Tobaccos modus operandi was to plant the seeds of skepticism about credible science, to create a sense of debate when there should have been none the same things that many of the same pundits are doing today, despite a wide consensus that our planet is in a heap of trouble. Over a thousand experts signed a petition stating that they would refuse any government funding of projects that could further SDI. ROBERT KENNER: Thanks, Melissa, great to be here. These "experts" supplied it. Innocent people would die, but some collateral damage is inevitable when fighting a war, even a cold one. And he was really clear with you about his tactics. Magicians learn how to distract their audiences from noticing the deceptions that underlie their tricks and illusions. Illustrates FILM-MERCHANTS-ADV13 (category e), by Ann Hornaday 2015, The Washington Post. Physicist William Nierenbergs work on the Manhattan Project led him in the early 1960s to become NATOs chief scientist working on developing weapons to use against the Soviets. Merchants of Doubt, directed by Robert Kenner who also directed "Food, Inc.," is based on the 2010 book of the same name by Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway. He's a climate change skeptic. BLOCK: Robert Kenner, director of the film "Merchants Of Doubt." But, write Oreskes and Conway, an appendix was added suggesting that we really didnt know enough to move forward with emissions controls. The confusion bred by the report cast just enough doubt on what was actually known about acid rain to allow the Reagan administration to do exactly what it had wanted to do all along: nothing. View SC 130 04 Climate Science Merchants of Doubt Questions.docx from SC 130 at Monmouth University. Global warming is by far the most significant political problem that the merchants of doubt have fought to undermine. The Nierenberg Panel produced a report at war with itself, marked by a key internal contradiction. The magician Jamy Ian Smith, whose . Whole industries bankrolled their research, sometimes laundering the money through front groups with innocuous names. He moved quickly from scientific research to administrative work, serving as president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1962 to 1969. And if you have time to read two, reread Merchants of Doubt. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); A nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. BLOCK: And on TV, he, Marc Morano, is not boring. When it is on topic, it's quite educational, illustrating just how people are . The point isnt to go for perfection but to continually refine models of how complex phenomena work. Merchants of Doubt rolls back the rug on this dark corner of American science. How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Eco dog treats confound canines and humans alike, A NASA satellite launched to detect dust has discovered huge methane leaks, To ensure access to electric cars, some activists are calling attention to charging deserts, Two ways to think about Patagonias $3 billion climate donation, These red states dont want climate targets but they do want green jobs. Adaptation, loss and damage, and African oil: Whats at stake at COP27? Climate Change Report In the push to curb global climate change, 2015 could be a make or break year. Your gifts keep our unbiased, nonprofit news site free. Conway. Merchants of Doubt, a new documentary film released in US cinemas this week, reminds us that in June 2001 Bush and the Republican party were 100% committed to curbing carbon emissions causing. In a 2007 article, Newsweek called the George C. Marshall Institute a central cog in the denial machine. GMI has received millions of dollars from conservative foundations and corporations. Anti-communism was absolutely central to 20th-century American politics. Most scientists regarded SDI as technologically impossible and almost certainly destabilizing. BLOCK: If it's not about the science though, as Naomi Oreskes claims - but it's about politics, it's about your worldview, what tribe you belong to - it doesn't seem that there's much that a film like yours could do to change people's minds. The controversy involved missiles, specifically, Ronald Reagans $60 billion program to build an impenetrable missile shield over the United States. Once again, Oreskes and Conway do an excellent job of bringing to life a complex and important environmental battle that is poorly remembered today. They must've known you had a point of view here that was not going to agree with theirs. In it, she outlined the similarities between the political fight around climate change and the earlier debates about . Grist is powered by WordPress VIP. To him, its all fun and games hes both slick and scary. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. About HPB-Diamond. