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?
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** Guess what my next post will have to cover: 6/25/20, “DC sues oil companies over climate change”
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?