Reposted from The Gelbspan Files
The more frequently these global warming lawsuits appear claiming fossil fuel industry executives paid skeptic climate scientists to participate in sinister disinformation campaign efforts to undercut the ‘settled science,’ the easier it is to show how the ‘evidence’ for that accusation implodes. This Minnesota vs. API et al. lawsuit, filed on 6/24/20, ends up being a case study on how to commit political suicide, first via its enslavement to the same two sets of worthless ‘leaked industry memos’ which have been floated ever since the 1990s as proof of that corporate / skeptic conspiracy, and second, via its links for copies of those memos from one of the central members of the small clique of enviro-activists who’ve been promulgating them that whole time.
If the Minnesota AG’s office had undertaken the most basic kind of due diligence to find out if the ‘leaked memos evidence’ actually proves the existence of disinformation campaigns, it might not have wasted any taxpayer money filing the lawsuit. Without that ‘evidence,’ the lawsuit would struggle to disprove hugely detailed assessments from skeptic climate scientists, while also trying to prove API and the other defendants ever actually accepted the ‘science’ of the IPCC / Al Gore side of the issue.
No joke, this 84 page Minnesota lawsuit could be boiled down to a single massively dubious authoritative statement, with a giant arrow pointing to where the central pillar of it collapses:
Minnesota has harmfully warmed due to Defendants’ actions, Defendants knew of this harm, but their own internal memos stating ‘victory will be achieved when we reposition global warming as theory rather than fact’ were used to create disinformation campaigns designed to purposefully downplay the role that the consumption of their products played in causing this warming, and since they profiteered from avoiding the costs of dealing with global warming, Defendants — not Minnesota taxpayers — should bear the costs of those impacts.
I’ll begin with the news item that alerted me to the lawsuit. It’s a critical element pointing a giant arrow to who the long-term promulgators of the ‘industry-corrupted skeptics’ accusation are, which ultimately prompts the big question I’ll have at the end of this post.
The news item was the 6/24/20 “Minnesota Sues Fossil Fuel Industry for Climate Fraud” Climate Docket report. Climate-who? It initially looked like a new name to me, but a quick check of its About page immediately revealed a problem I already knew about.
The Climate Docket is a project funded by donations to Climate Communications & Law … The editorial content of CLN is not subject to approval or influence by CCL or its donors.
CLN? That’s a typo, it should say “Climate Docket” there. CLN is short for the Climate Liability News website.
To borrow a phrase from Al Gore, “we’ve seen this before.” I covered that specific line about CLN in my October 27, 2017 blog post, using CLN’s About page to show how one of the board members of Climate Communications & Law was Kert Davies. Unknown to me until writing this post, CLN changed its name to Climate Docket. They’re just a bit careless about the older content of their pages. Meanwhile, same old Kert Davies. Remember that name, it will come up again below. The editorial content of Climate Docket is not subject to approval or influence by CCL? Right.
Now, regarding the Minnesota vs. API et al. lawsuit itself, an acute irony is how the first-named defendant is the API. Within the “Defendants Made Misleading Statements” section, the lawsuit contends its claims of fossil fuel industry disinformation campaigns is supported by the set of leaked memos commonly known as the notorious 1998 API “victory will be achieved…” memo set.
As I’ve noted in every one of my blog posts on the global warming lawsuits referencing that API memo set, and within my Backgrounder post dissecting the outright worthlessness of this set, it was unsolicited and never implemented. Worse, whatever its status was, it contains zero indication that anyone involved would be trying to implement something they knew was false. More embarrassing, the basic statements that were supposed to be ‘smoking gun’ evidence are hardly more than truisms that could be mirror-flipped to illustrate what groups like Greenpeace would consider to be victories after public acceptance of their own environmentalist viewpoints.
Next, the Minnesota vs. API et al. lawsuit places great faith in one other memo set to claim disinformation campaigns exist. It’s on page 32, the notorious “reposition global warming” memos attributed to the Information Council for the Environment (ICE) public relations campaign, which supposedly targeted “lower-income women.”
