This is in the news today via “Climate NEXUS”, which is a Madison Ave. PR firm:
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that he is launching a legal probe into Exxon’s climate denial. The inquiry will look into both consumer and investor protection laws, covering the oil giant’s activity dating back to the 1970s. Schneiderman’s investigation could open “a sweeping new legal front in the battle over climate change,” says the New York Times, which broke the story. Two separate reports by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times uncovered that Exxon has known about the dangers of climate change since the 1970s but sowed doubt by funding climate change skeptics to preserve its business. Exxon has been compared extensively to the tobacco industry, which was convicted of racketeering in 2000 for deliberately deceiving the public about the dangers of its products.
It seems all this is part of an orchestrated plan:
RICO-TEERING: HOW CLIMATE ACTIVISTS ‘KNEW’ THEY WERE GOING TO PIN THE BLAME ON EXXON
Guest opinion by Shub Niggurath
Picture this.
You are a scientist. You wake up one morning and go:
“Why don’t I write a letter to the US Attorney General asking her to throw fossil fuel companies in jail under the RICO act?
It would be my civic deed for the day”.
Sounds plausible?
No it doesn’t. Climate scientists have a penchant for signing activist letters. But letters pushing legal advice to an Attorney General recommending prosecution of opponents?
So where do these strange ideas come from?
Step forward ‘Climate Accountability Institute’
The Climate Accountability Institute (CAI) is a small front attempting to marry ‘climate concerns’ to environmentalism and tobacco prohibitionist tactics. But ‘small’ is a relative term in the climate activist world.
In 2012 the CAI held a ‘workshop’ in La Jolla California. It was ‘conceived’ by Naomi Oreskes and others, and called ‘Establishing Accountability for Climate Change Damages: Lessons from Tobacco Control.’ Stanton Glantz, a prominent tobacco control activist scientist was present as were a clutch of lawyers, climate scientists, communication professionals, PR agency heads, bloggers and journalists.
They released a report (pdf):
The workshop was an ‘exploratory, open-ended dialogue’ on the use of ‘lessons from tobacco-related education, laws, and litigation to address climate change.’
The headline conclusion was essentially conspiracy theory. Here it is, verbatim (emphasis mine):
A key breakthrough in the public and legal case for tobacco control came when internal documents came to light showing the tobacco industry had knowingly misled the public.Similar documents may well exist in the vaults of the fossil fuel industry and their trade associations and front groups…
Why do these mythical documents needed to be ‘unearthed’?
While we currently lack a compelling public narrative about climate change in the United States, we may be close to coalescing around one. Furthermore, climate change may loom larger today in the public mind than tobacco did when public health advocates began winning policy victories.
The reader should take a moment to grasp the momentous logic: We know legally ‘incriminating documents’ (their choice of words) ‘may’ exist, because tobacco activists had a breakthrough with such documents. They need to be found in order to make climate change a ‘looming threat’ in the public mind.
Try thinking of a more reverse-engineered form of activism.
The first chapter in the report is ‘Lessons from Tobacco Control’. It is mainly one section called ‘The Importance of Documents in Tobacco Litigation’
We learn next to nothing about these supposed ‘documents’ from the report. After all, they haven’t been released or even found.
But ‘the documents’ were very valuable:
says ‘one of the most important lessons to emerge from the history of tobacco litigation’ was the ‘value of bringing internal industry documents to light’.
There was little doubt about their existence:
… many participants suggested that incriminating documents may exist that demonstrate collusion among the major fossil fuel companies …
Since they were so sure they exist, careful plotting was needed on companies whose vaults to raid
He [Glantz] stressed the need to think carefully about which companies and which trade groups might have documents that could be especially useful.
Stanton Glantz was a vocal workshop participant:
Glantz was so excited he proposed using the tobacco archives platform at the University of California San Francisco for climate documents (which were yet to be found)
Because the Legacy Collection’s software and infrastructure is already in place, Glantz suggested it could be a possible home for a parallel collection of documents from the fossil fuel industry pertaining to climate change.
In what mode were the documents to be used?
Most importantly, the release of these documents meant that charges of conspiracy or racketeering could become a crucial component of tobacco litigation
Having firmly established that documents convenient to their strategy existed, the delegates moved on to discussing how to obtain them
.
The answer was once again clear: ‘lawsuits’. It was not just lawsuits, it was ‘Congressional hearings’, ‘sympathetic state attorney generals’ and ‘false advertising claims’.
State attorneys general can also subpoena documents, raising the possibility that a single sympathetic state attorney general might have substantial success in bringing key internal documents to light
Oreskes had a bunch of advertisements with her:
Oreskes noted that she has some of the public relations memos from the group and asked whether a false advertising claim could be brought in such a case.
