Tag Archives: S. Fred Singer

There’s That Name Again … And There’s That Accusation Again [11/20/25 Update]

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11/20/25 update — see red double asterisk addition midway down, and at the bottom of this post.

Among all the tsunami of other controversial political news is the barely weeks-old scandal involving the BBC over revelations of their journalism malfeasance. Since I know a decent amount about another as-yet-unreported angle of BBC inaccuracies, I’ve emailed several UK reporters and others digging deeper into the overall situation to my coincidental 12 days-old filing of my complaint to the UK’s broadcast regulatory agency on this matter. What I briefly explained is that in 2020, the BBC relied on unverified ‘industry memos’ in a careless and illogical manner to claim the fossil fuel industry ran disinformation campaigns; their effort was hardly different than what happened a few years ago when the anti-Trump news media relied on the meritless “Steele Dossier” to accuse President Trump of engaging in despicable acts. I further pointed out how the accusation against the fossil fuel industry has every indication in the world of being traceable to a particular enviro-activist, Kert Davies, and how much of a one-trick pony the worthless memo phrase is for the anti-energy company activists.

What I should do is create another post in my “Background” series, to compile all of Kert Davies’ fatal credibility problems for ease of reference when corresponding with objective reporters. I plan to do that for my next post here. But in the meantime, let’s see where the man popped up just recently, and where that one-trick memo phrase popped up. Continue reading →

Naomi Oreskes’ Tale of Meeting Dr S Fred Singer, Part 1

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As I’ve detailed at my “Summary for Policymakers” about Oreskes, she – at minimum – appears to have a credibility problem; the assortment of narratives she offers about her own role in the climate issue all have inconsistencies.

One I haven’t covered before is her tale of the late Dr S Fred Singer supposedly confronting her in 2005 back when he was still very much alive. I don’t have all the answers to this particular situation yet, but since she is on retainer with the law firm putting out the most “ExxonKnew” lawsuits, and since these lawsuits are now coming under review by judges as to whether they should proceed to trial (e.g. currently Charleston v Brabham Oil), it would be best to have the basic backstory on hand here, in case the scene in fictional courtroom TV dramas ends up to be a real-life situation:

Energy company defendant attorney: “… then we have the contradiction between evidence-provider Naomi Oreskes’ statements where ….”
Plaintiffs’ attorney: “Objection! Relevance?”
Energy company defendant attorney, to the Judge: “Goes to credibility.”
Continue reading →

State of Hawai`i v. BP P.L.C.

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In the wake of the Department of Justice filing a lawsuit on May 1, 2025 against the State of Hawaii (and others) over the dubious act of announcing plans for filing future climate lawfare/regulation actions, it would appear that Governor Josh Green of Hawaii retaliated right back at the Trump Administration – on the very same day – by filing this Hawaii v BP lawsuit. Big mistake, because Governor Green’s ineptly thought-out decisions will only likely eventually give the DoJ and/or other Federal investigators an excuse to hit harder against not only this lawsuit, but all of the other “ExxonKnew” lawsuits. This filing was actually not remotely spontaneous, it arguably was at least eight years in the making, if not longer. It’s nothing more than the very latest in the San Francisco law firm Sher Edling’s series of “boilerplate copy filings.” How do I know that? Let me count the ways via the same checklist I’ve used on their prior copy ’n paste efforts, plus let me point out where Sher Edling is now digging an even deeper holes for themselves on at least two false accusations of theirs. Technically this filing wouldn’t go into my list of lawsuits plagiarizing other law firms’ / law offices’ “homework,” since Sher Edling is more or less entitled to re-use their own material wherever they take this traveling circus act, but what they repeated out of their just-prior Maine v BP filing over at the other far end of the country inadvertently draws attention to speculation that attorneys aren’t just lazily copying other material as though it was their own, they instead may be operating on a central template supplied to them. Continue reading →

Oops, a detail I missed in my 2020 dissection of D.C. v ExxonMobil

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What I missed doesn’t help the folks pushing these “ExxonKnew” lawsuits right now at all. I did not miss this same detail in my Nov 2024 dissection of Maine v BP. The problem in D.C. v Exxon compounds the apparent law firm ‘plagiarizing’ situation I detailed in that dissection. Continue reading →