As I’ve noted in every one of my blog posts on the global warming lawsuits referencing that alleged ICE memo set, and within my Backgrounder post dissecting the outright worthlessness of this set, it was a separate unsolicited proposal for name titles and audience targeting that was never part of the genuine ICE campaign.
When rejected proposals like the ones for API and the ICE campaign are never seen by anyone outside the initial small circles of people who viewed and tossed them out, they are therefore not viable evidence proving the existence of any industry-orchestrated / industry-funded disinformation campaigns operating under the direction of those memos. Al Gore claimed that “Exxon Mobil has funded 40 different front groups that have all been a part of a strategic persuasion campaign to, in their own words ‘reposition global warming as theory rather than fact’.” How would any executive at Exxon know of those words when they were buried in a landfill somewhere in the eastern U.S.?
Among various other bits of so-called ‘evidence’ in the lawsuit’s “Defendants Made Misleading Statements” section, those two memo sets are the most damaging ones the lawsuit offers. That’s it. That is literally the best this lawsuit or any other one advancing the ‘industry orchestrated / funded skeptics’ accusation has to offer.
Regarding the long-term promulgators of these worthless memos – notice what the source is for the online website showing these memo sets:
It’s cited no less than twenty times in this lawsuit: ClimateFiles.com, the ‘new’ website I detailed in my October 27, 2017 blog post, it’s the “platform” for the Climate Investigations Center …… which is operated by Kert Davies. The same man who ‘has no approval or influence’ over news from CLN/Climate Docket, who’s been disseminating the news about the “victory will be achieved” / “reposition global warming” memo sets going all the way back to the 1990s.
In the lawsuit’s attempt to claim the ICE PR campaign pushed disinformation, it unintentionally reinforced Davies’ longtime involvement. Its citation for the newspaper ads supposedly used in the ICE campaign doesn’t go to Climate Files (it could have, inadvertently revealing a hugely problematic situation with one of the alleged ads), it instead goes to a Union of Concerned Scientists Dossier report. Problem is, UCS isn’t the original holder of the ‘ICE documents,’ as I detailed in my July 9, 2015 blog post. They cited Greenpeace, the place where Kert Davies worked as an accuser against Exxon prior to 2013. Who provided Greenpeace with them? John Passacantando (remember that name, it’ll come up next). When he merged his Ozone Action group into Greenpeace USA, he brought the 50 pages of memos / ad scans – including the Ozone Action cover page with him. His top co-worker at Ozone Action was Kert Davies, but Ozone Action never said where they ‘obtained’ all of those pages.
Same primary pair of worthless ‘leaked memo’ sets used to indict skeptic climate scientists of colluding with industry executives, same Kert Davies, seen not only with John Passacantando back in the early days of the accusation, but also apparently in recent efforts to portray Exxon as a corrupt institution, with Davies technically popping up once again unnamed in this very latest lawsuit. As I detailed in my February 13, 2020 blog post, Passacantando dropped out of the public eye almost completely after 2011, only to resurface indirectly recently, exposed as an apparent mega-dollar funnel – nearly five million dollars so far if not more – to Davies’ Climate Investigations Center. In my March 30, 2020 blog post, I asked what all that cash bought.
Now for the big ongoing question: unlike the latest Honolulu v. Sunoco lawsuit following nine other boilerplate identical global warming lawsuits being handled by the Sher Edling law firm (with the fingerprints of Kert Davies seemingly on those), the Minnesota vs. API et al. case is being handled by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, headed by Keith Ellison. Did he or his staff come up with this whole memos-prove-disinformation-campaigns idea all by themselves ……. or does nearly $5 million buy ready-made global warming lawsuit templates that can be distributed to state Attorneys General,** along with talking points distributed to not only those AG offices, but also to any media outlets who never question anything about those ‘leaked memos, and also to so-called “reporters” who work for fellow accusation promulgators which are guaranteed to never question anything about those ‘leaked memos situations?
————————————————————————
** Guess what my next post will have to cover: 6/25/20, “DC sues oil companies over climate change”
Hey! Where’s my money?
Being a “climate denier” is the worst-paying “job”in the world.
