Case #13482. Fake debunking of the Oregon Petition.
The Oregon Petition (1998) against climate alarmism has been signed by 17,000+ qualified scientists. The same petition, circulated in 2007, have been signed by 31,000+ qualified scientists and other professionals. This is truth.
Climate alarmists, aided and abetted by non-critical media first, and by fake fact-checkers (like Snopes) and Google later, have spread and continue spreading various falsehoods about the Petition. The most sensational lie was that the Petition signers have not been verified, and included Spice Girls and other fictitious characters. This is not true, as explained in the email from Dr. Arthur Robinson. How could such lie receive so wide circulation?
Gradually. In 1998, the mainstream media did not intentionally publish fake news. So Ozone Action, now Greenpeace USA, started by publishing a letter in the Letters section of The Washington Times on April 24, 1998, claiming that one of the Spice Girls was among the signers. In a week, on May 1, The Washington Post quoted Dennis Kusinich (D-OH) as saying he had found her and another three band members among the signers:
There was one name, though, that caught Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich’s eye. He noted the petition was signed by a Dr. Jeri Halliwel {sic}. “Perhaps she is a scientist,” Kucinich said, but she’s also much better known as Ginger Spice of the Spice Girls. Kucinich said later he was still checking for Posh, Baby and Scary and was “heartened to see their involvement.” “
Maybe I’ll join them as Old Spice,” he said, when they show up in Cleveland this summer.
I don’t know who invented this lie – WaPo or Kucinich. But this unsourced and untruthful passage from The Washington Post has been used to repeat this claim on the leftist and climate alarmist websites, Wikipedia, and mainstream media. The Connolley Problem on GelbspanFiles addresses more false claims about the Petition. Thanks to Russel Cook, publisher of GelbspanFiles, for the thorough investigation of this and other cases of old lies of climate alarmists.
Speaking of the corporations participating in this scam: Google and other public companies breached their fiduciary duty and defrauded shareholders. Publicly funded universities misappropriated public funds. Presumptive “charities” violated tax laws.