Hat tip to Marc Morano’s ClimateDepot website for news of the otherwise ridiculous International Panel on the Information Environment’s (IPIE)’s June 2025 report “Information Integrity about Climate Science.” The report itself is 120+ pages long, but let’s cut to the chase to show how this one, like so many others which accuse the fossil fuel industry of spewing disinformation, are instead psychologically projecting how they are the ones spewing disinformation. Just like the others, this report and its key players are separated by three degrees or less from Ross Gelbspan’s utterly false “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” accusation about supposedly ‘leaked industry documents.’ Just like the others, all it takes is one errant citation in this report to shoot itself in the foot with a cannon about the whole idea of ‘industry-orchestrated’ disinformation. Just like the majority of the ExxonKnew” lawsuits, pin your collective premise on material that turns out to be disinformation promulgated by disinformers, and your credibility is out the window no matter what else you say.

From this IPIE report PDF file pages 25-26:

The fossil fuel industry has engaged in a dual deception of the public. Companies in this sector have, on the one hand, employed diverse techniques to deny the reality of climate change, to obscure their own responsibility, and to obstruct or delay mitigating measures. On the other hand, the same companies have deployed so-called greenwashing to portray themselves as environmentally sustainable …
… Beyond the fossil fuel industry, research has identified comparable practices across a range of business sectors. One study illustrated a long-term strategy by American electric utility companies, first through denying or sowing doubt about climate change between 1990 and 2000, and subsequently by obstructing and delaying mitigating solutions, while simultaneously shifting the responsibility for climate change to other sectors of society [46].

Who’s their citation source for that?

[46] E. Williams, S. Bartone, E. Swanson, and L. Stokes, “The American electric utility industry’s role in promoting climate denial, doubt, and delay,” ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS, vol. 17, no. 9, Oct. 2022, doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac8ab3.

That’s the ‘scholarly paper’ I took apart in my September 26, 2022 blog post “‘The first peer-reviewed publication to survey the industry’s messaging specifically’ … showcases the worthlessness of “peer review” The “Williams et al.” paper was not actually research – they simply dutifully regurgitated what they’s seen in a Dave Anderson Energy and Policy Institute report, which claimed the “reposition global warming” memo set and a “Chicken Little” newspaper advertorial attributed to that memo set was evidence of the electric utility industry running disinformation campaigns. As I showed in my blog post (referencing an earlier post of mine examining Anderson’s report), the “reposition global warming” memos were never implemented in any form anywhere, and the “Chicken Little” advertorial was never published anywhere; the Williams et al. paper crashes & burns on that blunder. This IPIE report meets the same fate by citing that paper for ‘evidence’ that fossil fuel-related industry ‘sowed doubt about climate change in the 1990s.’

But the problem does not end there. Let’s look at the Authors / Independent General Reviews association with that meritless “reposition global warming” accusation. Among them is:

• that Melissa Aronczyk — I covered her toward the end of my July 30, 2022 blog post, concerning her highly suspect possession of a crystal clear ‘industry doc’ as it related to an identical recently-disappeared Greenpeace doc. Notice the “Brulle” name in that screencapture – and hold that thought for a moment. Aronczyk’s name also appears at Amy Westervelt’s (yeah, that Westervelt, who’s enslaved to Kert Davies for the false accusation about the “reposition global warming” memos) “Drilled” disinformation techniques glossary website page. Notice the yellow-highlighted names in that screencapture who are associated with this IPIE report – and hold that thought as well. As for the other names not directly associated:

• Dunlap & McCright, sociologists only separated by 3 degrees or less from Ross Gelbspan and thus his meritless “reposition global warming” accusation.
• Oreskes & Supran, both utterly enslaved to the meritless “reposition global warming” accusation in their claims that the industry ran disinformation campaigns.
• Leah Stokes, the above-noted co-author of the allegedly peer-reviewed E. Willians et al. paper that should be retracted over its enslavement to the meritless “reposition global warming” accusation.
• Ben Franta – as I showed in my March 22, 2024 blog post, his doctoral thesis on ‘industry disinformation campaigns’ inadvertently proved that despite all his citation cascade efforts to claim more than one source proved such a thing existed, he only needed Ross Gelbspan as his solitary source.
• Kert Davies – in connection with Ross Gelbspan circa the late 1990s, alongside his boss John Passacantando there; Passacantando got the news media momentum really going for the meritless “reposition global warming” accusation, even going so far as to try to insert the phrase in a more generic way into the public conversation.
• Lisa Graves – I’d never heard of her before she became the main topic of my October 8, 2024 blog post “Pay the Man … Another $50 Grand,” as it pertained to her being a Trustee at a foundation that dumped an additional $50,000 into John Passacantando’s mystery LLC company . . . the one apparently operating as a funneler of money into Kert Davies’ efforts.

See how that works? We can barely even get into the supposedly ‘systematic review’ IPIE report without running into a world of hurt with one of the names behind it and her associates – but don’t stop there. Let’s continue with:

• that John Cook — (no relation to me), who essentially owes his PhD Philosophy degree to Naomi Oreskes, and his notion (also seen here) that fossil fuel industry-led ‘disinformation campaigns’ are proven to exist by the meritless “reposition global warming” accusation.

• that Robert Brulle — of the above-mentioned ‘skeptic-trashing sociologists’ label, a co-participant with Oreskes, Franta, Supran in Friends of the Court briefs (plural) which are enslaved to the meritless “reposition global warming” accusation.

• that Stephan Lewandowsky — co-author with the above-noted John Cook in their “Consensus Handbook,” which is enslaved to the meritless “reposition global warming” accusation.

• that Timmons Roberts — The Brown University professor who I’d never heard of before he became the main topic of my April 25, 2020 blog post “When ‘Reporting’ looks more like Propagandizing,” concerning what looked like little more than his efforts to indoctrinate ‘journalism’ students via their 2018 report he oversaw with its enslavement to the meritless “reposition global warming” accusation – including a list of alternate names which the actual public relations campaign by the Western Fuels Association never used. Along with its enslavement to a particular newspaper advertorial that was never published anywhere and another ad that was actually published … which has its ad text cropped out of current “ExxonKnew lawsuits” evidence presentations. Both traceable to the Ozone Action scans circa Kert Davies / John Passacantando’s time at that group.

See the way this works? No matter where you go in the aspect of the climate issue, there you are with the same one-trick pony talking point. It will crash and burn, it’s entirely a matter of time before someone with huge influence causes that to happen – the irony of it all when that does happen – and the public will have then have to ask why the legacy news media never explored the obvious fatal faults crippling it.