Even libel suits were deemed useful:
Roberta Walburn noted that libel suits can also serve to obtain documents that might shed light on industry tactics.
Once the documents were in the bag, a story needed to be spun. :
In lawsuits targeting carbon producers, lawyers at the workshop agreed, plaintiffs need
to make evidence of a conspiracy a prominent part of their case.
Now you know where the line on how ‘fossil fuel companies ‘knew’ they were doing wrong but yet did it’ comes from. The cries of ‘it’s a conspiracy!’ are planned and pre-meditated, on lawyers’ advice.
This is where RICO came in:
Richard Ayres, an experienced environmental attorney, suggested that the RICO Act, which had been used effectively against the tobacco industry, could similarly be used to bring a lawsuit against carbon producers.
Richard Ayres is no slouch. A prominent environmental lawyer, he is co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Ayres knew starting lawsuits against productive companies wouldn’t look good. They needed to be spun:
It has to be something positive
How? By dressing it up as injury ‘compensation’
“Even if your ultimate goal might be to shut down a company, you still might be wise to start out by asking for compensation for injured parties.”
The suggestions appeared to grow outlandish at every turn. Richard Heede, one of CAI’s members, had come up with a system for blaming individual companies:
Heede is working to derive the proportion of the planet’s atmospheric carbon load that is traceable to the fossil fuels produced and marketed by each of these companies
Heede’s bizarre formulas, we learn, were received ‘positively’ by ‘most of the workshop’s participants’. One UCS participant felt that ‘it could potentially be useful as part of a coordinated campaign to identify key climate “wrongdoers.” Another felt it was useful in blaming faceless corporate entities instead of countries thereby bypassing provoking patriotic impulses in international negotiations.
Heede’s work was funded by Greenpeace. Of note, Greenpeace counsel Jasper Teulings was present at the meeting.
An inspired Oreskes then appears to have proposed blaming sea level rise on corporations:
Picking up on this notion, Naomi Oreskes suggested that some portion of sea level rise could be attributed to the emissions caused by a single carbon-producing company
The oil company Exxon made its appearance in her example:
She suggested, “You might be able to say, ‘Here’s Exxon’s contribution to what’s happening to Key West or Venice.’”
This was a strategy Glantz liked:
…Stanton Glantz expressed some enthusiasm about such a strategy, based on his experience with tobacco litigation. As he put it, “I would be surprised if the industry chose to attack the calculation that one foot of flooding in Key West could be attributed to ExxonMobil.
The conspiratorial tide did not recede. Former computer scientist John Mashey claimed collusion between ‘climate change deniers’ and fossil fuel companies:
[Mashey] presented a brief overview of some of his research, which traces funding, personnel, and messaging connections between roughly 600 individuals …
The penultimate section in the report is on how delegates planned to win ‘public opinion’. Even with RICO, some felt it was ‘not easy’ (‘RICO is not easy. It is certainly not a sure win’ – Ayres) and others were wary of drawing the attention of “hostile legislators who might seek to undermine them”.
With public opinion, the delegates were clearly divided. PR mavens, lawyers and activists wanted to cry fraud, paint up villains and create outrage:
To mobilize, people often need to be outraged.
Daniel Yankelovich a ‘public opinion researcher’ involved in ‘citizen education’ appears to have balked at the ‘sue, sue, sue’ chanting. Court cases are useful only after the public had been won over, he said.
It is not clear he grasped the activists and lawyers aimed for the same with a spectacular legal victory or headlines generated by court cases and bypass the whole issue of ‘citizen education’ .
The workshop ended and there was ‘agreement’. ‘Documents’ needed to be obtained. Legal action was needed both for ‘wresting potentially useful internal documents’ and ‘maintaining pressure on the industry’.
A consensus had emerged
… an emerging consensus on a strategy that incorporates legal action with a narrative that creates public outrage.
The participants, we learn
…made commitments to try to coordinate future efforts, continue discussing strategies for gaining access to internal documents from the fossil fuel industry and its affiliated climate denial network…
Photo (c) Brenda Ekwurzel, from the report
Postscript:
Why is the report important? Because climate activists have done everything the delegates said they wanted done, in the report.
Everyone from climate skeptics like Roy Spencer, columnists like Holman Jenkins Jr and even aconsensusist like William Connolley has been left scratching their head. However, from RICO to ‘Exxon knew’ — the twin defibrillator paddles in use to reanimate a moribund climate Frankenstein — thepresent actions of climate activists have been none but the pre-meditated ones presented in the report.
These include the latest letter from US Senators to Exxon, the conspiratorial ‘Exxon Knew’ campaign with the portrayal of old Exxon reports by InsideClimateNews as ‘internal documents’, the RICO letter from scientists and much more. Particularly, with the pathetic ‘journalism’ of InsideClimateNews it is almost as if climate activists have willed these ‘documents’ into existence – just as they were advised.