Being a shill for the climate alarmists (like Loydo?), or a Dem-paid violent demonstrator for Antifa is much ore lucrative.
Maybe we should all switch sides and make a little money.
Hmmm…when is the next burning and looting kumbayah on by the way?
“…when is the next burning and looting kumbayah on…”?
November 4, 2020.
Oh, you are wrong, this coming weekend is going to be another.
Yea, and where’s my money? I don’t need an Exxon Ferrari, I would settle for anything shiny.
Here’s a brand new dime.
Show me the money!
https://youtu.be/1-mOKMq19zU
Keith Ellison has been tied to the Muslim Brotherhood by several authorities on this organization along with his obvious ties to the Democratic party. The MB is infamous for nuisance lawsuits whose sole purpose is to silence critics and get “donations” and out of court settlements, not to actually win. In my opinion is it likely that this is nothing more than another MB/Democratic corruption/extortion racket. They have no chance of winning and they know it but if they harass enough, they’ll get paid off with enough to make it worth their time.
As has been proven in the past, just keep repeating a lie until people believe it, which is made easier when you have a cabal of media, academia and subverted government employees to keep pushing it. Guess who funded the current DA for Minnesota election campaign? First name starts with a G and last with an S. Long past time to start punishing people who file and advocate for frivolous lawsuits.
“downplay the role that the consumption of their products played in causing this warming”
What was that role?
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/06/10/a-monte-carlo-simulation-of-the-carbon-cycle/
Thanks, clearly illustrates that the minor effect becomes the major/only effect if the actual major effects are assumed to have 0 SD.
Also, what “warming?”.
Minnesota is in the United States. The United States has been in a temperature cooling trend since the 1930’s.
If they had the science they wouldn’t have needed the lawsuits.
It is an old and proven tactics. At the beginning of World War II German soldiers in Polish uniforms attacked a German radio station – and then Germany declared war on Poland.
So, did Kert Davies write those memos?
Now that raises an interesting proposition: Would the American Left infiltrate an “enemy” organization and do things to cast it in a bad light? Is that by definition a “no brainer?”
I’ve seen the films. The entire “station” seems about as big as a card table. And, IIRR, the German “soldiers” were actually jailbirds pressed into service.
It’s even Curious’ier.
Germany immediately announced to the world that “they” had been invaded. That is what was reported in major newspapers. It took the New York Times two or three days before they reversed themselves. Even France and England, who had a treaty with Poland, delayed any response because they were unsure of the true facts.
Wait!
Maybe they do have the science.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/12/25/earth-day-wisdom/
Yikes, what a tangled web they weave, chock-full of lies and deception.
It’s what you do when the science doesn’t back your position.
Global warming isn’t a theory, it is a hypothesis. What those of us on the skeptical side realize is that if one must cherry pick or “adjust” data to support the AGW hypothesis, then it has failed.
Yes. Of course. The evidence of a correct theory is correct predictions. Contrary evidence is failed predictions. One does not have to be a climate scientist to see the AGW hypothesis’ long record of failures.
My own field is electrical engineering. Outside of the inapplicable quantum domain, our predictions have never failed. Not once, no matter how weird. That’s saying something, if you know that Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is actually only a theorem within Maxwell’s electrodynamics (for example, Maxwell’s wave equation for electromagnetic waves, properly interpreted — that the wave velocity is tied to no specific reference frame — mathematically proves Einsteins “Law Of Light”). Yet all of the incomprehensibly weird predictions of electrodynamics, including those of SR, have never been disproved. Correct theory: correct predictions.
AGW is clearly not a theory.
I knew that CAGW was a failed hypothesis circa 1985, and we published that conclusion in 2002.
Soon thereafter it became clear that CAGW was a deliberate scientific and political fraud.
This post is from 2002 and 2013:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/24/epic-failure-of-the-canadian-climate-model/#comment-1128201
Regarding alleged oil company collaboration in the Global Warming Scam:
I suggest that Shell and BP did collaborate in the CAGW scam from early days, and Exxon did not.
It appears that Exxon later caved in due to green propaganda and intense market pressure, especially in Europe.
Many of the members of Friends of Science are retired oil company scientists.
