9. Deep pockets; useful allies
Description
Following the oil money as it’s pumped to contrarian scientists and think tanks.
As millions of dollars flow from oil companies to researchers looking into ‘solar variation’ or picking holes in the temperature record, we reveal that ten years previously, oil company researchers had dismissed these very arguments. An internal American Petroleum Institute document from 1995 said ‘hypothesis about the role of solar variability and Michaels’ questions about temperature record are not convincing arguments against any conclusion that we are currently experiencing warming as a result of greenhouse gas emissions’. So why were they funding people who made these arguments years later?
From climate change to smoking and cancer, this is the story of how doubt has been manufactured. This 10 part series explores how powerful interests and sharp PR managers engineered doubt about the connection between smoking and cancer and how similar tactics were later used by some to make us doubt climate change.
With the help of once-secret internal memos, we take you behind boardroom doors where such strategies were drawn up and explore how the narrative changed on one of the most important stories of our time - and how the marketing of doubt has undermined our willingness to believe almost everything.
Clip used from 'The Hunt' series from 2015 by David Attenborough and Hunter Films Ltd.
Presenter: Peter Pomerantsev
Producer: Phoebe Keane
When we send off make-up for testing, the lab finds an asbestos fibre in two of the samples. Brunel University’s Experimental Technique’s Centre says they need to find at least 3 fibres to confirm the asbestos fibre came from the make-up sample, despite having strict protocols to ensure their lab...
Published 08/05/24
When talc might be listed as a potential carcinogen, the industry assembles a ‘talc task force’. It’s the year 2000 and the talc industry has heard something big is coming its way. The US government agencies tasked with listing cancer causing substances are set to include talc. The initial...
Published 08/05/24