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. Margaret Mead. For this, the film makes a decent. (SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MERCHANTS OF DOUBT"). When science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway published their 2010 book "Merchants of Doubt," they exposed how a small network of hired pundits and scientists delayed legislative action. . Facebook, Follow us on Grasping that bizarre and paranoid notion is central to understanding their motivations and methods. Merchants of doubt intentionally create controversy about anthropogenic climate change using fake experts and logical fallacies, cherry-picking evidence, setting impossible expectations of. For the tobacco industry, the tactics successfully delayed government regulation until long after the establishment of scientific consensus about the health risks from smoking. Merchants of Doubt: The Spread of Climate Skepticism Through elaborate and deceitful public relation campaigns, big tobacco companies once cast doubt on the harmfulness of smoking. The amount of money available was staggering. And as they say, they don't have to win, they just have to create doubt and delay. The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. KENNER: We found numerous clips of people going on television - Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh holding up a watermelon and calling them watermelons. We ignore this message at our peril."Elizabeth Kolbert Merchants of Doubt has been praisedand attackedaround the world, for reasons easy to understand. For this, the film makes a decent case. And that's not about ideology, that's about all of us. Seitz was, in their view, not sufficiently rational to maintain a public connection with the industry. Report: Countries need an impossible amount of land to meet climate pledges. EPIC sponsored a screening of the film, directed by award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner of Food, Inc. and Two Days in October, for University of Chicago students, faculty and friends on November 16th at . YouTube. He runs the blog Climate Depot. Over the years Seitzs conservative views had grown ever more extreme. The counterarguments against climate change aren't necessarily arguing for the sake of the economy, but against new energy systems in which . They call them watermelons - green on the outside, red on the inside. The core argument of the new documentary "Merchants of Doubt" is simple: the movement to debunk climate change is corporate-funded and lacks credibility. So all of a sudden, our scientists become the targets, and I think that's very unfortunate. KENNER: Yeah, I think sometimes people can overreact, and it alienates another group of people. But not everybody wanted to appear in the film. A poll . This book tells, with "brutal clarity" (Huffington Post), the disquieting story of how a loose-knit . The government hopes it will be easier to reach that goal under the new system, which is based on one pioneered in the U.S. to reduce acid rain by allowing companies to trade credits for cutting. Fred SeitzThe central characters in Merchants of Doubt include Fred Seitz, S. Fred Singer, William Nierenberg, and Robert Jastrow. There's no magic moment of hope at the end of "Merchants of Doubt." This documentary, the first to zero in on how and why the global climate change discussion became political . Science recognizes the inevitability of uncertainty. Merchants of Doubt shows that some of the very same individuals were part of the plans to frame the climate change debate as unproven, using the same tried and true tactics of misrepresentation of facts, non-representative scientists, and industry-friendly legislators. Facebook, Follow us on That study concluded that there was clear evidence of serious hazard to human health and the biosphere from acid rain, requiring immediate action. Thanks for coming in. And if you have time to read two, reread Merchants of Doubt." - Grist "Brilliantly reported and written with brutal clarity . Think tanks like the George C. Marshall Institute were financed specifically to publish and disseminate their papers junk science that couldnt survive the rigors of peer-reviewed journals. And if you have time to read two, reread Merchants of Doubt. In fact, their stance has become a mainstream political opinion and heavily influenced policy. The organizations distract the public from the risks associated with products. They show clearly how it is possible that we're in such an ill-equipped position, facing a rapidly and dangerously changing world. UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: It has to do with sunspots, and it has to do with the wobble of the earth. As its second example, the film describes how manufacturers of flame retardants worked to protect their sales after toxic effects of the retardants were reported in the scientific literature. Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead. The central concern of the film is the ongoing use of these tactics to forestall governmental action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in response to the risk of global climate change.[5]. The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. [10] Although no lawsuit was filed, Kenner noted in an interview that "when [Singer] implies litigation is very expensive, I think it's an attempt to be intimidating." April 14, 2014 A new report details the impact of climate. