The Guardian seems to be going overboard on the legal approach to saving the planet.

It’s not enough that 80% of the world’s population believes that we’re faced with a climate emergency, and that every government, every international agency, and every scientific body on the planet is determined to eradicate the danger of climate catastrophe. Having suborned the scientists, the media, academia and every political party on the planet, the Guardian is now calling in the lawyers. 

Today they launch a new series of articles under the heading “Climate Crimes – investigating how the fossil fuel industry contributed to the climate crisis and lied to the American public. ”

“Climate Crimes” is an offshoot of theguardianorg, 

a “charitable organisation” whose mission is “to advance and inform public discourse around the most pressing issues of our time” and “support projects aimed at strengthening the capacity of independent news organisations to .. create sustainable business models.”

Among their “partners” are; Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Aga Khan Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Oak Foundation. Other contributors include: Abby Rockefeller, the Rockefeller Family Foundation, the Jewish Communal Fund, the Houston Jewish Community Foundation, and Zipporah Schefrin. (I mention Zipporah because of the odd name, and sure enough, Google knows only the one, and a great lady she seems to be, having given generously to the Brooklyn Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Metropolitan Museum. Only thing is, Zipporah died in 2011, and is in no position to donate money to a good cause like theguardianorg.)

Among the journalistic projects that theguardianorg has supported are:

– Climate Change in the US: the dangers and the solutions

– Environment, climate change, and energy reporting at Guardian US 

– Antiracism and America

– Age of Extinction

– Feminist Economics, Genderqueer generation

– This Land is Your Land

(I checked outthe latter, and, no, it’s not about Palestine, which presumably doesn’t figure as one of “the most pressing issues of our time.”)

Their “sustainable business model” seems to involve siphoning money off dead American billionaires (plus the Aga Khan and Bill & Melinda Gates) to pay for the contributions of stringers who parrot exactly the same garbage as the Guardian’s “ten or eleven” (ex-editor Rusbridger’s estimate) environmental journalists used to do on regular salaries. And to do this they’ve set up a charitable organisation which employs eight full-time staff. Well, if it’s sustainable, it must be good – as long as it lasts.

Relevant Aside: Every Guardian article I read has appended to it a homily such as the following:

… as you join us today from France, we have a small favour to ask. You’ve read 1537 articles in the last year [sometimes the number is 340, or 621, but the Graun was never very good with figures] making you one of our top readers globally. […]With no shareholders or billionaire owner, we and set our own agenda, and provide trustworthy journalism that’s free from commercial and political influence, offering a counterweight to the spread of misinformation.

“Free from commercial and political influence?” The Guardian’s unique selling point is that, instead of being financed by shareholders or a billionaire owner, it’s financed by dozens of billionaire owners. The people behind the foundations financing Guardian journalism, from the Aga Khan to dear Zipporah Schefrin, to the Bill (ex Bill and Melinda) and Melinda (ex Melinda and Bill) Foundations all have this in common – that they’re all stinking rich. I mean, beyond-the-dreams-of-Croesus, free-to-bend-the-frail-organs-of-civil-society-to-their-will stinking rich. If that’s “free from commercial and political influence,” then I’m a Russian nihilist and there’s nothing to be done but to assassinate the sympathique idealistic young multi-ethnic staff of theguardianorg before they can do any real harm.

Where was I?

Oh yes, among theguardianorg‘s projects is the Guardian’s new series of articles under the heading of “Climate Crimes.” Climate Crimes kicked off its Rockefeller-financed independent journalism with six articles, all published at 8am this morning, one of them being this explanatory introduction:

“Climate crimes: a new series investigating big oil’s role in the climate crisis – A new Guardian series examines attempts to hold the fossil-fuel industry accountable for the havoc they have created.”

Under an illustration of a jerrycan of “gasoline” belching smoke, attached to a pair of handcuffs (wt f***ing f?) the unsigned article begins:

As the impacts of the climate crisis multiply across the US, from intensified drought and wildfires in the west to stronger hurricanes in the east, a question is echoing ever louder: who should be held responsible? According to an unprecedented number of lawsuits filed by US cities and states that are currently making their way through the court system, the answer is fossil fuel companies. The lawsuits marshal a sweeping array of well-established facts that detail how for decades, major petroleum corporations knew that burning fossil fuels wreaked havoc on the environment. Industry elites heard dire warnings from their own scientists who predicted the urgency of the climate crisis nearly 60 years ago. 

“Nearly 60 years ago” suggests to me circa 1962, but the linked article refers to an article from 1958, more than a decade before scientists started worrying about global cooling. And the “dire warnings from their own scientists” were about the now well-known side effects of our fossil fuel economy, namely smog, pollution of rivers, etc. with much honest discussion of oxides of nitrogen and sulphur, ozone, etc.

The Guardian is linking to an honest scientific paper by oil company scientists attempting in 1958 to assess the dangers of pollution from carbon-based products, and suggesting (falsely) that it is hiding the dangers of CO2. The article never mentions CO2, or the climate, or global warming. It attempts honestly, (and no doubt with the interests of its employers in mind) to tackle a real problem. 

The Guardian’s systematic lying about the sources it links to recalls the efforts of the Nazis to systematically bend a tired, boring anti-Semitic strain of German neo-Darwinist thought to the service of their fantasies. There’s an Enemy, and it’s been Corrupting Our Politics for Too Long. 

Climate Hysteria, as presented at the Guardian, has nothing in common with Fascism, which was an aggressive assertion of national power, but much in common with the roots of National Socialism – which was the reaction of a highly educated middle class to their humiliation on the international stage. What’s the point of being among the most sophisticated beings on the planet (in Berlin or Vienna in 1930, or London or New York in 2021) if the Poles or Czechs (or Afghans or Chinese) don’t respect you?

This post was originally to be about two of the introductory articles in the Climate Crime series, namely:

By Mark Hertsgaard 

and

By Chris McGreal

An analysis of these two articles will follow soon. Note that the key document cited in the above articles to establish the guilt of the companies who have provided us with fuel, lubricants, and plastics for the past century or more is by Cook, Lewandowsky, Oreskes and Maibach. At least three of these four authors are proven liars. Any prosecution based on evidence such as this should be guaranteed to fail in any court on the planet. We need to make sure this happens.