The CAI are free to plot the downfall of their opponents. But it is somewhat of a surprise to see theentirety of their ideas to be picked up and translated into action by the intellectually bankrupt climate activist movement.
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Do we get a chance to sue them with RICO after the AMO continues to roll over and it gets a lot lot colder?
Unlikely!
Imagine if they succeed and Exxon gets found guilty for not supporting a hoax? It would be like the Galileo-Heliocentric story, but twisted to eleven.
All they will need to do is ask Peter Gleick to create the needed documents, he certainly has proven capable of doing it
Get the CIA to investigate the CAI.
My feelings about Naomi Orestes are precisely the feelings I have toward the unnamed forger who wrote “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.
It’s a pity she chose to irrationally hate the people who make civilization possible over other things that might annoy her to the point of irrationality, like dog walkers, or lingerie companies, or her neighbors who barbecue.
Acknowledging the existence of a forgery by definition acknowledges the existence of the original, commissioned by Meyer Amschel Rothschild, composed by Aron Weishaupt, also known as the Illuminati Code.
Bull…t. The “Protocols” are not forgery of anything, it’s a hoax based on satire written by Frenchman Maurice Joly’s Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu (1864) and created in Russia. It has nothing to do with anything real.
“Acknowledging the existence of a forgery by definition acknowledges the existence of the original”
Actually no, it doesn’t. Many art forgeries are made “in the style of”, that is to look like something a famous artist would have created. Not just simply copies from books. With these works “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, as well as the documents made to prove “big oil” knew about global warming, my suggestion is that they were made up from beginning to end.
The purpose is to confirm the beliefs of the principles, as well as to sway the easily impressed, that don’t think beyond what they are given, to see who is giving them the poison.
Lest anyone forget, all it will take is ONE Republican president to stop these shenanigans and totally reverse course including the EPA regs.
Doesn’t even have to be Republican…. they just have to have an IQ above 80. Unfortunately that rules out pretty much every candidate for the dems.
Wishful thinking. Just how does one unbreak those eggs?
But is there a Republican who actually stands a cat in hell chance of winning? This is just wishful thinking.
Not just a President though. It will take getting rid of people like Sen. McConnell. House Speaker Boehner is gone though I’m not sure his replacement is much better. Anyone who’s been an enabler of the emperor must be replaced.
A reply to hivemind: Emulating an artist’s style isn’t a forgery, per se; it’s closer to impersonation. Henry Ford, in the 20s, is one of the well-known people who acknowledged that the Protocols of the Illuminati were commonly followed at that time. If you read them, you’ll see that they still are. The term “stupid cattle” used in them, was used by one of the bankers at the 4th World Wilderness Conference in 1987, and was recorded by George Hunt. His videos and audio recordings are on many sites.
The government of Singapore has used similar tactics for years to silence and bankrupt opponents.
As a smoker in the 90’s, I was similarly astonished at the tactics used by the anti-smokers to lie about and demonise second-hand smoke. No statistic, survey or inference was safe from being twisted, tortured and manhandled into a conclusion that SHS was deadly to even the casual passer-by.
I still firmly believe that the anti-smokers’ playbook was adopted holus bolus by the AGWers, and it’s why I was immediately dubious of the proposition that a tiny, extra amount of an essential trace element was going to cause climate carnage.
And yet I have asthma and my skin breaks out around second-hand smoke. Ah well. I guess you’d be interested in buying some homes around a decomissioned depleted uranium mill then?
Roy Castle (Trumpeter) died of cancer of the larynx. Was it a smoky place he played in or the trumpet?
prjindigo November 6, 2015 at 9:50 pm
Avoid peanut butter.
Patrick November 6, 2015 at 10:17 pm
Roy Castle (Trumpeter) died of cancer of the larynx. Was it a smoky place he played in or the trumpet?
And his diet was not a factor?
prjindigo, it’s more about how some results and happenings were blown out of proportion and rationality.
A 25 year veteran bus driver gets lung cancer. Was it really the SHS smoke, or did 25 years of constantly breathing diesel fumes have something to do with it?
Even non smokers cannot see the logic of banning smoking in footpath cafes. Seriously, the SMS is dangerous but the black cloud of exhaust from the bus is not? You’re seated next to a busy road ffs.
Cancer is a random event. Of course, smoking or drinking or diet can increase the odds. But picking any random person does not prove much. Diana Reeves (Superman’s wife) died of lung cancer and never smoked a day in her life or was around second hand smoke as far as I know.
