The UCS explains in a new report (here's a news story from the UCS website, and here's the pdf of the report itself) that "ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science."
ExxonMobil, in a reply, calls the report "deeply offensive."
They, ExxonMobil, of this performance:
Say it isn't so.
The UCS report is titled Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to "Manufacture Uncertainty" on Climate Change . That's a pretty good title. Gets right to the point. They (or, Seth Shulman, the author) argue that ExxonMobil:
-raised doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence
-funded an array of front organizations to create the appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit group of vocal climate change contrarians who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings
-attempted to portray its opposition to action as a positive quest for "sound science" rather than business self-interest
-used its access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming
ExxonMobil, in its defense, says they engage "in public policy discussions by encouraging serious inquiry, analysis, the sharing of information and transparency." What is more, their "support of scientific research on climate change is made public on our web site and it includes more than 40 peer reviewed papers authored by ExxonMobil scientists, and our participation on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and numerous related scientific bodies."
Yet the basic point of the UCS report is that, tactically, the oil industry is drawing from the tobacco industry. The report includes a table of "Key Personnel Overlap between Tobacco and Climate Disinformation Campaigns" (p. 36) and another table showing 43 "ExxonMobil-Funded Organizations Providing Disinformation on Global Warming" (pp. 31-33). It contains 19 pages of damning documents, all contradicting the ExxonMobil claim at their website that "For more than two decades, ExxonMobil scientists have carefully studied and worked to increase understanding of the issue of global climate change" (as quoted on p. 25 of the report too).
The UCS acquired the documents by exercise of the Freedom of Information Act (and thus said information was not available at ExxonMobil's website). They are what the folks call smoking guns.
Below is an extract of an email (circa 2002) from Mryon Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to Phil Cooney, Chief of Staff, White House Council of Environmental Quality. (Here is the entire document, as a pop-up image.) It was sent after an unfavorable report by the IPCC. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, by the way, was of the largest recipients of ExxonMobil funding, at over $2 million.
On the one had, why even comment here? This is nothing unsurprising.
But on the other hand, what the hell?
I'm inclined to be as frustrated by the corruption of the environment by dominant economic structures as I am by the the corruption of scientific practice by prevailing political structures. But I'm also aware that those aren't necessarily separate conversations.
- Log in to post comments
"more than 40 peer reviewed papers authored by ExxonMobil scientists"
It's been a while since I looked it up, but I followed a link on an ExxonMobil webpage to the list of "40 peer reviewed papers" this summer and they were all co-authored by the same one or two scientists.
I'm not sure that the UCS's tactics like this one are going to be very effective. One reason is that I think most Americans probably already believe that EM and other oil companies are funding anti-global warming 'scientists.' But they're too uneducated about the topic themselves to make sense of the 'evidence' even if they tripped over it.
The UCS needs to get the story and their evidence in front of Americans through something like a NY Times Magazine article. Maybe get a recognized reporter like Malcolm Gladwell to write it up in an easily digestible form that anyone can understand.