Victory will be achieved when... media "understands" (recognizes) uncertainties in climate science [and] media coverage reflects balance on climate science and recognition of the validity of viewpoints that challenge the current "conventional wisdom".
- American Petroleum Institute, 1998
Imagine you have a product that will in the long-term prove fatal or at least terribly damaging to everyone who uses it.
You want to keep making obscene profits but worry that when people learn how devastating it is, you'll be out of business.
Solution: Spew out more contradictory information than a squid squirts ink while under attack and count on a befuddled, underfunded media to help sow confusion.
But how to sucker the media? Ah yes, write big cheques to "astroturf" organizations and "scientific experts" to question the conclusions of most scientists while hiding the corporate funding and connections as deep as possible.
Sound implausible? It worked for Big Tobacco for years - and now Big Oil and other business sectors who don't want tough action on climate change are doing the same thing.
James Hoggan's new book Climate Cover-Up (Greystone Books) is a must-read for anyone concerned about the biggest effort ever at media manipulation by the world's most powerful corporations.
Why, I'd even recommend it highly to my 24 hours colleague Alex Tsakumis, who has ripped Hoggan and CKNW radio host Bill Good for two weeks straight for allegedly not providing "balance" on climate change.
(Disclosure - Hoggan and Good are friends and I appear on Bill's show every Monday - but Alex is a friend too.)
Let's leave aside the science on climate change because Hoggan's book - and website DeSmogBlog.com - is really about how a vast conspiracy has been undertaken by corporations opposed to reducing greenhouse gases and pollution to convince the media and public that everything is just fine.
Hoggan and co-author Richard Littlemore provide reams of evidence about the conspiracy that provides millions of dollars to shadowy organizations fighting climate change regulations.
For example, the Competitive Enterprise Institute twice sued the U.S. government, trying to block release of its National Assessment of Climate Change.
Who got $2 million from Exxon? The CEI, which also got money from - wait for it - Ford and General Motors. CEI actually produced TV commercials celebrating burning fossil fuels and producing carbon dioxide titled "They call it pollution, we call it life"!
But the cover-up strategy Hoggan reveals is sadly still working.
In Sunday's Province newspaper was an angry op-ed by retired professor Timothy Ball - a front man for astroturf group "Friends of Science" about teachers "indoctrinating" students on climate change, not giving "balance".
Please join me and a host of authors at Vancouver Public Library Thursday October 22 at 7:30 p.m. for "Public Libraries - Keep Them Local" - an event supporting adequate funding.
Read more from Bill Tieleman at www.thetyee.ca Email: weststar@telus.net Website: http://billtieleman.blogspot.com/
