Oreskes’ Embrace of the “Victory Will Be Achieved” Memos, Redux, in Honolulu v Sunoco – Big, big mistake. – Watts Up With That?

From The Gelpspan Files

Russell Cook

The widely shared Associated Press news on July 28th was that a hearing in Hawaii was scheduled to take place the next day on whether the Honolulu v Sunoco global warming damages lawsuit should be tossed out because the ‘statute of limitations’ on the case had somehow run out. The defendants’ law firms legal technicality minutiae maneuvers from all their prior 8+ months of effort to get it out of state court and into Federal court didn’t work, so it appears they are trying a different maneuver … but in ABC News’ July 28 regurgitation of the AP story, which I fortuitously screencaptured on July 29th, showed how Naomi Oreskes’ name just could not stay out of the overall situation. I say “fortuitous” because one day later when I reopened both the ABC “Honolulu’s lawsuit against fossil fuel companies leads climate change legal fight” story and the AP original version to copy words out of them – poof – Oreskes has vanished from both. But what’s seen in the internet cannot be unseen. What’s going on right there with that erasure? Luckily, someone smarter than me preserved an Internet Archive version of the original AP story, with the two Oreskes paragraphs intact.

Not an especially bright idea for the AP to say Oreskes had submitted an Opposition filing against the defendants’ ‘statute of limitations’ maneuver; dumber yet is to bury that fact like it never happened. However, that’s only the tip of the proverbial iceberg in this particular new situation.

Pure “Streisand Effect” for me. Readers here at GelbspanFiles will remember we are talking about that Naomi Oreskes, she of her self-proclaimed ‘expertise’ – be sure to click on this screencapture image here on that – concerning ‘particular smoking gun evidence’ of the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to deceive the public. I already detailed the fatal problem within her 2021 Friend of the Court brief for Honolulu, so upon reading that she’d very recently filed something new on this case, I wanted to see how she spoke of ye olde “reposition global warming” memos, the set that basically helped to launch her ‘industry accuser’ speaking career back in late 2007-2008.

Uhhh … Houston, we have a problem.

For any new readers arriving at my blog, I’ll explain that the problem surrounds the fact that Naomi Oreskes always was purely a one-trick pony when it came to providing so-called ‘evidence’ that the fossil fuel industry ran disinformation campaigns. The notorious (it turns out, never-implemented) “reposition global warming” memos, hand-in-glove with the notorious “Chicken Little” newspaper advertorial (which, it turns out, was never actually published anywhere) wasn’t merely the best evidence she had for her accusation, it was essentially the only evidence she had in her 2007-2008 “You Can Argue With the Facts” traveling lecture presentation act (I dissected that presentation here point-by-point). Who knows why it was left out of her 2010 “Merchants of Doubt” book, but she felt compelled to repeat that accusation while mentioning her then-upcoming debut of that book.

It wasn’t until the first of her Friends of the Court briefs in 2019 that she finally mentioned the second-best ‘evidence’ the enviro-activists have about ‘industry disinfo campaigns, namely the (it turns out, never-implemented) “victory will be achieved” memos. This strange 12-year omission of hers – when so many others were mentioning the “victory” memos – struck me as being inexplicable, and I detailed more about it in my Jan 2025 “Naomi Oreskes’ Embracing of the ‘Victory Will Be Achieved’” memos blog post. I brought up the situation at that time because I’d been alerted to one of her co-authored 2019 publications . . . . . which entirely omitted the “reposition global warming” memos. I thought it was really out of character for her to do, worthy of deeper investigation of why she chose to do that. Why on Earth would she not say anything about her “best” evidence when she led with that “reposition” accusation for the prior dozen years?

That question needs to be asked again regarding her May 2025 Declaration submitted to the Hawaii court. She never mentions anything related to her most beloved of accusations within her 42-page Declaration, which is otherwise the cornerstone of the 4-element accusation overall seen in the Sher Edling boilerplate copy lawsuits, including Honolulu: Bam, bam, bam, bam. Sher Edling boilerplate copy lawsuits are just that predictable.

Despite being on retainer with Sher Edling as – no doubt – their go-to expert on ‘industry disinfo campaigns’ (she’s not a climate scientist nor has any climate science expertise on that issue), she only brings up the last two in her Declaration:

