Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
ping up denial propaganda groups with such names as Competitive Enterprise In-
stitute ($2,005,000), Frontiers of Freedom Institute ($1,002,000), and the Heart-
land Institute ($561,500). The figures are the amounts that ExxonMobil
alone
provided each organization from 1996 through 2005. But these front groups and
dozens more like them used the money to deceive the public and Congress about
the true state of climate science. According to a study by the Union of Concerned
Scientists,
like the tobacco industry, ExxonMobil has:
•
Manufactured uncertainty
by raising doubts about even the most indisputable scientific
evidence.
• Adopted a strategy of
information laundering
by using seemingly independent front or-
ganizations to publicly further its desired message and thereby confuse the public.
•
Promoted scientific spokespeople
who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings or
cherry-pick facts in their attempts to persuade the media and the public that there is still seri-
ous debate among scientists [about] global warming.
20
In the 1990s, the four largest U.S. tobacco companies agreed to settle a lawsuit
brought by the attorneys general of forty-six states. The amount was finally set at
$206 billion over twenty-five years. The companies settled in part because whis-
tleblowers and the process of legal discovery had turned up documents showing
beyond doubt that the companies had engaged in a systematic campaign to mis-
lead the public into believing that tobacco is not addictive and that smoking does
not cause lung cancer. Yet for decades,
the companies' own research
had shown
that both claims are true. Big Oil has engaged in its own campaign of misinforma-
tion, deceit, and science denial, using the same tactics and even some of the same
people as Big Tobacco, while never producing any evidence to show that global
pale beside the death and destruction that global warming is set to visit upon us.
Will Big Oil one day find itself in the courtroom?