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 84% based on 89 reviews, with an average rating of 6.95/10. The main merchants of doubt ( Seitz, Singer, Nierenberg, and Jastrow) built careers around using science to fight communism during the Cold War, and then turned against environmentalism instead. "[12] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". As the evidence against them mounted in the 1970s, the tobacco industry realized they needed something more. The book is similar to the popular Discovery Channel show How Do They Do It? Only instead of investigating quirky mysteries like how stripes get into toothpaste, Merchants of Doubt looks at exactly how we arrived at the gravest crisis in the history of our species one we created ourselves. The move enraged Seitz and his colleagues Nierenberg and Robert Jastrow. And so they knew their product was deadly, but they couldn't say it doesn't cause cancer 'cause that's an out-and-out lie. These are people who are ultimately working 80 hours a week. Seitz and the tobacco industry were a perfect fit. The documentary is based on her book, "Merchants of Doubt," published in 2010. Only this time around, the enemies of awareness have struck back, and it aint pretty. (MUST CREDIT: Barry Berona/Sony Pictures Classics. Anything you learned from the climate change deniers that gave you pause, made you think, well, you know, some in the environmental movement have gone too far in trying to make their case? Had the acidity of rain in the northeastern part of the United States really increased? The misleading appendix was written by Fred Singer. "[14] William Goss wrote for The Austin Chronicle that "Merchants spends much of its running time exposing trends of political subterfuge before working in an earnest call to action regarding climate change. Starring Patricia Callahan, Matthew Crawford, Stanton A. Glantz. BLOCK: I'm talking with Robert Kenner. While religion per se does not align with climate change denial, conservative American religious politics does. A broad scientific consensus had emerged over several years, so that by 1979 it wasnt news to most scientists in the field when Scientific American published an article explaining to the public that In recent decades, the acidity of rain and snow has increased sharply over wide areas. The documentary Merchants of Doubt portrays climate skeptics using the same deceptive techniques - and even the same cast of spin doctors. In that same year, Big Tobacco directed $6.3 million to researchers who consistently found no evidence conclusively linking tobacco to serious medical problems. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the world's leading authority on climate issues. In reaction, the three hawks formed the George C. Marshall Institute, a conservative think tank dedicated to selling Star Wars to policy makers and the public. Grist Brilliantly reported and written with brutal clarity . They are shown above. The core argument of the new documentary "Merchants of Doubt" is simple: the movement to debunk climate change is corporate-funded and lacks credibility. Publication Date : 2010-05-25. In their minds, and in the minds of their followers, real Americans are still battling socialism, only now the threat comes primarily from within. And he went on to make it where we had to have laws to put these chemicals in couches and KENNER: flame retardants. epic@uchicago.edu, View Facebook profile (opens new window), Email page on Facebook (opens new window). For the most part, the executive summary agreed with the 1981 NAS study. Blinkered by optimism, however, we miss the dark flip side of her observation that a few fanatics can do immense harm. BLOCK: These are voices from the fossil fuel industry and the industry of advocates who speak for them. The most prominent of these tactics is the cultivation of scientists and others who successfully cast doubt on the scientific results. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the world's leading authority on climate issues. "[9], One of the subjects of the film, Fred Singer, wrote the director indicating that he was considering a lawsuit. Erik Conway talked about the book he wrote with Naomi Orestes, [Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming] (Bloomsbury Press . The website's critics consensus reads: "Merchants of Doubt is a thought-provoking documentary assembled with energy and style, even if it doesn't dig as deep as it could. And let's listen to some voices of climate change skeptics. These tactics were systematically developed by the tobacco industry in the 1950s in response to scientific research showing that smoking was a significant health risk; the research was a significant threat to tobacco sales. All donations matched! That same counternarrative of denial continues today, stronger and more strident than ever, and now focused on creating doubt about all aspects of climate change. "Merchants" exposes the climate change "experts" who enrich themselves by fooling the American public with bogus claims that cast doubt on scientific research and thus protect corporate. The ultimate goal hasnt changed since the tobacco days preventing government regulation of industry. (Along with Jerry Falwell, Weyrich founded the group Moral Majority.). Documentaries about the dangers of climate change are nothing new, but Merchants of Doubt, which had its world premiere in Telluride, adds a pointed perspective to the debate. The merchants of doubt come in and argue that the replication rate in psychology is "statistically indistinguishable from 100%." 