Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the doubt-creating process, groups undermine, distort, or create facts
and theories in an attempt to refute mainstream science, confuse the
public, and prevent political action.
The best-documented case of doubt creation was the campaign of
the cigarette companies to combat the medical evidence that cigarette
smoking causes cancer. Scientifi c evidence on the link between smoking
and cancer was documented a century ago, and the evidence piled up
in the 1950s. Beginning in 1953, the largest tobacco companies launched
a campaign to undermine the scientifi c evidence that cigarette smoking
is dangerous. The most devious part of the campaign was the under-
writing of researchers who would support the industry's claims. The
approach was elegantly expressed by one tobacco company executive:
“Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the
body of fact that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the
means of establishing a controversy.”
9
We fi nd similar evidence of doubt production in the debates about
global warming, although the complete story cannot be understood be-
cause of the opacity of the doubt-producing machinery. One documented
example came to light when an enterprising journalist collated grants
by ExxonMobil, which funneled $8 million to organizations, many of
lar example is the “sixteen scientists” whose contrarian arguments were
analyzed in Chapter 24. Very few of this group have been active in sci-
entifi c research on climate-change science or economics—other than to
create confusion.
One of the worrisome features of the interest group-based attacks
on climate science and policies is that the stakes are much larger for
global warming than for smoking. Tobacco sales in the United States
are approximately $30 billion. By contrast, expenditures on all energy
carbon tax large enough to bend the temperature curve from its current
trajectory to a 2°C or 3°C maximum would have signifi cant economic
effects on many workers, businesses, and countries. Global warming is a
trillion-dollar problem requiring a trillion-dollar solution, and the battle
for hearts, minds, and votes will be fi erce.
