Burning the Future: Coal in America

Selling Uncertainty – Corporate Investment in Doubt

The American Petroleum Institute and Exxon’s strategy for influencing the public perception of global warming science and the Union of Concerned Scientists report on their program.

Fossil fuels are the foundation upon which our technological society is built.  Consequently, oil, gas, and coal companies are some of the largest and most powerful corporations.  If countries heed the warning from climate scientists and take action to decrease CO2 emissions, these corporations will be directly affected by those actions.  They are certainly not objective, disinterested observers of the climate change issue.  They have an enormous financial stake in how society chooses to deal with global warming.
For over a decade many of these corporations have been engaged in a campaign to minimize and misrepresent the scientific findings about global warming.
Here are the first paragraphs of the Union of Concerned Scientists Report on these activities.

"In an effort to deceive the public about the reality of global warming, ExxonMobil has underwritten the most sophisticated and most successful disinformation campaign since the tobacco industry misled the public about the scientific evidence linking smoking to lung cancer and heart disease. As this report documents, the two disinformation campaigns are strikingly similar. ExxonMobil has drawn upon the tactics and even some of the organizations and actors involved in the callous disinformation campaign the tobacco industry waged for 40 years. Like the tobacco industry,

ExxonMobil has:

• Manufactured uncertainty by raising doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence.
• Adopted a strategy of information laundering by using seemingly independent front organizations to publicly further its desired message and thereby confuse the public.
  
• Promoted scientific spokespeople who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings or cherry-pick facts in their attempts to persuade the media and the public that there is still serious debate among scientists that burning fossil fuels has contributed to global warming and that human-caused warming will have serious consequences.
  
• Attempted to shift the focus away from meaningful action on global warming with misleading charges about the need for “sound science.”
  
• Used its extraordinary access to the Bush administration to block federal policies andshape government communications on globalwarming.

The report documents that, “despite the scientific consensus about the fundamental understanding that global warming is caused by carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions, Exxon- Mobil has funneled about $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of ideological and advocacy organizations that manufacture uncertainty on the issue. Many of these organizations have an overlapping—sometimes identical— collection of spokespeople serving as staff, board members, and scientific advisors. By publishing and republishing the non-peer-reviewed works of a small group of scientific spokespeople, Exxon-Mobil funded organizations have propped up and amplified work that has been discredited by reputable climate scientists."

 While language like "disinformation" and   "information laundering” seem provocative, the report documents these activities sufficiently to justify the use of such phrases.  We encourage you to read at least the executive summary of the report.  The full report can be found here.  A more legible version of the memo that outlines the API plan can be found here.

1. News articles on the report:
   • Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine, Newsweek, 8/13/07
   • The Secret Campaign of President Bush's Administration To Deny Global Warming, Rolling Stone, 6/20/07
   • A Convenient Untruth, Vanity Fair, 5/07
   • Exxon linked to climate change pay out, CNN, 2/5/07
   • Report: Big Money Confusing Public on Global Warming, ABC News, 1/3/07
   • Exxon shareholders defy board, Washington Post, 6/1/06
   • As the World Burns: Think tanks and journalists funded by ExxonMobil are out to convince you global warming is a hoax, Mother Jones, May/June 2005
2. A list of organizations Exxon has funded, how much money they gave, and quotes showing the groups’ position on global warming can be found here.
3. A detailed interactive map, that shows the interconnectedness between Exxon-funded organizations and most of the global warming deniers you are likely to encounter in media, can be found here.
4. An earlier report, covering the period from the early 1990’s until 2002, and detailing Exxon's attempts to undermine global warming science here.
5. Senators to Exxon: Stop the Denial, Newsweek, 10/27/06
6. Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial, The Guardian, 9/20/06
7. Letter from Royal Society
8. 2007 U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology letter to Exxon.
9. 2005 “Exxon Exposed” Report