“M Simon
November 7, 2015 at 3:14 am”
Good question, and I don’t know. We could assume a typical British diet in post war England. What I do know is that during his time, before he went on to be the presenter of the TV show “Record Breakers”, he played trumpet in venues across the UK, for decades. This was well before smoking was banned in places like that. I also know a trumpet is a wind instrument requiring lots and lots of air to be forced through it to make a note. So Roy had to inhale and exhale lots and lots of smoky air, hour after hour, day after day, year after year. I am not suggesting causation here however, the probability seems reasonable given we know smoke *IS* real pollution.
“JohnB
November 7, 2015 at 5:34 am
A 25 year veteran bus driver gets lung cancer. Was it really the SHS smoke, or did 25 years of constantly breathing diesel fumes have something to do with it?”
I would say most likely diesel fumes and particulate emissions.
“Even if your ultimate goal might be to shut down a company, you still might be wise to start out by asking for compensation for injured parties.”
Can’t think of a better way to stop these nincompoops and the globull warming fakes than for them to have success in shutting down/bankrupting oil companies and as a consequence the economy. May the idiots wildly succeed.
We could even acknowledge the fact, supported by statements made by heads of state and others at the Rio Conference, that the science has always been lousy and has since then been promoted using sophisticated marketing techniques and media control and diversions and character assassination of opponents, and that this particular diversion was created to distract attention from the nonexistent scientific support for AGW prior to the Parisite meeting; an efficient means of protecting alarmists from accusations of fraud and bad science and putting honest climate scientists on the defensive. This isn’t science; it’s politics and the wrong kind of green – and Orestes’ parasitism will be threatened at Paris.
But the tobacco companies WERE UNDENIABLY suppressing proof that tobacco REALLY caused cancer and other serious diseases (based on real human studies, not computer models). To win against Exxon, the Climo-Nazis will first have to show in court that human carbon production CAUSES real damage to someone in some way, and then that Exxon “covered it up”–merely spouting theory based on computer models just ain’t going to cut it. Correlation is not causation in a US court–in the words of the that great HypocRAT, Walter Mondale, where’s the beef (proof)? Still waiting (even longer than the current pause in alleged global temperature increases)!!
P Maximus – yes, the two cases are qualitatively different : no amount of wishful, irrational thinking from the climate activists will change that fact. Their case will not stand up in court. Let us just watch it all with amusement.
You have that much faith in courts? After all, the second-hand smoke effects were [and are] equally tenuous and declared so by the first judge. So they got another judge and….
It would be the equivalent of a tobacco case being tried in a courtroom full of chain-smoking public with the lawyers on both sides chewing on stogies while the judge lights up a huge havana.
The Courts are not stupid.
If the ‘pause’ continues, one only has to show them the growing discrepancy between model output and observation, and the fact that the IPCC does not know what it is doing since there are some 90 models all projecting different things and not one of these models tallies with observation.
Then just list the failed predictions. the only prediction that is panning out is Arctic ice decline but the significance of this appears tenuous since globally ice is at ‘record’ highs, and it appears that Arctic ice may be staging a recovery.
No court case will come for years, and even ardent warmists like Julia Slingo (chief scientist at the UK Met Office and whose Climate Model is running at the top of the warm league) has stated that there may be no return to warming before 2030. Ocean cycles 9and indeed solar activity) may well take its toll.
So imagine a Court case in say 2023 with the ‘pause’ over 25 years in duration, and longer than the period when there was some warming in the late 1970s through to early/mid 1990s, and with a plethora of recent papers putting Climate Sensitivity at or below 1.3, and well below the scary 2 degC let alone the alarmists 4.5degC plus. So imagine the few mm rise in sea level, not the metres being screamed.
I think that a Court would easily conclude that the science is not settled and that matters have not panned out as the alarmists predicted.
richard verney November 7, 2015 at 4:16 am
The Courts are not stupid.
If the ‘pause’ continues, one only has to show them the growing discrepancy between model output and observation, and the fact that the IPCC does not know what it is doing since there are some 90 models all projecting different things and not one of these models tallies with observation.
No richard they don’t; as ristvan shows the case is built around misleading statements to shareholders, The issue will be were they aware of AGW and did they inform shareholders to the financial risks, or did they with hold the information. Whether or not the science was correct or not may not matter, its the requirement of informing of risks, that their going after EXXON for. Pretty far fetched, first create the risk to a company’s stock prices by orchestrating alarmist claims of impending doom, then drag them into court for not advertising said risks that the alarmist themselves created.
ristvan November 6, 2015 at 10:17 am
K in S. The New York attorney general subpoenaed Exxon under a New York State law called the Martin Act of 1921. This involves making misleading statements to shareholders.
BTY what the alarmists are doing, is exacting what RICO was created to deal with. The main issue with this avenue of attack is who are the injured parties? It would be interesting to see what the input of shareholders will ultimately be.