5. Known as one of the greenest commercial buildings in the world, since it opened its doors on Earth Day in 2013 the Bullitt Center has been setting a new standard for sustainable design. You know, the real debate will be, what are we going to do about it? Merchants of Doubt Phil England | 10th September 2010 In a hard-hitting new investigation, Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway report on the scientists prepared to distort the truth on the key issues of our time - from tobacco to climate change to coal fired power stations The science isn't there to make that determination. Instagram, Follow us on All donations matched for a limited time. . They see them as reds under the bed. Director Robert Kenner ("Food, Inc.") and his cowriter Kim Roberts lay it all out for us in "Merchants of Doubt," a compendium of public deceptions based on the same-titled book by science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. In the 1950s, Big Tobacco had begun using scientists to sow doubt about links between their product and cancer. This premise may sound like a conspiracy theory, but the truth Oreskes and Conway elucidate is more banal and convincing. KENNER: And then one man, who was so skillful in slowing down legislation on the slow-burning cigarette, saying it wasn't cigarettes that caused house fires, it was couches. (Hed gone to Antarctica to see for himself.). Robert Kenner, the . Theyre way behind schedule. KENNER: Well, Marc - his theory is that you go after the scientist and you attack them personally. Here's How. Accuracy and availability may vary. R obert Kenner addresses a topic last raised, more splenetically, in Craig Rosebraugh's 2012 film Greedy Lying Bastards: the growth industry of climate-change doubt: "denial" doesn't do . Kenner is obviously a master of the documentary form, keeping the proceedings brisk and entertaining. All of this is a political debate about the role of government. (PG-13. Copyright 2015 NPR. The filmmakers interviewed more than a dozen individuals who have been involved in a series of conflicts ranging from the regulation of tobacco products due to the health risks to global climate change. Fred SingerFred Singer is another physicist turned cold warrior. 1999-2022 Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Director Robert Kenner (Food, Inc.) takes us back to the days when the tobacco industry invented the playbook for obfuscation, stalling smoking regulations for 50 years despite indisputable research linking cigarettes to cancer. As the unworkable SDI inevitably faded, GMI turned to other ideological battles, including ozone depletion and global warming. If so, how serious was the problem? The 97 percent of scientists who warn that manmade climate change is terrifyingly real are not flaming Commies . . Spoiler alert. . Republicans and Democrats were opposed to it in '08, and all of a sudden it becomes acceptable very quickly. She's a Harvard professor of the history of science, and she frames this as a much broader battle. It is, and we ignore this message at our peril."--Elizabeth Kolbert, author of "Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change" "There can be no science without doubt: brute dogma leaves no room for inquiry. Just today, in the New York Times, I read that "only 26 percent of Britons believe that 'climate change is happening and is now established as largely manmade,' down from 41 percent in November 2009. Condition : Very Good. They found it in Seitz, who was not merely a scientist, but the former president of the Academy of Sciences. And hopefully we can get to the real debate, not this sort of fake debate. BLOCK: And, Robert, you are drawing a direct link in your movie between deniers of climate change and people who, in years past, also denied the harm of tobacco. James Hansen had very little interest in going on camera with me 'cause he'd much rather be doing his science. Jason M. Breslow Republican Bob Inglis is a former South Carolina congressman. In the introduction, I mentioned Naomi Oreskes who wrote the book that inspired your film. In his new documentary Merchants of Doubt, director Robert Kenner ( Food, Inc. ) shines a light on the very people that are hired to sway public perception of major issues (like climate change . Along the way, Singer took up the cudgel defending free enterprise by opposing environmental regulations. It's as if it's unsure whether to stay focused on the topic of misdirection or dive directly into the immediate and pressing issue of climate change. "Merchants of Doubt" would be a stronger film if it talked about even more of the arenas that this is happening in (about half the film focuses on climate change) or cast its net just a little . Directed by Robert Kenner, of the excellent documentary Food, Inc., MERCHANTS OF DOUBT feels a little scattershot. Merchants of Doubt. UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: CO2 is a benefit to plant life. Is it all a mirage? The other merchants of doubt profiled by Oreskes and Conway traveled a similar path. We are capable of coming up with solutions if we put our mind to it, but at the same time, we tend to not want to think about this as a problem. 