Manufactured doubt
One journalist thinks tabacco companies are to blame for climate change. Well, sort of. He's noticed that the oil/gas/coal industry used the same tactics perfected by the tabacco industry to help scuttle the Copenhagen climate summit last December.
From The American Reporter:
But one big obstacle to reaching an agreement is arguably the ongoing, cleverly orchestrated and well-funded campaign of junk science designed to mislead people into thinking that there is a difference in scientific opinion about climate change.It's not a particularly new tactic. The tobacco industry perfected it years ago. They called it "manufactured doubt." In the early 1950s, there was a spate of scientific reports linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer that were starting to have an effect on cigarette sales; people began to be concerned about the health risks associated with smoking.
...
Michaels wrote that Hill & Knowlton's strategy was simple. "The industry understood that the public is in no position to distinguish good science from bad. Create doubt, uncertainty, and confusion. Throw mud at the anti-smoking research under the assumption that some of it is bound to stick. And buy time, lots of it, in the bargain."
There's a new book on the tabacco industry tactids by David Michaels (epidemiologist at George Washington University), tittled, "Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health".
What do you think? Should we call it "tabacco gate"?
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