California law firm Sher Edling received more than $3 million in unreported dark money to push high-profile climate litigation on behalf of dozens of Democratic-led cities and states, according to a Monday congressional report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Sher Edling, the Senate Commerce Committee and House Oversight Committee report found, received $2.9 million last year from the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, a shadowy group managed by the New Venture Fund.
Because the contributions were made in 2023, the New Venture Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based dark money organization, isn’t required to disclose them until it files its next annual 990 form with the IRS in mid-November.
Sher Edling also received a previously unreported check worth $235,000 in 2022 from the Tides Foundation, a grantmaking organization that wired a staggering $667 million to dozens of progressive causes in 2022, its most recent tax filings show.
The newly uncovered funds shed light on how powerful progressive interests continue to work hand in hand with Democrats to punish oil and gas companies.
Sher Edling was founded in 2016 to take up risky first-of-their-kind lawsuits against the oil and gas industry, accusing the industry of causing global warming and arguing it is financially responsible for extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes.
Most of Sher Edling’s cases are working their way through state courts, even as the oil industry has pushed for them to be litigated in federal courts. If successful, the suits could force oil companies to pay billions of dollars in climate damages to local and state governments.
Sher Edling would receive a large portion of that settlement money, according to its legal services contracts.
As 501(c)(3) nonprofits, the New Venture Fund and Tides Foundation aren’t legally required to disclose their donors. Together, the two groups received $1.3 billion in contributions and grants from anonymous donors in 2022 alone.
As a result, it’s largely unclear who exactly employed the organizations to send grant money to Sher Edling.
Since it was founded in 2016, Sher Edling has agreed to represent dozens of states and cities in climate-related cases, including Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Baltimore, and Honolulu.
In the cases, Democratic prosecutors have argued the oil and gas industry is responsible for global warming and has deceived consumers about the downstream impacts of their petroleum products for decades.
Critics have blasted the litigation, labeling it a backdoor effort to bankrupt oil and gas companies and peg the industry for local emissions. Still, activists say the lawsuits are a critical part of the broader effort to curb reliance on fossil fuels and boost green energy.
“The Committees’ investigation nevertheless revealed left-wing organizations have funded and are continuing to fund the firm’s anti-energy lawfare,” the bicameral GOP report issued Monday concluded.
“Such funding raises important concerns Congress should consider, like whether there should be transparency in third party litigation funding or restrictions on ‘nonprofit’ funds’ donations to for-profit companies.”
“Elected officials in Congress, as well as the general public, should pay close attention to how organizations, such as those detailed within this memo, are able to exercise their influence over the policies and regulatory environment impacting critical industries and consumers caught in the balance,” it added.
Including the funding uncovered in the report, Sher Edling has raised a total of nearly $14 million from dark money nonprofits since 2017.
While that funding has come entirely from the Collective Action Fund for Accountability and the Tides Foundation, some of it can, in turn, be traced to the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The sources of these groups’ funding remain unknown.
The report is the latest development in a yearlong investigation into Sher Edling and its funding mechanism led by Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.).
Cruz initiated the probe after vetting Ann Carlson, President Joe Biden’s then-nominee to lead the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in early 2023.
Carlson failed to disclose that she had provided pro bono legal services to Sher Edling. Carlson, it was later revealed, secretly raised money for Sher Edling and helped recruit plaintiffs for the firm to represent in court.
Read rest at Free Beacon
Those who oppose Fossil Fuels should go live in a cave or Grass Hut for a Year and see what its like it would surprise them as well as getting them on some fake news program
I’ve emailed Sher Edling in the past with the data at the link below:
https://www.patriotaction.us/showthread.php?tid=2711
… so they absolutely know they’re creating nuisance climate lawsuits based upon CAGW, which is predicated upon mathematical fraudery (a misuse of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation in Energy Balance Climate Models (EBCMs) which assumes emission to 0 K and thus artificially inflates radiant exitance of all calculated-upon objects and thus conjures “backradiation” out of thin air), relies upon rampant and continual violations of the fundamental physical laws (backradiation cannot exist because energy cannot spontaneously flow up an energy density gradient) and bolstered via ‘adjustment’ of the data to align the temperature trend with the trend in CO2 concentration.
USHCN Temperature Adjustments Vs. Atmospheric CO2
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/screenhunter_3233-oct-01-22-59.gif
Note the R^2 value of 0.9866727231… a statistical impossibility implying that CO2 overwhelmingly drives surface temperature.
Except the un-‘adjusted’ data shows a very different story:
Correlation of US Temperature Anomaly Vs. Atmospheric CO2
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/screenhunter_3332-oct-05-05-191.gif
Note the R^2 value of 0.0007728464… meaning CO2 has an immeasurably small effect upon surface temperature.
And that tiny R^2 value is largely attributable to the change in the lapse rate as CO2 concentration changes:
(CO2) 11.683426182319 K km-1 * 5.105 km * 0.000001 = 0.0000596438906607385 K ppm-1
(CO2) 11.683426182319 K km-1 * 5.105 km * 0.000430 = 0.0256468729841176 K
But wait! We also have to account for the atoms and molecules which that CO2 displaces. We’ll do the calculations for the three most-prevalent atomic or molecular species.