But when this is not the real “case” that the alarmists want. Their on a quest for some smoking gun, to show that EXXON knew more than anyone else at the time, and/or anything they can spin.
michael
“richard verney
November 7, 2015 at 4:16 am
The Courts are not stupid.”
May be, may be not. I know the law is an a$$ though. Certainly in Australia where someone can sue you for damages after they have caused, YES CAUSED, a traffic incident.
In the post truth era, I wouldn’t be too sure about that
From UAH, here is a graph of 102 climate model calculations vs. the satelite and radiosonde balloon observations. The models demonstrate no predictive ability.
“The crux of the matter is that their research, using satellite data to measure temperatures in the atmosphere, disagrees with climate models they say that overstates the earth’s warming.”
http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2015/04/7_questions_with_john_christy.html
How do they prove injury from something (CO2) that is unproven by the science?
http://media.al.com/news_huntsville_impact/photo/john-christy-climate-change-chart-0a201a1637955761.jpg
Well, the tobacco companies were may have been trying, but the evidence was there for anyone to see. I did, and quit. They may have “poo-pooed” them, and claimed they were wrong, poorly done, etc., but they didn’t actively suppress them in any real sense. That whole business was just a giant (successful) extortion attempt to enrich trial lawyers and AGs.
They may settle out of court though just to avoid the headaches and long-term drain on their business and reputation.
Whats laughable is that climate science research funding from government is many multiples greater than industrial funding of climate research.
A clarification. There is no proof that tobacco causes cancer, because we do not know how people who do not smoke get lung cancer, never mind how smokers get lung cancer. We know there is a statistical probability that the chance of getting cancer is higher among smokers. Technically that is proof by correlation and not causation, which I believe was the tobaccos industries position.
The unfortunate result (unfortunate except the lawyers) of the tobacco lawsuits is that it opened up a cornucopia of correlation lawsuits, where almost any illness could be blamed on something or someone without needing to prove causation. Examples are frivolous second hand smoke lawsuits and Californian residents seeking lawsuits because just about any illness they may be suffering from was due to the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Thanks Anthony for taking this subject.
The idea of scapegoating one oil company and using it to affect public opinion or Overton windows is rather disgusting, but might work to some extent. Sadly people would be ready to believe Exxon ‘knew’ even Exxon is not and can not be responsible of world CO2 nor we know now how much the bloody sensitivity is.
“many participants suggested that incriminating documents may exist that demonstrate collusion“.
Hold on a minute .. those documents do exist! We have already seen them. Someone please remind these people of the documents’ existence so that they can go through them and get all the proof they need.
The documents are known as “Climategate“.
Good point. Sounds like the defense will have a field day with these prosecutorial clowns.
Al Gore set up an aerosol credit trading scheme working for Exxon in the late 70s or early 80s; I read about it on Appinsys.com, excellent references, but I don’t remember any details about scientific knowledge then, and it’s not on the website now.
It’s not about the environment, though, its the effect of the environment on the share price, and whether shareholders were informed of the anticipated financial impact of AGW, real or imagined.
So Exxon “knew” about the CO2-Temperature link back in 1981? Seven years before the Gore-Wirth-Hansen Senate hot-room charade? And Exxon has secretly been funding CO2-Temp skeptics for 34 years?
OK, all of you skeptics that gotten rich off of Exxon, it’s time to come clean now and share with the world the size of your bounties!
Only in the twisted world of the Leftist-Warmist does this story have anything resembling legs (toothpick legs, at best). If we are to investigate the realm of hidden documents, maybe it’s time to re-visit the Climate Gate e-mails. (Not that the MSM would pay any attention this time, either.)
I confess, I used a $20.00 Exxon Gift Card to buy gas last week !!! Oh the shame !!!!! LOL
Exxon has known about the dangers of climate change since the 1970s…..
When CO2 was supposed to make another ice age
How could Exxon ‘know’ when we still don’t have proof CO2 causes thermogeddon?
Hugs……why did they cherry pick their start date in the 1970’s?
This is the thing to nail them on. Their lack of any sense of reality could be a fuse to hoist them with their own petard. Ridicule should also be part of the push-back against these idiots.
+ 1
That’s the thing about psychopaths, though; they don’t care. They live in a different reality. No shame, no remorse, no acknowledgement of wrongdoing, ever, just what’s good for them. They own everything; this program is run by the wealthiest people in the world. They push back with food and prescription prices, interest rates, stock market manipulation, etc.
They also knew “climate change” 20 years before global warming morphed into the new term.
Shub, you da MAN!
+1
Indebted to Shub myself – details within Shub’s piece allowed me to detail more problems about that guy in the picture with the orange sweater, Stanton Glantz: “Why are non-tobacco documents in The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library? Pt 2” http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=3291
Agreed. This is a tremendous article.
