{"id":3045,"date":"2015-03-24T16:58:05","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T16:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3045"},"modified":"2015-03-24T23:50:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-24T23:50:35","slug":"merchants-of-doubt-big-oil-big-chemical-take-a-lesson-from-big-tobacco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3045","title":{"rendered":"“Merchants of Doubt”: Big Oil, Big Chemical take a lesson from Big Tobacco"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Merchants<\/a><\/p>\n

I have put this documentary<\/a> in my Netflix queue, though I have a feeling it will be really bad for my blood pressure. This is a documentary by the Robert Kenner, who also made “Food, Inc.” about how the oil industry, chemical industry and pharmaceutical companies have copied the same techniques used for many years by Big Tobacco to “change the narrative” about the dangers of their product (in the case of the oil industry, global warming), by sowing the seeds of doubt and confusion in the American product. The movie has the same title of a book<\/a> I have to get my hands on by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway.<\/p>\n

\"Lucky<\/a><\/p>\n

The purveyors of doubt have been extremely successful in shaping public opinion on global warming, unfortunately, by creating the idea that “there is no scientific consensus” that man is causing climate change, even though 97 percent of scientists involved in the fields of climate, meteorology, etc., have actually reached this consensus. By finding a few loud voices (and likely paying some of those voices handsomely) to rail against the consensus, the industry has pretty effectively changed the discourse and changed public attitudes about global warming. Most polls show roughly half of respondents don’t believe mankind is creating the problem of global warming.<\/p>\n

\"merchants<\/a><\/p>\n

Tobacco was very successful in its campaign to confuse the public for decades. For years, Big Tobacco found its own scientists to refute the growing evidence that cigarettes were behind the epidemic of lung cancer cases that began around the 1930s (roughly 30 years after cigarettes starting becoming popular.). Some of the same exact people who cut their teeth in a massive disinformation campaign for tobacco actually went on to work for the chemical industry and oil industry.<\/p>\n

From a New York Times review of “Merchants of Doubt”:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can \u2018do tobacco,\u2019\u00a0\u201d one of the perpetrators is quoted as saying, \u201cyou can do just about anything in public relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The awesome book, “A Cigarette Century” chronicles in exquisite detail the steps that the tobacco industry went to counter the concerns over cigarettes. The U.S. Surgeon General’s report on lung cancer and smoking came out way back in 1964 and you would have thought this would be the death knell for the tobacco industry. Yet, the smoking rate remained stubbornly high over the next 30 years. Why? Doubt. Confusion. Paid shills. No one knew what to believe.<\/p>\n