N2 | 28.0134 g mol-1 | 29.12 J mol-1 K-1 | 9.4339738283240 K km-1
(N2) 430 ppm * 0.780761158 = 335.72729794 ppm
(N2) 780761.158 ppm + 335.72729794 ppm = 781096.88529794 ppm
(N2) 9.433973828324 K km-1 * 5.105 km * 0.780761158 = 37.6017980884478 K
(N2) 9.433973828324 K km-1 * 5.105 km * 0.78109688529794 = 37.6179668616258 K
(N2) 37.6179668616258 K – 37.6017980884478 K = 0.016168773178002 K warming
O2 | 31.9988 g mol-1 | 29.38 J mol-1 K-1 | 10.680770320623 K km-1
(O2) 430 ppm * 0.20944121395198 = 90.0597219993514 ppm
(O2) 209441.21395198 ppm + 90.0597219993514 ppm = 209531.273673979 ppm
(O2) 10.680770320623 K km-1 * 5.105 km * 0.20944121395198 = 11.4198518271666 K
(O2) 10.680770320623 K km-1 * 5.105 km * 0.209531273673979 = 11.4247623634523 K
(O2) 11.4247623634523 K – 11.4198518271666 K = 0.00491053628570093 K warming
Ar | 39.948 g mol-1 | 20.7862 J mol-1 K-1 | 18.846929895790 K km-1
(Ar) 430 ppm * 0.00934 = 4.0162 ppm
(Ar) 934 ppm + 4.0162 ppm = 938.0162 ppm
(Ar) 18.84692989579 K km-1 * 5.105 km * 0.00934 = 0.898634810282194 K
(Ar) 18.84692989579 K km-1 * 5.105 km * 0.009380162 = 0.902498939966408 K
(Ar) 0.902498939966408 K – 0.898634810282194 K = 0.0038641296842139 K warming
0.0256468729841176 K – 0.016168773178002 – 0.004910536285700930 K – 0.0038641296842139 K = 0.000703433836200771 K.
Removing all CO2 would decrease the lapse rate (and thus surface temperature) by 0.000703433836200771 K. Thus the current CO2 concentration only increases the lapse rate (as compared to 0 ppm CO2) by 0.000703433836200771 K.
And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that with a rising concentration of CO2, that CO2 (a radiative polyatomic) is displacing primarily N2 (an effectively-nonradiative homonuclear diatomic which must undergo collision to perturb its net-zero electric dipole in order to emit (or absorb)), O2 (an effectively-nonradiative homonuclear diatomic) and Ar (a monoatomic which has no vibrational mode quantum states and thus cannot emit (nor absorb) IR in any case).
So a rising concentration of CO2 puts more radiative emitters into each parcel of air, meaning each parcel can more readily emit that energy to space (remember that that energy can only be emitted if it can spontaneously flow down the energy density gradient… and the energy density gradient slopes downward from surface to space), which more readily cools the upper atmosphere (where the lapse rate is ‘anchored’), which translates down through the lapse rate to an (eventually) cooler surface… we just have to work through the tremendous thermal capacity of the planet.
That CO2 also has higher DOF (Degrees of Freedom) than the monoatomics and homonuclear diatomics, so it can convectively transit more energy from surface to upper atmosphere than the monoatomics and homonuclear diatomics… this acts to reduce temperature gradient with altitude, radiatively cooling the upper atmosphere as fast or faster than it can convectively warm it as it transits a greater flux of energy (as compared to low CO2 concentration air).
This is the same reason that water vapor (which the climatologists have designated as a “greenhouse gas (due to the greenhouse effect (due to backradiation))” because their misuse of the S-B equation has flipped thermodynamics on its head) acts so strongly to reduce the adiabatic lapse rate. The Humid Adiabatic Lapse Rate (~3.5 – ~6.5 K km-1) is lower than the Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate (~9.81 K km-1). It’s not a “greenhouse gas (due to the greenhouse effect (due to backradiation))”, it’s a very strong net atmospheric radiative coolant.
In fact, water is such a strong net atmospheric radiative coolant that it acts as a literal refrigerant (in the strict ‘refrigeration cycle’ sense) below the tropopause:
The refrigeration cycle (Earth) [AC system]:
A liquid evaporates at the heat source (the surface) [in the evaporator], it is transported (convected) [via an AC compressor], it gives up its energy to the heat sink and undergoes phase change (emits radiation in the upper atmosphere, the majority of which is upwelling owing to the energy density gradient and the mean free path length / altitude / air density relation) [in the condenser], it is transported (falls as rain or snow) [via that AC compressor], and the cycle repeats.
That’s kind of why, after all, the humid Adiabatic Lapse Rate (~3.5 to ~6.5 K km-1) is lower than the dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate (~9.81 K km-1). The humid Adiabatic Lapse rate is the dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate minus the radiative cooling by water.
The “greenhouse effect (due to backradiation)” doesn’t exist because “backradiation” doesn’t exist… energy does not and cannot spontaneously flow up an energy density gradient. Every action requires an impetus, and every impetus is in the form of a gradient. No gradient, no action. And definitely no spontaneous action against the gradient (balls don’t roll uphill on their own, water doesn’t flow uphill on its own, electricity doesn’t flow up a voltage gradient on its own, energy doesn’t flow up an energy density gradient on its own).
The way to stop Sher Edling in its tracks is to force Plaintiff to prove physicality. Force them to prove how, exactly, their claims translate into a physical process, how their claimed “backradiation” could possibly exist… they cannot, therefore their nuisance climate lawsuit must be dismissed for lack of physicality.
For the same reason that, if Plaintiff were suing Defendant because Plaintiff believed Defendant was releasing flying pink unicorns farting rainbow-colored glitter to cause warming would be dismissed for lack of physicality (what they believe doesn’t comport with physical reality), so too must their nuisance climate lawsuits based upon AGW be dismissed for lack of physicality.
And we can absolutely prove via the data at the link above that they’re telling the world a poorly-told and easily-disproved climate fairy tale.
And once we get a single court ruling tossing out one of their nuisance climate lawsuits, we use that precedent to go after their law licenses, to get them disbarred for repeatedly harassing companies with lawfare based upon delusional fantasy ideation.
Cut off the oil and China will rule to world. It’s that simple.