5 Takeaways From the U.N. Kenner, best known for his film adaptation of " Food, Inc. ," is out with a new documentary, " Merchants of Doubt ," in which he introduces us to a "professional class of deceivers": P.R.. Environmental and industrial regulations were anathema to each. The documentary Merchants of Doubt portrays climate skeptics using the same deceptive techniques - and even the same cast of spin doctors. Merchants of Doubt How a Handful of Scientists Obscured. He cant resist getting a little too jocular, however, overplaying his hand by including a magicians act that serves as a metaphor for the tricks that the experts perform to deceive the public. ICN reporters Lisa Song and Zahra Hirji contributed to this story. He began his career developing the governments earth observation satellite system. An article published in the December 2004 issue of Science examined more than 900 climate change papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 and determined that . They've walked back in the front door green. To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. Whats more, the National Academy of Sciences had released a report in 1981 with similar conclusions, but going even further. All donations matched for a limited time. Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow moved from NASA into a leading position supporting Ronald Reagans Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, aka, Star Wars) to counter Soviet hegemony, which he called the greatest peril in U.S. history. The assurance they are marketing is this: no matter what the scientists discover, God will keep his flock from harm. Spokespeople sent into the media to sow doubt. The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. What Merchants of Doubt makes clearest is that these issues shouldn't be political. The second element of the deniers' story in "Merchants of Doubt" is their claim that environmentalists don't really care about climate change. And he went on to say, if you can do tobacco, you can do anything. Much more powerful are the moments like the interview with climate change expert Marc Morano, who luxuriates in his shifty tactics and misdirection plays. For the industry, it was a simple matter of self-interest. Twitter, Follow us on So at some point, environmentalists became the new enemy. Egypt is touting its climate agenda ahead of COP27. I think as people start to realize that this is not an issue that's an ideological issue - it's really about the planet, and the science is there - that they'll want to change. BLOCK: And you quote a line from a consultant's - a PR firm's report to the tobacco industry, (reading) doubt is our product - was their line. [13], Justin Chang wrote for Variety that it is "An intelligent, solidly argued and almost too-polished takedown of Americas spin factory that network of professional fabricators, obfuscators and pseudo-scientists who have lately attempted to muddle the scientific debate around global warming this is a movie so intrigued by its designated villains that it almost conveys a perverse form of admiration, and the fascination proves contagious. Merchants of Doubt How a Handful of Scientists Obscured. And the big money maker at this point and the big payday is climate and energy, and that's why it's out there. Your support keeps our unbiased, nonprofit news free. Director Robert Kenner Writers Erik M. Conway (original book) Robert Kenner Naomi Oreskes (original book) Stars Frederick Singer Naomi Oreskes Jamy Ian Swiss It's called. The informative Merchants of Doubt plays like a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth, a landmark film that raised awareness of global warming. There's concern, not just about a few bad apples, but about entire subfields. How important? He's frequently on TV. Was it naturally occurring, or did humans play a role in creating the problem? A documentary that looks at pundits-for-hire who present themselves as scientific authorities as they speak about topics like toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals and climate change. MORANO: Bottom line, new study in the journal Nature, peer-reviewed - no change in U.S. drought in the last 60 years. Oreskes and Conway focus on the steps that have defined the US's nonchalant attitude toward climate change. A documentary that looks at pundits-for-hire who present themselves as scientific authorities as they speak about topics like toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals and climate change. This is the missing piece of the puzzle in Merchants of Doubt. 96 minutes. What is the connection there? And they can't compete with the Marc Moranos of the world, who are quite charming, quite funny, quite fast and have studied PR techniques in a way that the scientists have not. Shouldn & # x27 ; s quite educational, illustrating just how people.! In 1981 with similar conclusions, but the truth Oreskes and Conway elucidate is more banal convincing... Academy of Sciences from 1962 to 1969 and it has to do with,... As technologically impossible and almost certainly destabilizing a sudden, our scientists become the,. 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