DeSmogBlog’s PR flacks and propagandists

Though I’d heard the name before, Anthony Watts drew my attention to DeSmogBlog in a post about a mini-kerfuffle over copyright infringement. Apparently DeSmog’s Kevin Grandia, rather oddly and embarrassingly, attempted to inject himself into the issue - presumably for purposes of self-promotion.

Anyway, Anthony piqued my interest in DeSmog. Who are these people?

From DeSmogBlog’s ‘About’ page we learn that it’s founders and contributors are Canadian PR professionals with law and/or writers’ credentials:

The DeSmogBlog team is led by Jim Hoggan, founder of James Hoggan & Associates, one of Canada's leading public relations firms. By training a lawyer ... a Board Member of the David Suzuki Foundation.

... benefactor John Lefebvre, a lawyer, internet entrepreneur and past-president of NETeller

... Editorial Assistance on the blog is provided by renowned author Ross Gelbspan

...Richard Littlemore, an award-winning science and magazine writer, a speechwriter and a senior counsellor at Hoggan.

...Kevin Grandia oversees the project as a whole and manages the social media and online marketing components.

Their mission is to "desmog" what they claim are deliberate attempts by unscrupulous people to "intentionally subvert the public awareness" about man-made global warming. This, in a way, explains some of their zeal. DeSmog is a bunch of PR flacks fighting what they see is a righteous propaganda war against an evil AGW ‘denialist’ PR machine:

... Although all public relations professionals are bound by a duty to not knowingly mislead the public. [Maybe, but in practice they know the opposite is closer to the truth.]

... some have executed comprehensive campaigns of misinformation on behalf of industry clients ... Lately, these fringe players have turned their efforts to creating confusion about climate change.

And, moreover, they see vast conspiracies at work.

This PR campaign could not be accomplished without the compliance of media as well as the assent and participation of leaders in government and business.
[Uh huh, even though nearly every media outlet and government on the planet,
(not to mention many an oil company), has lined up four-square behind the
campaign with billions upon billions of dollars to "fight climate change."]

The ‘DeSmoggers’ apparently are convinced that these climate change obfuscators are so evil, that even knowing full-well that man-made CO2 will surely destroy the planet and kill millions of people including their own children and grandchildren, they will do everything in their power to ensure that mankind keeps on pumping more of the deadly gas into the atmosphere. That’s really some claim when you think about it.

Whatever, the intrepid propaganda super-hero DeSmoggers have joined the evil enemy in battle. Anything and everything that might possibly contradict the official UNIPCC (or worse, James Hansen’s) global warming orthodoxy must be stopped. Any and all skeptical views are part of an evil plot hatched by the oil industry and fronted by its paid agents at the Heartland Institute. For example:

Richard Littlemore reviewing Lawrence Solomon’s "The Deniers": It's harder still to think that [Solomon] could then continue to pursue his desperate argument that a legitimate debate still exists about the central question of anthropogenic global warming. [What’s really hard to imagine is how Littlemore, after reading "The Deniers", could still insist that a legitimate debate does not exist. His is a severe case of denialism.]

Conclusion? DeSmogBlog must be in the pay of big-enviro.