{"id":18081,"date":"2025-01-20T15:22:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T22:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/?p=18081"},"modified":"2025-01-20T15:38:22","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T22:38:22","slug":"the-fossil-fuel-industry-ran-disinfo-campaigns-our-assumption-is-they-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/?p=18081","title":{"rendered":"The Fossil Fuel Industry Ran Disinfo Campaigns – ‘our ASSUMPTION is they did’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emphasizing for the benefit of congressional investigators \/ law firms representing defendants in the “ExxonKnew” lawsuits \/ genuinely objective journalists: It does not matter where<\/em> you drop into the collective accusation about the fossil fuel industry employing skeptic climate shills to spread disinformation \u2014 you’ll never find tidy answers tying up situations, you’ll find problems that only lead you onto a path of finding endless related problems. It never ends, no matter where you start. The example in this blog post concerns an item within Roland C<\/a> “Kert” Davies’ 2011<\/strong> version of his false accusation that Harvard Center for Astrophysics’ Dr Willie Soon was supposedly paid by Exxon to lie. I showed in my prior blog post<\/a> the “ExxonKnew” lawsuits in which Davies 2015<\/strong> rehashed accusation is their source – but while compiling that list and the brief timeline of prior accusations leading to the 2015<\/strong> rehash, I spotted how Davies tangentially said something in his announcement of the 2011<\/strong> version which essentially undermines<\/strong> one of the other of the four central accusation elements<\/a> at the heart of most of these lawsuits.<\/p>\n

Davies’ June 28, 2011 Greenpeace announcement<\/a> concerned his very first “Exxon $1.2 million” accusation effort. He should have stuck to that attack exclusively, but he could not resist inserting one of the other accusation elements into his announcement, namely the meritless one (I have a whole tag category<\/a> on it) about the 1998 American Petroleum Institute “victory will be achieved” memo set. Observe<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In 1998, the API, ExxonMobil and the Southern Company sat round a table with other oil companies and think tanks they plotted and funded a Global Climate Science Communications Plan to undermine the climate science and support for the Kyoto Protocol that had just been agreed. “Victory will be achieved when\u2026 average citizens \u2018understand\u2019 (recognize) uncertainties in climate science<\/strong>“\u2026 read the plan. “Uncertainty” was also their objective for the media. The detail funding sources from corporate purses going to think tanks and front groups who will coach scientists<\/strong> with messages counter to the rising consensus on the global warming crisis. Even though this \u2018scandal\u2019 was front page news at the New York Times, our assumption<\/strong> is they did it anyway<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His setup prior to this paragraph was to claim an assortment of fossil fuel companies were funding Dr Soon. After the paragraph, he resumed his attack. The paragraph, in addition to being oddly and poorly written, has problems on several levels.<\/p>\n