Rush Limbaugh has said it more than once, the far-left feels a compulsion to cloak reality. For an example of that regarding efforts to prompt the general public to ignore people who are skeptical about catastrophic man-caused global warming, we are blessed with a particular infographic ……..

…….. this infographic, (an update of a 2012 version which featured only a “90% consensus” in the left-side third box, basically identical to another 2012 variant in this blog post) which portrays skeptics as crooks who’ve been bribed to lie by oil industry money. To spot where the cloaked reality is so easily found, let’s view the infographic as simple text.

First, the angelic enviro-activists side, mocking a particular accusation against them:

Regional environmental groups and community activists —> are spending their limited operating budgets —> in a massive conspiracy with 98% of the world’s scientists—> to create a worldwide hoax and crash the global economy

1. When it comes to pushing the core evidence which supposedly indicts skeptic climate scientists of being bribed by oil money to lie, neither Greenpeace nor the Union of Concerned Scientists would be considered ‘regional environmental groups,’ and nobody considers Newsweek magazine’s Sharon Begley or Al Gore to be ‘community activists.’
2. ‘Limited budgets’? Hardly. Greenpeace’s gross receipts for 2015 was nearly $36 million dollars. The Union of Concerned Scientists’ 2015 “Total operating revenue and other support?” $26,546,024 (pg 6). Plus, what was the actual reality of Greenpeace’s budget limitations several years ago when they paid their outgoing Executive Director over $134,000 for zero hours worked? Meanwhile, what’s the figure for my benefactors, the Heartland Institute, which is arguably the most vocal group on the global warming issue? Courtesy of one of their enemies, Desmogblog, the official public record IRS document for 2014 shows gross receipts of ….. not much over $7 million.
3. ‘90% 98% of the world’s scientists?’ First, that basic concept is hugely disputed here, here, and elsewhere concerning the methodologies of three or so reports pushing that talking point. But as Lord Christopher Monckton succinctly said, repetitions of ‘consensus’ amounts to nothing more than “argumentum ad populum, or headcount fallacy … regarded as unacceptable because the consensus view and whatever science the consensus opinion is founded upon may or may not be correct, and the mere fact that there is a consensus tells us nothing about the correctness of the consensus opinion or of the rationale behind that opinion.”
4. ‘Crash the global economy.’ Some GelbspanFiles readers may recall my dissection of one particular person – certainly no mere ‘community activist’ – who was indignant about being accused of wanting to bring down global capitalism. Her claim, however, appeared to be a composited event fabrication. But does the larger “if the shoe fits, wear it” situation seem reasonable, when an enviro-activist and his followers favor an arguably tyrannical solution to the global warming issue which could possibly crash the global capitalistic economy? And where else have we heard that kind of economy-destabilizing talk?

Now, evil corporate greed side of the graphic:

Big Oil companies —> are spending their obscene profits —> to bribe anyone they can —> to protect their profits and limit any future liability their pollution may cause

1. No doubt that even with a downturn in profits, Exxon makes billions of dollars. But they haven’t directly funded the Heartland Institute for a decade now. And if Exxon’s profits are funneled into ‘dark money’ channels, how does it follow that billions only end up trickling into arguably small amounts of ‘dark money in the gross receipts of places such as CFACT, the home of internationally known blogger / media speaker Marc Morano?
2. ‘Bribe anyone‘ — that is the key to the entire 20 year+ accusation against skeptic climate scientists and any organization which associates with them. My blog here and the bulk of my online articles points to an unavoidable appearance: there is not one viable shred of evidence proving any such bribery occurred from industry people to skeptics where the orders were to lie to and misinform the public under a threat to cut off the money if the material did not meet the approval of those industry people. And the only bit of evidence enviro-activists seem to have to support this accusation is something that completely falls apart as viable evidence.
3. ‘Protect their profits?’ The original ‘enemy du jour’ of enviro-activists that I’ve tagged and categorized in my blog, the Western Fuels Association – which is the alleged source for the ‘leaked memos’ that Al Gore, Ross Gelbspan, Greenpeace, and others use to skewer skeptic climate scientists – is a not-for-profit organization which said it was out to protect electricity consumers (full text here). But to better comprehend how this ‘protect their greed-driven profits’ insinuation begs for a polar opposite examination, consider what might happen to a donation-financed environmental organization if everything they stood for was totally undermined by science-based assessments which contradicted their agenda. If environmental groups dependent on donation support to stay alive didn’t have any climate science expertise, is it not plausible that they’d protect their incoming donation flow by employing character assassination efforts against their critics?
4. ‘Pollution?’ The global warming issue has long centered around the idea of man-caused carbon dioxide being the primary driver of an atmospheric blanket holding the heat in. But since Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project and others seem to see the problem with CO2 not actually qualifying as harmful to breathe, they cloak that inconvenient truth by terming this situation as “carbon pollution.”

So, compile all of that into a rebuttal infographic, and you have something which instead asks ….

Are Both Of These Scenarios Totally Implausible? (click to enlarge)

It’s a problem I can’t emphasize enough. Place essentially any claim of ‘global warming issue reality’ made by enviro-activists under hard scrutiny, and the results aren’t bulletproof information, it ends up looking like misinformation cloaking the reality of the situation.

Assertions from enviro-activists are presented as certainties to be believed, but never questioned. In this collective exercise, the assertion about bribery is a linchpin for the whole premise of angelic enviro-activists vs evil corporate greed. But it could hardly beg for a simpler question: If ‘Big Oil & Coal’ bribes skeptics to lie, where’s the evidence proving it?