Why Merchants of Doubt Rhymes with Smokey Joe
March 4, 2015
With Merchants of Doubt about to drop, no time like the present to repost one of my most popular videos, detailing the parallels in tactics, and personel, of the tobacco denial, and climate denial, establishments.
Merchants of Doubt necessarily tells only part of the story, but the strategy of attacking science messengers was perfected by the Tobacco Lords long before the Fossil Fuel barons picked it up.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
March 4, 2015 at 9:46 am
Let’s assume Oreskes has her way, the whole Denial Machine collapses, energy companies agree with politicians and journalists, etc etc. What would you expect to happen in the USA?
March 5, 2015 at 6:20 am
I think it’s the scientists they would be agreeing with. They’re the ones who have identified the problem. Energy Companies agreeing with politicians? They already do – most notably the ones whose campaigns they’ve financed…
March 4, 2015 at 11:43 am
“What would you expect to happen in the USA?”
You would be rounded up, or extradited, and put to work doing something useful like installing solar panels.
March 4, 2015 at 12:13 pm
Actually, we in the U.S. would want our solar panels to work, so we wouldn’t let Omno get anywhere near them. Having Omno do something useful IS a good idea, though—-he would make a fine doorstop, paperweight, or lawn gnome.
March 4, 2015 at 4:58 pm
I feel that there would be poetic justice in denialists having to clean up oil spills, tailings ponds, and coal ash dumps. When the last blighted site is clean again they would be free men. And so would we.
March 4, 2015 at 7:06 pm
From Merchants of Doubt to Servants of Fascism. You guys are a wonderful gift.
August 11, 2015 at 1:43 pm
[…] and fellow commentator Kennedy then engaged in a conversation about the “Merchants of Doubt” strategy, which they called an “underground marketing campaign” – pioneered by the tobacco […]