No matter where you go, there he is

He, being Ross Gelbspan, with regard to any prominent person regurgitating the accusation about skeptic climate scientists being paid by the fossil fuel industry to spread lies undercutting the so-called ‘settled science’ of human-induced global warming. In this case, I already covered a particular journalistic due diligence problem within Nathanial Rich’s promotion of his epic New York Times story “Losing Earth” in my August 9, 2018 blog post. Rich’s blunder there was to repeat a hugely troubling talking point from Naomi Oreskes, a person who’s plagued with a variety of credibility problems as it pertains to her alleged entry into the topic of ‘industry-corrupted skeptics’ and the stories she tells surrounding that situation.

I figured that would be the end of it regarding Nathanial Rich. I should know better about such things by now; Oreskes is never the end of the line in these kinds of situations. Continue reading

Prominent Global Warming Deniers are Funded by Fossil Fuel Companies.’ Spread This Line Widely; NEVER Check its Veracity.

And there’s really no necessity to tell anybody exactly what that accusation means. Al Gore and the top-most promulgators of the ‘climate scientist liars-for-hire’ accusation know what it means …. they simply haven’t proven that any such corruption actually exists anywhere. Continue reading

Holding Me Accountable

When Al Gore authoritatively statesExxon Mobil has funded 40 different front groups that have all been a part of a strategic persuasion campaign to, in their own words, ‘reposition global warming as theory rather than fact’“, why is he and others who hurl that accusation not met with a question something similar to “Reposition – what? Where do you get that statement from?” I have absolutely no problem with people asking me to back up what I say or show. Allow me to explain with the following: Continue reading

The First, Last, and Only Accusation Against Skeptics, Redux

I’m not kidding. Forget the #ExxonKnew effort to re-invigorate the otherwise 25 year-old accusation that skeptic climate scientists are paid corrupting money by fossil fuel companies to lie to the public about the certainty of catastrophic man-caused global warming. Revisit my first post on this and then look at what popped up only late last week, and the appearance that there’s only one bit of  supposedly “smoking gun” evidence supporting this accusation is impossible to miss. Continue reading

Corroborated vs. Uncorroborated Claims

Back in 2008-’09, I was perplexed that efforts to mitigate runaway global warming were occurring despite detailed opposition offered by skeptic climate scientists. Before my initial searches to find out why skeptic assessments were being ignored, I was unaware of how widespread the accusations were about skeptic scientists being paid industry money to lie to the public. Afterward, rather than finding multiple corroborations revealing massively damaging evidence of when, where and how the skeptics were paid to lie, all I found was one uncorroborated source for the accusation. Continue reading

An Accusation Built on a Foundation of Sand

The collective enviro-activist movement wants the public to believe global warming science is settled and that opponents may be dismissed out-of-hand due to ‘extensive documentation’ of skeptic climate scientists’ industry corruption. I’ve already pointed out, here and here, how there is no independent corroboration for the accusation. Worse, the so-called smoking gun core evidence for the accusation, leaked memos attributed to the obscure Western Fuels Association’s 1991 “Information Council for the Environment” (ICE) public relations campaign are not what Naomi Oreskes, Al Gore, Ross Gelbspan and others say they are. Continue reading

Summary for Policymakers: The Connolley Problem

The latest news about efforts of Attorneys General using racketeering laws to prosecute “climate change deniers” is that their subpoena list of people and entities corresponding with Exxon matches a list of people and entities found at Greenpeace’s ExxonSecrets web site. Since I’ve spent the last 6+ years digging into the smear of skeptic climate scientists and who is behind the smear, I’m not surprised at all. Today I offer this post as a “Summary for Policymakers” regarding my series of seven prior blog posts about a smear effort which took place back in 2007 that is a case study for examining other prior and current industry corruption accusations against skeptic climate scientists. Continue reading