I concluded my last blog piece by suggesting there might be three degrees or less separation between Ross Gelbspan and others who say skeptic climate scientists are corrupt. Think I was kidding when I said that?

In my previous blog piece, I detailed how Ross Gelbspan’s name was seen in association with the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s Hans Verolme and reporter Jeff Nesmith. In one particular ClimateGate email, Verolme says Nesmith was working on an article “exposing the skeptics”, and that particular article cited Gelbspan. I even added an edit to show how an archive version of the article preserves Nesmith’s direct link to Gelbspan’s web site.

But wait, there’s more. My link for Nesmith’s 2003 article was to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper’s version of it. Another version appeared online at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Nonprofits push controversial climate study”.

Gelbspan reproduced Nesmith’s article at his own web site, not once but twice, here and with an alternate supra-heading and other minor formatting differences here. However, his versions are not the Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Nonprofits push…” one or the Seattle P-I’s “Foes of global warming theory have energy ties”. His “Industry Promotes Skeptical View Of Global Warming” reproduction is a longer version straight from the Cox News Service itself (new web file here, or the original downloadable file is here).

Gelbspan had reproduced that piece at his site five days or less after its Cox News Service online appearance, as seen from the earliest date for this archive page of it.

Just askin’ – the longer Cox version ended on a note about Robert Ferguson at Frontiers of Freedom, where he and global warming skeptic scientist Dr Willie Soon spoke of “the nature and scope of mercury-related health risks”. So, how much of a coincidence is it that Gelbspan’s site also reproduced a New York Times article concerning industry funding of skeptics, written just two or so days earlier than Nesmith’s, which also ended on details about Robert Ferguson, Frontiers of Freedom, and his focus on “global warming and the health effects of mercury”? Fascinating how the archive of Gelbspan’s page is dated one a day earlier than what’s shown for his reproduction of Nesmith’s article.

Meanwhile, we have Hans Verolme. Is his connection to Gelbspan no more than a ClimateGate email reference to someone’s article that mentions Gelbspan? Afraid not.

You see, when Gelbspan attended the 1998 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP4) in Buenos Aires, he didn’t just wander down there all by himself. He attended under the auspices of the US Climate Action Network (CAN-USA), as seen on page 50 (shown as “97” at the page bottom) of this list of COP4 “Observers from UN, IGOs and NGOs”.

Who is seen in the column across from Gelbspan under the same NGO heading? Hans Verolme.

It would arguably be a stretch for anyone to suggest this particular NGO group of 39 people did not talk among themselves at that event.