I am also an old oil man, but although I admire Friends of Science, I am not a member.
I strongly oppose CAGW alarmism and green energy fraud because it is irrational, immoral and destructive to humanity AND the environment.
It is truly regrettable, and even reprehensible that energy companies have capitulated to global warming hysteria and are sponsoring the very people that seek their destruction.
We wrote this in 2002 and have been proven correct to date:
DEBATE ON THE KYOTO ACCORD
Published by APEGA in the PEGG, reprinted by other professional journals, The Globe and Mail and La Presse,
by Sallie Baliunas, Tim Patterson and Allan MacRae, November 2002
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
On global warming:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
On green energy:
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
If the large energy companies want to regain the moral high ground, they should adopt these two statements as their policies on climate and energy.
Failure to do so will perpetuate the status quo – where the big energy companies, who did not originate the global warming scam but acquiesced to it, will unfairly receive most to the blame when it unravels.
And unravel it will, as natural global cooling resumes in the near future, and Excess Winter Mortality figures tragically climb in certain countries – a strong probability, in my opinion.
Agreed. Regarding the last Global Rush To Judgement, the ozone treaty — the Montreal Protocol, I did some engineering studies. One, using mid 2000s DOE data, showed that the use of replacement refrigerants, which have reduced THERMODYNAMIC efficiencies (meaning that the penalty comes off the top, irrespective of machine design improvements), by various estimates of 3 to 15%, using only a 3% decrease, showed that the wasted US annual energy would be about equal to a 1000 mile long coal train. One would think that a free press would alert the populace to such a huge penalty! (I’m not arguing that it was not worth it, IF skin cancers declined enough, BUT that the public should at least be informed.)
Global warming is real. Roman Warm Period and Mid Evil Warm Period, just to name two, were real.
Co2 induced, Co2 causes global warming, Co2 controls the climate, Co2 causes both warming and cooling or disruption (the latest term used) “but it is different now” is a unproven hypothesis.
I like the Mid Evil Warm Period lol
The End Evil Warm Period is when climate alarmists and liars get to meet their leader, Lucifer.
Lets not forget the modern warming that started at the end of the LIA and that will continue until the onset of the next cooling phase. It that just happened that the end of the LIA roughly coincided with the start of the Industrial Revolution. The question this raises is was the modern warming caused by the onset of the IR, or was it the warming out of the LIA that enabled the IR? Keep in mind that prior to the IR, mankind was at the mercy of nature, unlike now as a result of the IR, we no longer are.
Keith Ellison is a worthless douche. If ever there was a candidate and public figure for Me Too to bring down it would be him. Al Franken, another douche, did far less and Me Too got him to resign.
MN and it’s 2 biggest cities have been run by Democrats for a long time.
Check out what is happening in Minneapolis at the moment. The City Council have just voted to disband the Police, which they will replace with “Community Policing”. I fear fro the sanity of the inhabitants.
I was reading the other day about a Minneapolis community that has pledged to no longer call in the police.
The immediate result was a camp of about 300 homeless who took over a local park. Even locals admitted that they were afraid to let their children play in that park anymore.
Another local was quoted as regretting his decision to call the police after two young men shoved a gun in his face and ordered him to give them his car keys. He stated that by calling the police, he had put those young men’s lives at risk, all for a car.
The community wasn’t named, but I’m going to guess that the it’s major employer is a university.
“Another local was quoted as regretting his decision to call the police after two young men shoved a gun in his face and ordered him to give them his car keys. He stated that by calling the police, he had put those young men’s lives at risk, all for a car.”
A severe case of Stockholm Syndrome.
He should have shot both of them in their heads and THEN not called the police.
Powderhorn Park – a very “liberal” area. Most of the people I’ve met from there are unabashed socialists and quite frankly ignorant of history and human nature. The guy that regretted calling the police over an attempted car jacking didn’t even realize that had his car been stolen, his insurance company would not have paid out anything without a police report. Not only that, but those “kids” were either going to use it to joy ride in, or to use in the commission of a crime. Either way, that was a bigger risk to their safety, not to mention the general public’s, than being arrested by the police.