Very nice exposure of these ratbags.
I worked for ESSO in the 1970’s when they had a big drive on Marine Safety. One of the brilliant ideas they had was writing “Think Safety” in red letters 2 feet high on the bridge front 30 feet above the deck. The only way to achieve this was to hang men off the bridge wings on wooden stages with rope ladders up the front whilst the ships were at sea between ports. I really don’t believe that the thinkers and strategists in ESSO/EXXON are much better today.
I worked for ESSO in the 1970’s when they had a big drive on Marine Safety. One of the brilliant ideas they had was writing “Think Safety” in red letters 2 feet high on the bridge front 30 feet above the deck. ….I really don’t believe that the thinkers and strategists in ESSO/EXXON are much better today.
And yet a mere 45 years later you are still “thinking safety.”
I think ESSO did a really good range of “soccer” badges to collect… was it the ad dom dom dom esso blu? for house/space heating?
Could someone please explain to me what Exxon supposedly did which might have contravened any laws?
Shouldn’t there be a minimum of evidence of LAW-BREAKING in order to justify opening an investigation by an Attorney-General?
They openly funded climate change research and published papers. But, they got the wrong answers.
Then the government should be investigated for breaking the law. They are constantly funding climate change research that gets the answers wrong.
K in S. The New York attorney general subpoenaed Exxon under a New York State law called the Martin Act of 1921. This involves making misleading statements to shareholders. Nothing to do with RICO, which is federal and where Schneiderman has no authority.. Presumably Schneiderman’s theory follows the ridiculously bad Inside Climate story (already debunked elsewhere simply by citing more fully the supposedly imcriminating documents) that EXXON research ‘showed’ CAGW in 1977 but did not reveal this to its shareholders to protect its oil business and stock price. As Exxon has already pointed out yesterday, there is no there there to this conspiracy theory hatched by Oreskes and her ilk, via “Merchants of Doubt”. Schneiderman is just following the script this post explains. This will end in popcorn when his probe fizzles. But it shows once again how desperately dangerous the warmunists have become. Grijvala, Whitehouse, now this. And NOAA will be in contempt of congress at 5 pm EST today if they have not complied with Rep. Smith’s subpoena for emails relating to the dubious Karl pausebusting paper. See Judith Curry’s op ed (posted at Climate Etc) for more on that. Smith apparently knows generally what he will find, and where to find it.
It doesn’t matter whether the probe fizzles, the process itself is the punishment.
Force Exxon to defend itself both in court and in the press. Enough torture and even if they do win, Exxon and the other oil companies will think twice before ever going against the green mafia again.
Suggested reply by Exxon: “We stand behind our scientists who conduct their work in an objective manner. It is the end product of exchanges between scientists — the detailed publication of scientific work and the data that underpins the authors’ findings — that are key to understanding the conclusions reached.”
(Yes, it’s the NOAA reply to Senate subpoena)
… And, “why should we provide you our data, all you want to do is find something wrong with it”.
Anonymize… I have an alternate idea for Exxons reply. They take selective emails from Climategate, change the names etc to make it look like Exxon emails and provide them. After the sentencing they can then reveal the con.
As a 30 year Exxon employee, half of it in research and research management I gotta tell ya that this is the most ludicrous accusation that I have ever seen. Orestes and her ilk are in need of some woodshedding.
I hope that Lamar Smith nails the idiots at NOAA who thought they could get away with fudging the data in such an obviously biased and dishonest way. Thank goodness for the whistle blowers, and for Judith Curry for standing up to the AMS.
They heavily funded AGW groups including East Anglia. Either it is the typical arm twisting Obama uses with his DOJ when seeking more campaign donations….or Exxon is already hated in the green groups so its an easy brand garget.
They stopped contributing to the Clinton ‘nonprofit’.
+1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Bill must have told Obama to pull Joe back…It’s Hillary’s turn.
You don’t mess with the Clintons.
Dr. Peter Gleick’s mistake was he operated alone. Learning from this, the alarmists are employing the Climate Accountability Institute. They are using the rallying call:
“The proletariat needs to get organized and stand up to the MAN!”
.
Naomi Oreskes is a buffoon who is openly mocked by the very people she attempts to defend. Her lawyer pals are concerned about AGW at a level commensurate with an ambulance chaser’s concern for the welfare of his client.
As with useful idiots everywhere, the lawyers will get the goldmine and Oreskes will get the shaft. Follow the money, these shysters do not work for free and even a small percentage of damages will bulk quite large if they win or are bought off.
This honestly makes me sick. Just look at CNN’s article about this too, playing exactly along these lines to a T. How can anyone win against this fearmongering, clever litigation spinning, and irrationality?
