The Guardian broke a story about Shell's influence on London's Science Museum this weekend, exposing 315 pages of emails in which Shell's PR team sought to downplay pollution and introduce doubt into the climate science section of the museum.
While the museum pushed back by saying they maintained editorial control, Jeff Nesbit explains that Shell got exactly what it wanted. Nesbit, the executive director of Climate Nexus, notes in his US News & World Report column that Shell succeeded in getting the focus put on what we don't know, instead of what we do.
Shell also pressed the museum to focus on population and urbanization, instead of "pollution and environmental damage," which is "a key public relations theme" of energy companies, as Nesbit points out.
Nesbit highlights the parallels between Shell's influence in focusing on what's not understood about climate change and the tobacco industry's strategy of repeatedly saying we need more science about the link between smoking and cancer.
Although this may not be the biggest smoking gun when it comes to undue influence of oil on science, the released emails show clearly that in London's Science Museum, climate science suffered a serious shelling.
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