{"id":469,"date":"2007-01-09T10:37:37","date_gmt":"2007-01-09T10:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/?p=469"},"modified":"2007-01-09T10:37:37","modified_gmt":"2007-01-09T10:37:37","slug":"oil-industry-copies-tobacco-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/?p=469","title":{"rendered":"Oil Industry Copies Tobacco Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

It will be a surprise to no-one, I imagine, that (leftie) U.S. science body the Union of Concerned Scientists has issued a report<\/a> that documents “ExxonMobil\u2019s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science”.
\n(Direct link to the report: Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air. How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science<\/a>, .pdf, 1.71MB)
\nIt’s a damning picture, and it isn’t a new one – when I was investigating a letter to the editor that denied climate change<\/a>, it was a trivial matter to find links between the letter writer and ExxonMobil’s money machine.
\nIt’s worth looking a bit more closely at how this works. It would be wrong to claim that Vincent Gray, for example, is a liar, or is being paid to claim a position he doesn’t hold. It is clear that he does hold his views, very strongly. Gray’s morality is absolutely not in question here.
\nThe corrupting influence of ExxonMobil operates because of two truths:
\n(a) science is uncertain, and there are always those who interpret things differently
\n(b) the real-world power of a scientific view is determined by the amount of patronage it receives
\nExxonMobil’s work is not to create pretend dissension, but to funnel patronage to the dissension that is inevitably already there.
\nThe report’s real genius is in its heavy referencing of the tobacco lobby. It is now clear and undisputed that Big Tobacco used exactly these techniques to cloud the issues surrounding the health risks of tobacco for literally decades. By making reference to these, the report is able to directly attack the integrity of the company without coming across as an ‘extremist’. It’s very clever message management.
\nI recommend downloading and reading the full report – it’s an easy and engaging read, very well presented. It includes several pages of potential responses to the disinfo campaign. I will quote one of these in full:<\/p>\n

MEDIA ACOUNTABILITY
\nToo often, journalists\u2019 inclination to provide political \u201cbalance\u201d leads to inaccurate media reporting on scientific issues. Far from making news stories more balanced, quoting ExxonMobil-funded groups and spokespeople misleads the public by downplaying the strength of the scientific consensus on global warming and the urgency of the problem.
\nCitizens must respond whenever the media provides a soapbox for these ExxonMobil-sponsored
\nspokespeople, especially when the story fails to reveal their financial ties to ExxonMobil or those of their organizations.
\nToward this end, citizens can send letters to the editor highlighting the financial ties that quoted
\n\u201cexperts\u201d have to ExxonMobil or ExxonMobilfunded organizations. They can also encourage
\nindividual reporters and media outlets to report science accurately. Well-established scientific
\ninformation should be reported as such, and members of the press should distinguish clearly
\nbetween those views of their sources that are supported in the peer-reviewed scientific literature
\nversus those that have only been propped up in the ExxonMobil-financed echo chamber.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Take it seriously. There is power in this (especially in New Zealand, where our few newspapers are read avidly by politicians with real authority over our collective future).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It will be a surprise to no-one, I imagine, that (leftie) U.S. science body the Union of Concerned Scientists has issued a report that documents “ExxonMobil\u2019s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science”. (Direct link to the report: Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air. How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science, … Continue reading Oil Industry Copies Tobacco Industry<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8D9ZE-7z","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}