In this piece over at MSNBC by Brenda Ekwurzel, she makes an analogy we can all understand and can use: the fossil fuel industry's approach to denying science has a familiar precedent - the tobacco industry's refusal for decades to concede what was obvious to nearly everyone - that smoking was bad for people.
For years the tobacco industry denied science despite knowing they were full of it. The following is from a UK website, but hey, it's an international industry.
Chronology 1 Smoking and health
For more than four decades the industry publicly denied and continues to deny that it is clear that smoking causes lung cancer - yet it has understood the carcinogenic nature of its product since the 1950s. It is now clear that the industry’s stance on smoking and health is determined by lawyers and public relations concerns
Chronology 2 Nicotine and addiction
Until recently the industry has denied its product is addictive. Most recently it has used a definition of addictiveness so broad that it encompasses shopping and the Internet. Internally, it has known since the 1960s that the crucial selling point of its product is the chemical dependence of its customers. Without nicotine addiction there would be no tobacco industry. Nicotine addiction destroys the industry’s PR and legal stance that smoking is a matter of choice.
You can read lots more at that website if you want to get angry at what some people have done to others in the past for the sake of money.
Or, we can get back to the techniques being used by the fossil fuel industry. From Ekwurzel's piece.
My first personal experience with the disinformation campaign was about seven years ago. A radio program interviewed me along with someone from a fossil-fuel-funded group. At one point, I heard him say something that was not supported by peer-reviewed science. He said he had read scientific papers that made his case. Naturally, I asked him what papers he was talking about: Who were the authors? Where was their research published?
He refused to answer, even though he also claimed he was holding the papers right in front of him.
I was flabbergasted. I’d never run into someone with such a blatant disregard for facts and evidence before. It bothered me for days. But looking back, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Since then, science historians and others have published accounts of the groups that dispute the realities of climate change.
Most of us had had a very warm summer. We don't think it's an outlier, we think it's a trend. But convincing others of this - the others who we still need to convince in order to get things done - I think the tobacco industry example is useful.
By the way, Chris Hayes has a special on the "Politics of Power" on Friday. I look forward to watching it.
*
Tired of politics? Need to escape? Try one of my Greek-mythology based novels, either the story of Jocasta: The Mother-Wife of Oedipus or a trilogy about Niobe, or one of the first examples of civil disobedience, Antigone and Creon. Or, if you like mysteries and/or Jane Austen, treat yourself to The Highbury Murders: A Mystery Set in the Village of Jane Austen’s Emma very positively reviewed at the Daily Kos Monday Murder Mystery blog.