I agree that these are not good people BUT respectfully suggest that we should not use demeaning terms. They demean themselves without our help.
No Second Opinions allowed. Seems to be MN AG Ellison’s real thrust. Maybe the API should sue MN for their legal costs due to this attempt to deny them their 1st Amendment rights.
The Courts can get things wrong. O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake were acquitted. Stack a jury with people who can’t sort out facts from speculation and you get verdicts that are objectively incorrect.
And let’s face it, lots of people with very high IQ scores believe the climate catastrophe story. A ruling in the Netherlands resulted in a formal endorsement of the notion that governments are obliged to replace fossil fuels with green energy sources.
Look at all the clearly ridiculous verdicts regarding product safety. It’s always been easy to convince a jury to give a sympathetic plaintiff a big settlement, just because the jury feels sorry for them.
People tend to view big corporations as just large pots of money.
I agree except for the “very high IQ scores” part. No. When you find a highly intelligent person who “believes” that the AGW hypothesis is a theory, start looking for a hidden agenda. Chances are you’ll find one.
For example, I spent my career working with engineers, clearly a highly intelligent cohort. VERY FEW bought the AGW line, and of those that did, if one knew them personally, the conflicts were generally obvious.
The most dangerous AGW believers are the half-smart. There are more of them, and they may learn just enough to “be dangerous.” And then convince those with even less cognitive ability.
The biggest scientific disinformation campaign ever conceived has been perpetrated by the IPCC in order to misuse science to support the UNFCCC’s otherwise unsupportable agenda of global Marxism.
There is a huge conflict of interest here. The IPCC was set up to determine any risks involved in Human CO2 emissions. Not surprising then that it duly found them; as otherwise it would have been disbanded. Can’t have that can we?
The story evolves from there as rigorous agendas and policies have been developed via the UN/Davos Consensus Gang and acolytes to suppress any challenge. The templates for these being taken from the Marxist philosophies and practices.
These groups are pushing for a tobacco-like settlement that enriches the corporate legal network, green energy businesses, and the global push for control via socialist movements. First they run a misinformation scam for many years, teach the scam to hundreds of millions of students worldwide, then spring the lawsuits when public opinion is firmly in their court. It worked before and may work again. It is no surprise this comes out of Minnesota, the epicenter of BLM and Marxist ideals pushed to the mainstream. They are trying to Piggyback when so many corporations, governments, and the populous are sympathetic to this movement.
Please explain with statistical data in what way “warming” (if there was/is any) has harmed Minnesota.
Yes, you would think people in Minnesota would appreciate a little warmth, although, as you say, “if there is any”. Anybody got a Minnesota temperature chart handy?
Am I the only one who is way past being bored senseless by this same old same old crap?
The boring repetitiveness of the accusation talking points in these lawsuits, and in the accusation overall from Al Gore, Greenpeace, Desmog, etc over the last 20+ years overall is exactly the point I’m making. Exxon Mobil seems to want to win these by outlasting their accusers via an endless line of legal technicalities ruled in their favor. I’m hoping one of the other defendants will rise to the leadership opportunity by driving a stake through the heart of the accusation, exposing its fatal faults and who’s behind them. Notice the one memo targeting strategy on page 32 ( http://gelbspanfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MN-v-API-reposit.jpg ) of this lawsuit is the same targeting phrase Al Gore quoted in his 1992 “Earth in the Balance” book on its page 360 ( http://gelbspanfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ErintheB-360.jpg ). Gore may have known this entire time the memo set was worthless, and his whole legacy hangs in the balance if he did.
Russel, too many organisations including oil companies (which includes 4 oil and gas companies that I have worked for) have agreed that CO2 and climate change are a serious issue just too appear “good” corporate citizens and get alarmists off their back. They can’t take a stand anymore because of this silly, meek posturing – they have boxed themselves in. In the 4 oil companies a big majority of the engineers and geologists including me doesn’t buy the CAGW meme yet they had no say in the positions taken by their companies. Opinions were never sought from technical staff. The environment departments drove the acceptance policy. The companies deserve any grief they suffer. As I look around now I see so many other outfits that have adopted climate change policies – they can’t pull back from that position until lots of other companies do otherwise they will be the target of serious vilification. Much courage will be required from future board members (existing board members will not be the ones to do this).
