It’s one thing for book author / documentary movie star Naomi Oreskes to be tapped for quotations on the state of affairs in the global warming issue — last night’s appearance on the PBS NewsHour (2:49 point here), for example. It’s quite another problematic situation when she is tapped for work by Democrat politicians. Continue reading
Category Archives: Western Fuels Association
Everybody loves Greenpeace Evidence … except Greenpeace
You need only place the first three words of the Union of Concerned Scientists organization name within quote marks followed by the word “dossiers” into a Google search to see just how widely mentioned the UCS’ “Climate Deception Dossiers” are mentioned across the internet. A particularly prominent one is Dossier #5, where the UCS clearly loves (as I pointed out in my July 9 blog post) a document scan out of Greenpeace’s old collection (click image below, to enlarge) of the Western Fuels Association’s “Information Council for the Environment” (ICE) documents – the ones with the so-called ‘leaked strategy memo to reposition global warming as theory rather than fact’. But why has Greenpeace itself not loved this same scanned memo evidence ever since 2007? Continue reading
The Hertsgaard Error, pt II: Not a Case of Poor Wording
In a curiosity venture to see if the Union of Concerned Scientists regurgitation of the “reposition global warming” accusation narrative was getting any media traction, I instead stumbled across an unexpected example of outright either deliberate misinformation, or one of otherwise incompetent reporting from someone who is supposed to be an authority on the topic of ‘industry-corrupted skeptic climate scientists’. Continue reading
If You are Unaware You are in a Hole…..
…. stop and look around. If discover you are in a hole, for goodness sake, stop digging. Such is the advice I would have given to the Union of Concerned Scientists before they plunged off a credibility cliff with this wipeout.
“Whenever There is Any Doubt, There is No Doubt”
That’s a line from the 1998 movie “Ronin”, where the CIA agent character played by Robert De Niro explained the reasoning for his apprehension over a bungled situation which didn’t look right from its inception. This simple analysis lends itself perfectly to the accusation about skeptic climate scientists being paid industry money to lie and misinform. If there’s no doubt the accusation is irrefutable, it would be consistently repeated by all. Dig into any part of the accusation, however, and its inconsistencies pile up to the point where there’s no doubt something is seriously wrong with everything and everyone connected to the accusation. Continue reading
“The illusion has become real.”
For believers in the idea of catastrophic man-caused global warming, it remains as real as can be if critic scientists can be dismissed as industry-funded shills paid to lie to the public. But the belief in that accusation is merely a belief without evidence to support it. So, when they see statements and illustrations like this one Continue reading
Leaving out a Vital Detail about the Western Fuels Association
Ross Gelbspan’s claim about statements in Western Fuels’ annual report – which are not there – is a major problem. His other consistent description about that organization, which leaves out a vital detail, is an additional problem. Continue reading
Timeline History and Inconvenient Truths of Ross Gelbspan’s and Al Gore’s “reposition global warming” Phrase
The idea of man-caused global warming is especially effective because it can be pounded into practically everybody’s head via three easily memorized talking points. Global warming believers need only to counter dry recitations of skeptic science material with:
- assertions that the sheer numbers of ‘climate scientists’ on the IPCC side indicates this to be the overwhelming consensus opinion
- claims about leaked memo evidence proving skeptics are paid industry money to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” – dupe the public, in other words
- the obvious conclusion that reporters aren’t obligated to give fair balance to skeptics because of the previous two points.
In a nutshell, settled science, crooked skeptics, reporters may ignore skeptics, bam, bam, bam.
A timeline of where, how and when that “reposition global warming” phrase first appeared and where it prominently pops up afterward is something global warming believers would hate, since it might prompt a total loss of faith in the validity of that central accusation point. The loss could cascade into questions of whether the science actually is settled in the face of skeptics’ science-based criticisms, and people may also start to wonder about the ‘fair media balance’ idea, since they might not readily recall instances where skeptics actually received that from mainstream media reporters. Continue reading
Orchestrate News of Skeptic Climate Scientists’ Corruption; Claim this News is news to You; Fail to Prove Any Corruption.
In my August 20, 2013 blog piece, I briefly mentioned the role Minnesota assistant Attorney General Barbara Freese had in the May 1995 Minnesota Public Utilities Commission hearings where skeptic climate scientists were called to testify, and I detailed her subsequent association problems with Ross Gelbspan. She had asked the skeptics at the hearing about their ‘industry funding’, which led me to ponder who could have prompted her to consider pursuing an otherwise irrelevant non-science tangent. Up until finding what I detail in this blog piece, I thought someone resentful of skeptic scientists might have done so while also alerting Gelbspan that one of the hearings’ top questioners was going to grill the skeptics. Well, it turns out I gave Gelbspan too much benefit of the doubt there………. Continue reading
‘Industry PR Campaign sways US Opinion’; except practically nobody saw it
Ross Gelbspan’s “Snowed” article in the May/June 2005 issue of Mother Jones magazine described how a ‘misguided application of journalistic balance’ and ‘a decade-long campaign of deception, disinformation, and, at times, intimidation by the fossil fuel lobby’ was causing the media not to properly warn us about the perils of global warming. Accept his narrative without question, and it’s a rallying cry to solve the problem. But notice the errors in his article’s 5th & 6th paragraphs, and it makes you wonder how much more he gets wrong.