• ye olde “victory” memos accusation (again, never implemented) in the basic all-Declarations section, print page 5, PDF file page 12
• in her own specific Declaration, print page 18, PDF file page 45 — while quoting different sentences, it is nevertheless the same memo set, and by virtue of never being implemented, it is worthless as evidence to prove industry-orchestrated deception/disinformation campaigns happened in the past or are ongoing today. And who’s her source there? Not just any old ‘climate files’ website, that Climate Files site, formerly headed by that Kert Davies, whose 2013-era Greenpeace upload of the “victory” memos is disguised in Sher Edling lawsuit filings by placing the file under an innocuous-looking “DocumentCloud” internet address location. That Kert Davies, who traces back prior to Greenpeace to the old Ozone Action group which is the place that gave ye olde “reposition global warming” memos their first, continuing media traction. Doesn’t matter whether people use Oreskes’ preferred Climate Files link version or the Greenpeace upload version, it’s the same worthless memo set.
• in her own specific Declaration, on the same page immediately following the above “victory” memos accusation, Oreskes falsely attempts to tie skeptic climate scientist Dr Willie Soon to those memos. Who’s her sources for that accusation? Footnote #63 goes to the Feb 21, 2015 New York Times “Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher.” Who was the NYT‘s source? The not-identified-as-previously-working-for-Greenpeace Kert Davies. Footnote #69 goes to the Feb 21, 2015 UK Guardian “Work of prominent climate change denier was funded by energy industry.” Who was the Guardian‘s source? Kert Davies. Who will gladly explain at length how the accusation is totally false? Dr Willie Soon.

  Notice that Oreskes’ just-prior footnote #68 is for an Amy Westervelt Washington Post article which just tangentially mentions Dr Soon. But this happens to be that Amy Westervelt, whose podcast source for ye olde “victory” memos was Kert Davies, and whose source for ye olde “reposition global warming” memos was . . . . . . . . . wait for it . . . . . … Kert Davies. Oreskes’ footnote #67 goes to a George Monbiot 2006 Guardian piece tangentially about Fred Seitz. But this happens to be that George Monbiot, who three years later wrote about ye olde “reposition global warming” memos, and who’s his source about them there? Naomi Oreskes, who, contrary to what he claimed, never actually made memo set available online anywhere.

At Davies’ Climate Files site, the literal best ‘evidence’ he’s ever had for ‘industry disinfo campaigns” is the accusation surrounding the “reposition global warming” memos. Second-best has always been the “victory” memos – to this day, his Twitter/X account header photo features his Greenpeace-era degraded photocopy scan image. It needs to be further noted here in connection with the central 4 element accusation about ‘industry disinfo campaigns’ that Kert Davies and his former Greenpeace / former Ozone Action boss were pitching the idea of accusing Dr Willie Soon of taking industry bribes to at least one state-level Attorney General’s office before any of the current “ExxonKnew” lawsuits were filed.

Davies’ accusations about ‘industry-orchestrated disinfo campaigns’ is meritless; by default, anyone relying on him is pushing meritless accusations based on his material. As I pointed out in my two-prior blog posts, it appears the BBC has inadvertently / indirectly acknowledged that there was a fatal fault in their own reliance on Kert Davies for his “reposition global warming” accusation material.

By utterly omitting that same “reposition global warming” accusation in her May 2025 Opposition filing for Honolulu v Sunoco, is Naomi Oreskes also inadvertently / indirectly acknowledging that there is a fatal fault with that accusation and – similar to the BBC – hoping nobody spots this? After all, re-emphasizing the problem via this screencapture out of her 2022 Amicus on behalf of Honolulu, it was previously her killer offering of ‘evidence.’

That’s not to say, however, that the collective 195-page collection of Declarations against the fossil fuel defendants was devoid of any reference to the “reposition global warming” accusation. But the one instance of it answers no questions, it raises more questions.

The solitary instance is within Dr Anthony Pratkanis’ Declaration; he’s a self-described “experimental social psychologist” who says he was asked by the plaintiffs to describe what disinformation campaigns were. Five pages later within a lengthy paragraph of fifteen supposed examples of disinformation campaigns, there it is, with not a single word explaining what the campaigns was, where it occurred, or what was disinforming in it. Just sentences above that at the end of his prior page, who does Dr Pratkanis imply is a go-to source on fossil fuel industry disinformation campaigns? Naomi Oreskes. Not helping Dr Pratkanis’ own situation here at all is that he also signed his Declaration as being correct, under penalty of perjury no less.

He may sincerely believe what he said right there was true, where it’s quite possible he never questioned a thing about it. The real question in this situation is whether Naomi Oreskes believes all of what she says is true. When she claims “Exxon knew” as far back as the ’70s about the use of their products causing global warming, does she know that cannot possibly be true in the face of all the reports back then about imminent global cooling? Her own July 2004 science conference presentation – offered just months before her big splash into the climate issue – undermines her present-day assertion. Is she simply that forgetful? Does she know that her accusation against the late Dr S Fred Singer is so false that it possibly strays into outright defamation?

Meanwhile, do we have some kind of hidden trend here? BBC erasing the “reposition global warming” phrase from their specific podcast report title? Oreskes omitting any mention of that accusation in her Opposition submittal to the Hawaii Court? The Associated Press erasing Oreskes’ significant appearance in their news piece about the Honolulu v Sunoco lawsuit hearing?

Just askin.’