Committing Acts of Journalism

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My transcriptions of several segments of a TV interview makes this blog post a long one. They’re necessary to drive home a critical point: The ‘climate crisis’ is not an existential threat to the well-being of the country; journalism malfeasance on the part of the legacy news media is the actual threat. Bits in the old interview are a driving force in the climate issue today. Continue reading →

The Problems in the ExxonKnew Lawsuits Keep Getting Worse

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This happens – I’m in the midst of compiling a blog post, I look up something I remember in connection with another accusation angle, then I spot something that doesn’t line up right in the whole narrative. What I’d planned to describe concerning “Committing Acts of Journalism” (or the lack thereof by the reporters over the last two+ decades on the climate issue) will have to wait until the next blog post, (is in my next post as of 2/24/25) because I just spotted a new problem with the basically still-current (originally Matt Pawa-led) pair of 2017 Alameda County / San Francisco County lawsuits. I dissected that pair jointly in my October 6, 2017 People(s) of California v. BP, while also bringing up those two again in my November 30, 2024 Maine v BP dissection, since the Sher Edling law firm inexplicably decided to apparently plagiarize Matt Pawa’s old 2017 accusation paragraph to use in their filing for Maine. What I did not catch in my latest dissection there was the basic fault with Matt Pawa’s citation source for the bit about Dr S Fred Singer’s “launch[ing] repeated attacks on mainstream climate science,” namely the 2007 UCS report. Those words are not in that report that way. I can show where they are seen that way, and where the actual source is . . . . . . which does not help the credibility of the “ExxonKnew” lawsuits one bit. It reinforces the fatal fault in essentially every one of these. Continue reading →

State of Maine v BP P.L.C.

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Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey was probably crossing his fingers that during his office’s likely weeks- if not months-long preparation of this filing before the November 5th general election, that the joint Senate/House investigation into the San Francisco law firm Sher Edling would become toothless as the result of the U.S. Senate remaining Democrat majority-run and the U.S. House switching to Democrat majority. AG Frey was probably also counting on a VP Harris winning the White House, swept in with her lightly questioned claim about suing Exxon but still having the zeal to do so someday. No such luck. Instead, with this newest Nov 26, 2024 “ExxonKnew” lawsuit being yet another outright Sher Edling boilerplate copy filing, AG Frey provided even more fodder for Senator Cruz and Rep Comer to investigate. The Maine AG office’s press release only had a download-to-read PDF file of this lawsuit at the bottom instead of a regular internet link, so I downloaded it and created a direct-read link to it here.

I”ll first go through the main items in my checklist ‘certifying’ this one as a boilerplate copy … but then I’ll show its new utterly unwise copy ‘n paste bit out of another supposedly ‘unconnected’ seven year-old+ “ExxonKnew” lawsuit. This newest apparent plagiarism maneuver on their part is an open invitation for Senator Cruz / Rep Comer to dig into how these lawsuits are assembled and who it is doing the actual assembling. Continue reading →

“Merchant of Disinformation” – the movie. Part 3

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Not only is Naomi Oreskes the author of the 2010 “Merchants of Doubt” book / star of the 2015 same-name documentary movie, she is also now apparently trying to make some kind of inroads into influencing SCOTUS clerks, if this August 15, 2024 “Interview: Science historian Naomi Oreskes schools the Supreme Court on climate change” article from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is to be believed. There’s no indication in the article that she’s ‘schooled’ anybody there yet, but she evidently has ‘schooled’ global warming lawfare lawyers – she’s on retainer with the law firm directly handling / assisting with 22 (at the time of this blog publication) of the current U.S. “ExxonKnew”-style lawsuits. She has apparently also had some kind of influence with no less than Pope Francis.

She’s been skating on thin ice ever since her foray into the issue, but via sheer blind luck of never facing anyone questioning a word she says, she hasn’t yet fallen right through. When major high-level discussions occur regarding how, where, and why the “ExxonKnew” lawsuits should proceed, her name as an ‘expert’ on the topic is certain to be mentioned in some form. This actually already happened once, where her “Merchants” movie was brought up within the 2015-era NY state Attorney General’s office. That’s why it’s crucial for any clerks for the ruling majority of the Supreme Court to be aware, along with any other people involved in the court system – law firms for the defendants in the “ExxonKnew” lawsuits especially – or people involved in the Republican side of the U.S. congress, of how massively vulnerable she is on her assertions about the climate issue and what she terms ‘industry-led disinformation campaigns.’

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 →

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 →