any Law Firm?
Just askin’, another in my series of posts asking questions that not only the inquisitive public and unbiased reporters should be asking, but also the law firms working for the defendant energy companies in the current 25 “Exxon Knew”-style global warming damages cost recovery lawsuits. Hat tip to Charles Rotter at WUWT for alerting me to Energy in Depth’s 5/13/21 report, “Bombshell: Naomi Oreskes On Retainer With Plaintiffs’ Law Firm.” Charles further points out that a same-day paper authored by Oreskes and co-researcher Geoffrey Supran (that Supran) had the note at the bottom, “The authors have no other relevant financial ties and declare no competing interests.”
Being on retainer with a law firm handling no less than 15 major global warming lawsuits is not a relevant financial tie, or at least minimally a competing interest, a.k.a. a conflict of interest??
But the problems and the questions don’t end there for Oreskes, Continue reading