POOF! ( … Ross – who?)

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Just like that, a huge number of posts by the late Ross Gelbspan at his longtime Facebook page, gone. Vanished overnight quite recently, because a Google search for the account url still generated results as though the account existed on July 21 when I got this screencapture. A week later … Google says the account is definitely MIA. For congressional investigators / attorneys defending energy companies in “ExxonKnew” lawsuits, the account is gone, but potentially not forgotten. As I’ve said before, to fully understand where we are in the climate issue – particularly lately with the “ExxonKnew” lawsuits ‘climate lawfare’ angle – it’s best if everyone understands how we got to where we are right now. The man may have become less useful in his advanced age in the past few years, but his Facebook page did minimally have one particular use, and investigators would be wise to recover it when the need arises. Continue reading →

Merchant of Disinformation – the movie. Part 2

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Continuing from Part 1 on my line-by-climate-issue-line analysis of Naomi Oreskes’ “Merchants of Doubt” documentary movie. She’s on retainer with the Sher Edling law firm handling 17 of the current U.S. “ExxonKnew”-style lawsuits and ‘assisting’ in 5 others. In the 2023 European lawsuit, Greenpeace Italy et al. v. ENI S.p.A., et al. against the Italian energy company Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, Greenpeace implies “Merchants of Doubt” book author Oreskes is an ‘expert’ on fossil fuel industry disinformation campaigns. The accusation seen in that lawsuit about fossil fuel companies running disinformation campaigns is not supported by any evidence in her book. But these assertions arising from her work or coming straight from her continue unabated because nobody challenges them.

To challenge her, you must know where her narratives fall apart. Continue reading →

The Political Suicide of Pushing “Climate Homicide” … & muscling in on someone else’s “ExxonKnew” lawsuits territory?

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On June 26th just a little over a week ago, David “climate homicide” Arkush and co-authors at his Public Citizen group put out a press release titled “New Memo Details Legal Case for Prosecuting Big Oil for Extreme Heat Deaths,” containing a link to a 51 page proposal for prosecutors in the state of Arizona (Democrat ones, of course including the state’s Attorney General), noting:

Though this memo asks a particular question — how officials in Maricopa County could pursue reckless manslaughter or second degree murder prosecutions for deaths caused by the July 2023 heat wave — its analysis is relevant in most jurisdictions where prosecutors might seek justice for climate victims.

I already had a tag category at GelbspanFiles dating back over a year concerning Arkush’s ludicrous ultra-lawfare fixation. He’s now taken that fixation likely beyond its breaking point. It’s one thing to push the bizarre “charge fossil fuel companies with climate homicide” idea in ‘scholarly papers,’ but it’s quite another to propose the idea straight to state prosecutors. That’s what he’s presenting in the above press release. Forgive the rather morbid visual analogy here – the man virtually points a loaded revolver at his head and the heads of his co-authors and practically asks law firms defending energy companies in “ExxonKnew” lawsuits to pull the triggers for him.

Continue reading →

Piling on – Naomi Oreskes knew who her attackers were before her attackers attacked?

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The woman has every appearance of being unable to keep her stories straight on what led her to ‘discover’ who the ‘merchants of doubt’ were in the global warming issue.

This is an interim post between my Parts 1 and 2 of my line-by-climate-issue-line analysis of Naomi Oreskes’ 2015 “Merchants of Doubt” documentary movie. I need to detail what she said in a 2011 podcast interview here before continuing on to Part 2, because what she said below contradicts a key detail she unequivocally stated in her movie. Continue reading →

Merchant of Disinformation – the movie. Part 1

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This 4-part series is for the congressional investigators / attorneys defending energy companies in “ExxonKnew” lawsuits / objective, unbiased reporters: — when a person appearing before you has been portrayed as an ‘expert’ while only facing softball questions designed to exalt that person’s ‘expertise,’ you need to have absolute hardball questions at the ready, like a pile driver, so that you can show the public what they’ve never been told: where this person’s credibility implodes.

I’ve slogged through Naomi Oreskes’ “Merchants of Doubt” movie …… so you don’t have to. Continue reading →

[Update 10/10/24] Michigan Attorney General Solicits Bids from Law Firms to Help File an “ExxonKnew” Lawsuit

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[ Author’s update 10/10/24: Per the day-earlier news from Nick Pope at The Daily Caller, AG Nessel’s “… office reached agreements in late September with three law firms to assist, including, including a San Francisco-based firm called Sher Edling, two  documents reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation show. … The other two firms named in the agreements are DiCello Levitt and Hausfeld …” As suggested in my original blog post entry below, and now confirmed, AG Nessel has chosen …poorly, particularly in light of the days-old report out of the joint U.S. Senate / House investigation concerning the dark money funding situation surrounding Sher Edling’s climate litigation lawfare efforts. ]

Why bother doing that? Why not take the easier route and plagiarize material straight out of other “ExxonKnew”-style lawsuits? Other attorneys and law firms are already doing exactly that. Continue reading →

The Supran Missed Opportunity

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It wasn’t for a lack of trying on my part right before the May 1 “Denial, Disinfo & Doublespeak” U.S. Senate Budget Committee hearing to warn staffers of the GOP committee members that their star witness, Geoffrey Supran, was massively vulnerable to withering questions about his alleged “expertise” on the existence of ‘fossil fuel industry disinformation campaigns. I even went so far as to turn my emails to those staffers into an open letter to widen the chance of other Senate GOP staffers seeing my alert, where they might relay the opportunity to the proper people. Marc Morano of ClimateDepot retweeted my alert about my blog post, which enabled my Tweet to achieve nearly 700+ views, when my others usually only get tens of views.

Alas, to no avail. Even worse now, Geoffrey Supran actually walked into that hearing with his Prepared Written Testimony where he all but handed his head to the GOP Committee members on a silver platter. Or, in another visual analogy, he not only brought in the rope to hang himself, he dragged in the gallows behind him. Or all but handed the execution rifle to the GOP members with his written testimony and supplied the single bullet to kill his credibility.

The man is exactly that inept. Watch this:  Continue reading →

Retract the “Climate Homicide” paper

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Did I mention that I don’t merely write about what’s wrong with the “crooked skeptic climate scientists” accusation, I do something about it? Oh, yeah, in my previous blog post about the opportunity for congressional investigators to expose one of the ‘weak link’ people promulgating that accusation.

I haven’t stopped there – my latest concerns an action I initiated over a year ago, and updated just days ago. Continue reading →

“Denial, Disinfo & Doublespeak” May 1 U.S. Senate hearing: open letter to those who can do something about it

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I don’t merely write about the fatal faults within the accusations about ‘fossil fuel industry disinformation campaigns employing liars-for-hire scientists,’ I try to alert influential people who have the capacity to get to the bottom of whether the accusations have any merit. The key promulgators of the accusations can be placed under oath either within some upcoming court action in the ExxonKnew lawsuits, or they (and their weak-links-in-the-association-chain) can be put under oath in U.S. House or Senate hearings. One such opportunity for the latter is possible on May 1, 2024, in a Senate Hearing titled “Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change” Who’s one of the hearing witnesses which was probably a bad idea for the Democrat majority to invite? Geoffrey Supran. Continue reading →