I for one plan on remembering all of the companies that have spent the last month bending over backwards and throwing every principle they ever had under the bus in order to appease the BLM terrorists.
…”disinformation campaigns designed to purposefully downplay the role that the consumption of their products played in causing this warming, and since they profiteered from avoiding the costs of dealing with global warming”
Weather is becoming less extreme rather than more extreme as proven by a long declining trend in total cyclonic energy and a declining trend in severe tornadoes in spite of improved detection capabilities. May 2020 had fewer tornadoes than any May since 1970. So state AG’s should, first of all, be required to prove increasing costs due to extreme weather and discount for increased development and the increased value of property at risk.
Like rust in cars, socialism never sleeps.
The effect that rust has on a car is a good analogy to the effect that socialism has on society.
So, that’s why they moved from bullying in the courthouse to the streets of urban jungles, backed by 1%ers and major corporations, foreign and domestic, in a desperate attempt to force [sociopolitical] climate change, a progression to restore their favored order. Who will take a knee first?
Someone ask Ellison when he first realized he was using a harmful product and when he stopped.
Greenhouse effect IS the disinformation campaign. You’d have to be pretty stupid to believe it.
http://phzoe.com/2020/03/04/dumbest-math-theory-ever/
Let me know when someone other than yourself agrees with your “theory”.
My theory is less than a year old.
Give it some time. The smartest will come around to it. Fools will remain fools.
Yes, you are, and will remain so.
A year is plenty of time to convince people. The fact that you still can’t find anyone who agrees with you and can only insult those who don’t says more about you and your theory than you want to admit.
BTW, submit it as a paper if you have the courage. Don’t wait for the world to come knocking at your door.
Please tell me a theory that overturned dogma within a year.
Many people already agree with me.
Please keep insulting me though. It’s all that you can do.
Act a fool get treated as a fool.
Zoe, do you ever bother actually reading the stuff you respond to?
I asked you if you had found anybody who agreed with you. I also stated that a year was plenty of time to find that one person. I said nothing about over throwing dogma.
If that really is the best you can do, then no wonder you are the only person you have been able to convince.
BTW, the voices in your head don’t count.
I thought we didn’t believe in consensus science here. If the hypothesis is false, and I’m sure it is, you should be able to point out the error in the math.
Jorge,
Why do you think the hypothesis is false?
“error in the math”
Math is not physics. You can use wrong math to “show” me to be wrong, and then I’ll show the right math to the proper physics.
Math is not physics? Really?
No wonder you get both wrong.
Zoe,
I quote from your website….
“ Atmo = 350 and Atmo -> Surface = 324. So which came first, the chicken or the egg? This is nonsense. ”
You need to get your money back from whatever institution of higher education gave you and your buddy Joe your astrophysics degrees.
What’s the problem? You’re the one that believes you’re warm only because a blanket radiates 522 W/m^2 to your body. Most people think your body warms the blanket.
After ruminating on my arguments, they’ll understand the climate hoax is all about flipping geothetmal upside down into atmospheric downwelling radiation.
Smart people can’t belive they can be tricked so easily, so it will take them a while. They can make fun of me, until they realize the joke was on them.
Sadly, some will never realize it.
I’m still trying to get over her claim that the temperature of an object had nothing to do with how much energy had been pumped into that object.
The heat flux through an object is not how much energy is there. I’m sorry you’re not educable.
Except you weren’t measuring heat flux through an object, you were measuring heat flux into an object.. BTW, heat can’t move though an object without being in the object for some period of time.
Mark,
You can’t even accurately restate my position.
haha i loved her “experiment”
‘1) Person => | IR Camera
2) Person IR Camera
And repeats until “equilibrium”
Mocking the truth makes you look like a fool.
Wow, you really are a jackwagon! Mosher is the same kinda idjiot as you. Perhaps y’all are having a jealous tiff? THAT can be fun, for us.
2hotel9,
What are you talking about?
Zoe, you are the only person who believes in the stuff you peddle.
