The Real Dr. Evil

Would that ExxonMobil were only an evil empire in an Austin Powers flick. To be filed under the category of How do these pricks sleep at night?, the Spring 2007 issue of Catalyst, the magazine of the Union of Concerned Scientists, has a cover story on ExxonMobil's strategy to foment global confusion as an answer to global climate change.

At the risk of sounding all Rosie O'Donnell, conspiracy theory-esque, I have a particular axe to grind on this issue. Not only because of the flat-out evil manipulation of public mininformation on display, but also because (especially in California where regular gas prices teeter on $4 a gallon) ExxonMobil is gouging me at the pumps and laughing all the way to the bank.

While publically expressing concern about global warming, oil giant ExxonMobil has quietly funded organizations that portray climate science as uncertain. This disinformation strategy parallels the tobacco industry's campaign to confuse the public about the dangers of smoking.

The Catalyst article outlines the anatomy of ExxonMobil's strategy that mirrors tactics pioneered by Big Tobacco:

1) Manufacturing Uncertainty
Just as tobacco companies came to the conclusion that they need not prove their products safe as long as they could "maintain doubt" about the health risks of smoking, ExxonMobil has attempted to sow doubt about human (and by extension, ExxonMobil's) contribution to global climate change. Going so far as to create the Global Climate Science Team task force, the group began their work in earnest. A memo from the task force from 1998 stated,

Victory will be achieved when average citizens understand (recognize) uncertainties in climate science and when public recognition of uncertainty becomes part of the conventional wisdom.

2) Laundering Information
For almost a decade, ExxonMobil funded at least 43 advocacy organizations that produce misleading information about global climate change... some high profile groups, and others less well-known. Curiously, many of groups have overlapping, and sometimes identical, staff and spokepeople.

By giving money to both established and practically unknown groups, ExxonMobil has created a vast "echo chamber" that repeats the same disinformation about global warming but gives the appearance of widespread debate among experts.

3) Promoting Spokespeople Who Misrepresent Science
Every heard of Sallie Baliunas? Didn't think so. An astrophysicist affiliated with at least nine ExxonMobil-funded groups, Baliunas is best known for a 2003 paper (rebutted by 13 scientists who said she misrepresented their work) that the global climate has not changed significantly in the past millennia.

Three editors of the scientific journal that published the paper resigned in protest, yet this has not stopped the ExxonMobil-funded groups from promoting the paper.

4) Misusing Sound Science
Science is a tentative process that seeks to compile evidence and identify the best explanation for any given phenomenon. The tentative nature of science, coupled with it's self-correcting approach, builds robust scientific theories that are the closest science can come to facts. Public misunderstanding of the nature of science, however, plays well into the hands of ExxonMobil's misinformation machine,

Like the tobacco industry before it, ExxonMobil uses the positive concept of "sound science" to inappropriately characterize its attempts to delay reductions in heat-trapping emissions. [They] keep the discussion focused on the science rather than the solutions by routinely contending that scientists do not know enough about global warming to justify substantial emissions reductions–despite solid evidence to the contrary.

5) Gaining Government Access
ExxonMobil is tremendously successful at lobbying key members of Congress as well as the more-than-receptive Bush administration. If you're only thinking of US withdrawl from commitments to the Kyoto Protocol, take a closer look.

In addition to participating in Vice President Cheney's secretive "Energy Task Force," ExxonMobil has donated thousands of dollars to Representative Joe Barton (R-TX), who authored the 2005 energy bill that provides billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to the oil and gas industry while ignoring global warming emissions.

Faced with such stultifyingly pernicious greed and a myopic and destructive worldview, what's a consumer to do? Catalyst provides several recommendations, but does not discount the power of the purse,

Consumers should refuse to purchase ExxonMobil's gasoline and other products until the company is willing to address global warming honestly. Clearly, even ExxonMobil is not immune to public pressure. As mandatory emissions reductions come before Congress, it is essential that ExxonMobil continue to feel pressured to fully dismantle its disinformation campaign and engage in a productive discussion of global warming solutions.

Start sending that message to ExxonMobil execs from the pumps.