Among the five major ‘leaked memo’ situations which enviro-activists try to say are proof of sinister fossil fuel industry collusion efforts with skeptic climate scientists to spread doubt about the certainty of man-caused global warming, only two stand out at least on a superficial level as being particularly damaging. The one with seemingly the most devastating appearance is the so-called “Information Council for the Environment” (ICE) public relations memos of 1991, supposedly detailing Western Fuels Association (WFA) efforts to push misinformation that would achieve the goal to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” among a nationwide audience of gullible “older less-educated men and young low-income women.” Problem is, those memos are worthless as evidence of that conspiracy because they were never part of the short-lived, small three-city-only pilot project ICE PR campaign.

The second most damaging, laughably so when its actual content is taken into consideration in an objective manner, is the 1998 American Petroleum Institute (API) “Victory Will Be Achieved when …” leaked memo. Continue reading →