Mark,
Tell me, where is the highest geothermal heat flux in the world?
Obviously those places are already “mined” for geothermal energy. Now tell me, is the amount of electricity mined equal in accordance to the geothermal heat flux?
Seriously, why would companies mine geothermal energy when, according to people like you, the heat flux is very tiny compares to what you could get from solar panels?
Do you think companies are stupid when they try to extract energy from a place with 500 mW/m^2 ?
Look at how much energy they actually derive per surface area, and you will see the folly of your thought process.
Practicality time:
With everything going on right now…is this REALLY the best use of public funds? Especially in MN? Really?
Where is the Cost/benefit analysis? How did this get past the budget restrictions in the first place?
I mean seriously? SMH.
Get yourself a bucket of water and a heat gun. Fire the heat gun at the surface of the water. Check how much the water warms. You will find it hardly warms at all.Surface tension blocks the passage of physical heat through the surface of water.
Errr, no.
Get yourself a lake with trees around the edges. On a sunny day, have a swim in the lake. Check how the water is warmer in the sunny areas compared to the shaded areas. You will find a notable difference. Sunlight warms the unshaded water.
When the best you can come up with is an invalid analogy, it’s no wonder that you come up with nothing but invalid results.
A grand total of nobody has made the claim that LW radiation heats water.
SW radiation heats water, and the temperature of the air plays a role in how quickly that heat can escape the water.
“How would any executive at Exxon know of those words when they were buried in a landfill somewhere in the eastern U.S.?”
They couldn’t have known about them before they were in the landfill? Your statement just doesn’t have any probitive value.
Please re-read my piece and follow the links. The memo subset ‘evidence’ with the “reposition global warming” strategy recommendation that’s falsely attributed to the ICE PR campaign in this lawsuit was a REJECTED proposal, seen only by a maybe three people or less inside the actual ICE PR campaign, and that subset was literally thrown in the garbage, I have that corroborated by the one person how directly handled that proposal. There is no possible way it could have been retained at Western Fuels and passed onto Exxon administrators to be used later as an effective guideline to follow. The probative value of that fact is potentially deadly to Al Gore’s credibility regarding his knowledge of that memo set.
The Grievance Industry and the Tort Bar of course are huge political campaign supporters of Democrats. As the tobacco and asbestos shake-down billions monies dry up and new lawyers arrives to replace the aging millionaire lawyers for that earlier generation of tort-thieves, the tort-thieves are now looking for new industries to plunder. The Green-blob offers the way, funded with money from the GreenSlime likes of Lil’Stinky Steyer, Mini-Mike Bloomberg, and the Rockefeller Br-ooze.
Show me the money!
https://youtu.be/1-mOKMq19zU
Goes limp? From hockey stick to…
I never got a cent for being skeptical. I do it on a voluntary basis.
The API (American Petroleum Institute) seems a strange organization to sue. They are an industry trade association. They don’t appear to have very deep pockets. They exist on their members dues. They don’t have a product for sale. It’s hard to see how, even if they win, MN would get any money from them.
Does this mean that the MN AG has some other objective besides money, or is he just not very smart?
Good question. API is low-hanging fruit with less megadollars than Exxon / Koch Industries to battle lawsuits? Plus, since that so-called 1998 API “victory will be achieved…” memo was a rejected proposal, it might never have been kept on file, thus the current API administrators might have no clue what it is. The author who wrote it is dead, so perhaps the mentality of the handlers behind this lawsuit are hoping API might just take the easy way out — settlement — rather than figure out what this lawsuit is all about. The first outfit to settle would be a major foot in the door for enviro-activists to go after more scalps.
Or MN AG Keith Ellison is just not very smart.
The starting point to this is to consider the assertion “Minnesota has harmfully warmed due to Defendants’ actions”. Thus the Claimant has to prove (i) That Minnesota has warmed (ii) that warming is harmful, and (iii) it is due to the Defendants’ actions.
The first aspect is untrue. Minnesota has not warmed. If one looks at the USHCN station data, it will show that Minnesota has not warmed, and that Minnesota was warmer in the 1930s.
