Climate Deniers’ Strategy of Confusion

October 27, 2013

 

The fossil-fuel industry has invested billions of dollars in propaganda – funding phony “scientists” and bankrolling politicians – to confuse the public about the threat from global warming. The deception is aided and abetted by the mainstream media’s misguided “balance,” as Dan Becker and James Gerstenzang explain.


By Dan Becker and James Gerstenzang

Half a century ago, the tobacco industry tried to preserve its market by misleading Americans about the scientific validity of research demonstrating that smoking causes cancer. To weaken efforts to fight global warming, the “climate change denial machine,” in the words of the Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, has been using that same strategy. For more than 20 years it has sought to cast doubt on the science that demonstrates that the climate is changing and pollution is to blame.

The Los Angeles Times has announced that it will no longer print letters to the editor that state “there’s no sign humans have caused climate change,” because they are factually inaccurate. Now, it is time for reporters and editors across the country to follow suit. To avoid misleading readers with a false “balance,” they should also stop paying attention to the deniers.