What is there end goal in all this? To destroy the use of oil and thus our entire infrastructure and economy? I’m afraid this is exactly what is going to happen to us.
Yes the communists all flocked to the green banner in the 1980s, starting with the Brundtlnad Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brundtland_Commission
NBC News had an article in its headlines too earlier this morning, “http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/exxon-mobil-subpoenaed-new-york-attorney-general-over-climate-n458211”, but now it has been demoted to the “Science” section.
This not funny.
Hillary gets to hump her way into The Rose Law firm by boinking Web Hubbell then getting pregnant with Webster Hubbell’s child. (Chelsea’s paternity is unknown)
http://starcasm.net/archives/321645
Then she is involved with scam after corrupt scam, lying to congress, influence peddling money into her foundation, which will employ her when she gets out of jail, responsible for the death of 4 people in Benghazi, lying about during an election that brought in Obama’s second term, as well as periferrally involved with the deaths of many…
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/BODIES.html
And she thinks she doesn’t have to answer to the American people…
Meanwhile
Schniederman opens a RICO investigation into Exxon’s activities 45 years ago. You have got to be kidding me.
This ain’t bean bag.
on Nov 2 –
“Hillary Clinton is calling for a federal investigation of ExxonMobil’s climate change activities just months after the company neglected to renew its sponsorship of the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting”.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-calls-for-exxon-probe-after-company-cuts-off-foundation-funding/
WOW! I did not know that.
Pay up or else.
Well, there you go, add another straw to the haystck of corruption.
…now you know how Hit1er was brought into power… principle-less journalists, a dumb electorate and a psychopathic megalomaniac who has no moral restraints.
She is following Obummer’s practice of Shake Down.
November 16 is Klinton IRS D-Day
Clinton, a Clinton Foundation Director Klinton Inc has until November 16 to file all revised IRS forms.
Form 990 is the annual review of nonprofit’s activities along with detailed information about donors. IRS then determines whether they keep their status.
.
Klinton Inc did NOT report donations from governments for 2010, 2011 and 2012….the years Klinton was secretary of state.)
.
Klinton, a Klinton Inc Foundation Director, sucked up money into her personal accounts from governments and special interests up until the day she declared she was running for office.
.
We shall see if IRS holds her to the date and requirements the same as anyone else, which government funded her activities, or if she is the Protected class.
Wrt Chelsea’s paternity, you only have to look at her close resemblance to her father to figure he’s Dad. Not quite so obvious with Hillary though.
http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/webb-hubbell-no-comment-on-fathering-chelsea-clinton/
Since her cosmetic surgery, Chelsea looks less like Webb than she used to do.
The article should have used an older photo of her.
Yes, not sure bringing WND nto the discussion is a good idea. I didn’t even click on the other link…
Well I would have used a main stream media link, like CNN or MSNBC or ABC or CBS but unsurprisingly, since they are involved in the Clinton corruption slime, I could not locate a link.
The reporter who collected the Hubbell DNA and the Clinton DNA is real. The DNA test is real regardless of whether CNN or WND prints it.
“Oreskes noted that she has some of the public relations memos from the group and asked whether a false advertising claim could be brought in such a case.”
This has been tried numerous times against firearms manufacturers, with very little success. Damages for false advertising claims are predicated on the notion of “knowingly deceive.” It’s a pretty tough standard, since most people already know that driving a car pollutes, and they don’t care.
The fact that an elected AG in a liberal state says that they are investigating isn’t surprising, but they won’t get very far, it would tie up too many resources, and next week the narrative will change to fit the topic-du-jour
Nice summation Mark. However, dropping a criminal case would set the stage for a civil lawsuit capable of bilking Exxon out of millions. If Exxon settles, they will squeeze each oil company in turn until they follow suit.
Perhaps we should call this sham; “no lawyer left behind”.
said everybody about Massachusetts vs EPA
But Mass vs EPA was collusion, and the EPA “settled” with Mass, as they had agreed to beforehand. It may actually setup some EPA administrators for …. wait for it …. a RICO action.
They’ll free up the needed resources by ending the investigation of real criminals. Especially if they happen to be minority, or socialist.
Need criminals? Make laws.
Scary on so many levels. But, in order for them to be right, they need to be right about the science. They need to prove Exxon was right about the science, that Exxon knew they were right about the science and that the science is in fact showing man made global warming.
But the science doesn’t show that – at all. On the contrary, the science, even empirical data, show no influence by man, CO2 or man made CO2.
This is the best evidence we can hope for to show they actually don’t know (understand) the science.
This graph is further evidence they don’t understand the science;
If they did understand the science, their models wouldn’t be wrong.
