The source? A fossil fuel industry that desperately wants to prolong our dependence on its product. In the case of this denial machine, that fuel is money – and lots of it. To understand how it all comes together, it’s worth looking at the five key parts.
Their effort ultimately produced a full-on denial machine: a huge, sprawling network of talking heads, front groups, and faux-research built to persuade people that we have nothing to worry about. Getting enough people to join them in that universe, well, that took some work. So, the industry began attacking the facts, creating an alternate universe where decades of rising CO2 and rising temperatures had nothing to do with each other and scientists who claimed that we had to act were alarmists not to be trusted. It’s not easy to shape public opinion when the facts are against you. Ultimately, these efforts produced the deeply-rooted denial machine we face today. In spite of knowing that, for every action the world took to address the crisis, the fossil fuel industry presented an equal and opposite reaction – constantly finding new ways to cloud the truth. They also concluded that by 2038 we would see 2.5 degrees of warming causing “major economic consequences,” and that by 2067 we would face a 5 degree rise with “globally catastrophic effects.” Notably, at a 1980 American Petroleum Institute meeting, representatives from companies including Exxon, Texaco, and Shell concluded that as a “likely impact,” by 2005 we would see 1 degree Celsius of warming. As the 1980s and 1990s carried on, a slew of other corporations joined this war against science. So well-established in fact, even all those decades ago, that the company was using the same climate models it publicly attacked to plan future operations in the Arctic - a region they knew would become cheaper to drill as temperatures rose and sea ice rapidly melted.Įxxon might have been a pioneering denier, but they were not alone. Realizing that their product was on the line, Exxon Mobil began pushing forward a multimillion-dollar misinformation campaign to cast doubt on well-established science. As an internal report produced by Exxon researcher James Black from 1978 states, “A doubling of carbon dioxide is estimated to be capable of increasing the average global temperature by from 1 ° to 3☌, with a 10 ☌ rise predicted at the poles.” The shocking truth is that this denial machine has been shaping public and political opinion on climate change since the 1970s.ĭecades ago, the company’s own scientists confirmed that carbon emissions were indeed warming our planet. If that was a surprise, now might be a good time to grab your seat. Just as this past June and July were recorded as the hottest ever, the climate denial machine continues to churn out junk-science, protecting what should be a fossilized dirty-energy industry. It’s everyone’s – and the stakes could not be higher. The difference? This time around, it's not just smokers’ lives in danger. Fossil fuel interests are using the same strategies ( and even strategists!) that the cigarette industry once used to deceive the public and protect their profits. The craziest part of that story? That today the exact same scenario is unfolding before our eyes. These companies used their soaring budgets to create industrial-grade doubt, suppressing life-saving sciencein the process. In fact, in a radical effort to protect their product, cigarette companies launched a massive misinformation campaign that successfully shrouded the truth for years. This reality may have dismayed tobacco industry executives, but it definitely didn’t stop them from carrying on business as usual. Having reviewed over 7,000 articles on smoking and disease, he confidently concluded that cigarettes were indeed causing a lung cancer epidemic that was impossible to ignore. In 1964, US Surgeon General Luther Terry released a landmark report that would drastically change American society. But for decades, fossil fuel interests have done just that, running a sophisticated and sprawling network of well-funded think tanks and front groups with one goal: Stop any real climate action, no matter the cost to billions. It takes a lot to defy common sense on a global scale, all to benefit one industry. Septem| 3:12 PM The Climate Denial Machine: How the Fossil Fuel Industry Blocks Climate Action.
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