"Disinformation about climate change has a straightforward purpose--to block action on climate change. In America, it has largely succeeded, with policies to mitigate climate change blocked or delayed for decades," said Professor Stephan Lewandowsky at the University of Bristol, who is an author on the study, in a press release.
The paper has five key takeaways:
1. Internal corporate documents show that the fossil fuel industry has known about human-caused climate change for decades. Its response was to actively arrange and fund denial and disinformation to suppress action and protect its status quo business operations.
2. As the scientific consensus on climate change emerged and strengthened, the industry and its political allies attacked the consensus and exaggerated the uncertainties.
3. The fossil fuel industry offered no consistent alternative explanation for why the climate was changing — the goal was merely to undermine support for action.
4. The strategy, tactics, infrastructure and rhetorical arguments and techniques used by fossil fuel interests to challenge the scientific evidence of climate change — including cherry picking, fake experts and conspiracy theories — come straight out of the tobacco industry's playbook for delaying tobacco control.
5. Informing the public about how these arguments are deceptive not only begins to correct the misconceptions, but also will make it harder for future campaigns to use these misleading tactics to confuse the public.
What to do then?
Each one of us can do much more than one may think: every day, every moment, WE CAN CHOOSE.
We can choose to walk or take a bike or a bus or metro instead of polluting private cars.
We can choose to use sustainable reusable recyclable materials for our objects instead of single use plastic.
We can choose to eat vegan to help our health, animal welfare and our planet.
We can choose to ask where does every thing we use do come from, and decide to use it if it's sustainable, and find sustainable alternatives to what is not.
It's a matter of awareness, attention to ourselves, to our people, to our environment.
When people's choices are for sustainable living, even the most polluting industries are forced to change into sustainable production, it's the market law of demand and offering.
What is your choice today?
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