As regards the second aspect, since there has been no warming it cannot have harmfully warmed. But even had there been warming, that warming has not been harmful. Life expectancy has increased, crop production has increased, etc, so what is the evidence of harm?
As regards the third aspect, the Defendants’ actions could at most be contributory, and contributory to a small part. But of course, to prove that it is contributory, proof of causation is required, and there is no such proof, merely speculation.
The first quote starts “Minnesota has harmfully warmed due to Defendants’ actions … “.
This was incorrectly stated. It should have read “Minnesota has helpfully warmed due to Defendants’ actions … “. Maybe even “very helpfully”. There are hundreds of research articles showing that warm and hot are much better for health of all life than cool and cold.
I’m hoping that this case goes to court in the middle of winter.
“Minnesota has harmfully warmed.”
Stop me if you’ve heard this.
Oley Olafson had a farm on the border of Iowa and Minnesota. Whenever the tax Iowa collectors came by, he would claim his farm was in Minnesota, and–you guessed it–whenever the Minnesota tax collectors came by, he told them his farm was in Iowa.
One day the respective tax collectors compared notes, and decided to pay for a survey. Turns out the farm was in Iowa, which made Oley quite happy. His friend Sven Svenson asked him why. “Vell,” says Oley, “now I don’t have to put up vit tos lousy Minnesota vinters no more!”
Ya, sure.
“we reposition global warming as theory rather than fact”
It is a theory and not a fact.
End of story.
Or, it is the very thing that should finally END the story of the accusation that “Big Coal & Oil industry executives paid skeptic scientists ‘shills’ to ‘reposition global warming as theory rather than fact’ in disinformation campaigns, when all parties involved knew the science of catastrophic man-caused global warming was long settled.” Going all the way back to 1991 ( gelbspanfiles.com/?p=1480 ), the greenie mobsters, including Al Gore, decided to use that phrase as smoking gun corruption evidence, comparing it to the tobacco industry’s “Doubt is our product” leaked memo ( http://gelbspanfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/AnIncTr-Reposti-Doubt2.jpg ). If the core operators of that mob knew the “reposition global warming” memo was something nobody in the fossil fuel industry even heard of and/or operated under, then that mob faces massive trouble, in much the same way as the efforts to oust President Trump hinge entirely on that worthless Steele Dossier.
While a good thing, the elephant in the room is constantly establishing, re-establishing, re-stating the narrative. Go count the headlines and articles announcing these suits then count the number of articles like this one. Then go examine all the Mann libel actions.
It’s the narrative that is continually advanced and the impact on the political world. In the years since 2009’s “Climategate” there has been a huge reduction in “renewable” energy projects so that resources are put to more important uses? Laughable. Are politicians, in fact, generally expanding programs to eliminate Co2? Large corporate industry “giants” doing all things “renewable” and “green”.
Yet “Green” parties or those with only the “green” agenda constitute a tiny, tiny minority of voters. It’s the narrative. The Greta’s, the Keith Ellison’s and the media’s drumbeat over decades that is expanding and winning. Even the UK majority party leaders are calling for “net zero” emissions by 2050. As if the UK, given their NHS continual crisis, has the resources.
And, to date, there is only the “Band of Skeptics” (BoS)that pose any real counter balance in the political arena. The adage of the squeaky wheel applies here and the BoS, sadly, is well greased.
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Minnesota/Places/minneapolis-temperatures-by-month-average.php
Read the charts on the link.
Case closed.
From the plaintiff’s viewpoint, winning would be great, however, this is lawfare. Death by 1000 cuts.
It’s not their money so they really don’t care about the expenses to taxpayers.
But if they can bankrupt the oil companies, that would be a win as well.
They are playing the long game, not necessarily the quick win.
” however, this is lawfare. Death by 1000 cuts.” Which is why the practitioners thereof need to be personally and directly targeted.
Why do the BLM people insist (mostly) on removing immunity for POLICE (not lawyers) and not for JUDGES (lawyers), and Congress?
Do you somehow support immunity?
Ahem.
Not sayin anything, just sayin…
Who does Mike Bloomberg have working in Ellison’s office?