Here’s the science they in fact don’t understand; http://climatenerd.blogspot.no/
And here is how they have been fooled; https://roaldjlarsen.wordpress.com/
Sweet irony .. They have been fooled by the fake data and data adjustments done by other dishonest, “green” activists. Seem they forgot to tell them 🙂
They don’t care if they loose, because they plan to use the legal fight itself as a weapon. This is not about breaking law, this is about trying to force Exxon give their internal communications and then using them a bit like climate gate emails. Really nasty. They know who to blame, now they are trying to invent the crime.
I know, that’s why i wrote; “Scary on so many levels.”
Trial in the court of popular opinion informed by sympathetics in mainstream media. Control the messenger, control the message, maintain the narrative at all costs. Sad, really.
The courts usually do not rule regarding science. They just get some expert to stipulate that the science is settled, and then go with that.
Yes, that’s just sad!
Drilling for oil and making gasoline does not create the supposed CO2 problem…Driving cars and running power plants might…Exxon is not responsible for what people use their product for !!!
You could say so. You could also say a lot of other things, but I don’t think sueing Exxon is about a known or suspected crime Exxon has done, but rather goldmining something useful change public opinion.
This is a political trial.
This is a political trial.
Five words; says it all.
Two words; says it all:
Kangaroo Court.
Regards
Climate Heretic
Climate Heretic, I award your post 9 out of a possible coveted harrops.
Possible 10, sorry.
No, it is the same as the ‘Witch Hunts’ of old. The suspects were burnt at the stake. If they lived they were witches. As all of them perished it can be presumed they were not. The EcoStalinists do not care whether their victims live or die, as long as they can claim the Moral high ground all is good.
regards
and I’m wondering just what are the damages … for could, may, whatever in next 500 years
Drudge reported this am a Washington Free Beacon article where Hillary is calling for the investigation
into Exxon, and, that not long ago Exxon ceased its donations to the Clinton Global Foundation. Sounds
like Exxon stopped the protection and blackmail payments and now Hillary wants to persecute — opps —
she said words more like prosecute — but hey — in this case, whats the difference — maybe the RICO
should look much more in her direction. Just thinking here — i think.
link to story upthread
What a lovely bunch of coconuts!
Yes, the industrial era is mostly powered by fossil fuels. Diesel fuel for agricultural equipment on farms that grow food. The industrial fertilizers that are applied to the crops. The diesel that powers the trains loaded with harvested grain that goes to food processing plants. The diesel that transports the wheaties and refrigerated bacon to the supermarkets. The gasoline that powers the cars that people drive to get to the supermarket. The coal fired electric power to run the freezer compressors that keep the frozen foods from spoiling. The gasoline powered refuse trucks that haul away the garbage to dumps. The jet fuel that transported those people to La Jolla. The emergency vehicle that takes the heart attack victim to the hospital from eating too much bacon. etc. etc.
Carbon dioxide in the air provides the basic building block of all photosynthesis produced food. We should be putting more in the air, not less.
Hate to say it, but I see signs with this activist effort of someone smoking waaay too much
Ganja… They are at the paranoid stage….
This really looks, smells and tastes like a “conspiracy” to me!
It’s nice that they documented it so well!
Maybe the Koch Brothers are in there too? After all, they must be in some conspiracy.
Hey, this is advanced think tank scheming that no ordinary nut jobs can craft and undertake. It’s the DARPA of climate policy and legal weapons development. Missiles are away!
Counter sue. It’s factual that the removal of CO2 threatens all of life itself. Certainly these maggots know this and, yet, continue to conspire. Their true motives need exposure.
Me thinks there’s a little bit of a problem with their argument. Last time I checked Exxon wasn’t in the spacecraft business. So, their CEOs, CFOs, COOs, board members, shareholders, and so on, are stuck on the same planet we are with no more chance to get off it than we have (except for Jerry Brown). And, if their product indisputably causes CAGW as our insufferable climate warriors proclaim; and CAGW is going to utterly destroy the planet that we live on; well, won’t it destroy the planet those greedy capitalists at Exxon live on too? One could make a logical argument that a greedy capitalist, forever in search of profits, would be willing to destroy someone else’s life if that was necessitated in the pursuit of those profits. But, I think we can all agree that a greedy capitalist is unlikely to destroy their own life in pursuit of profit. It’s not much fun to have money if you’re not alive, or can exist on a planet, to enjoy it. And, it’s very difficult to make money if you’re not alive; in fact, except for Elvis, I don’t know anybody who’s done so.
Again, I think we can all agree that whatever shortcomings greedy capitalists may have self immolation is not one of them. I don’t think the same thing can be said of ideologues. Thus, the RICO arguments violate simple logic. I think the New York taxpayers should demand their AG get replaced by someone who’s brain actually functions.