Smoke, mirrors & hot air: how ExxonMobil uses big tobacco’s tactics to manufacture uncertainty on climate science

This report documents ExxonMobil’s role in the current disinformation campaign about climate science. The report identifies the campaign’s rationale, who’s behind it, and how it has been able to successfully mislead the public, influence government policies, and forestall federal action to reduce global warming emissions.

The report argues that like the tobacco industry, ExxonMobil has:

• manufactured uncertainty by raising doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence
• adopted a strategy of information laundering by using seemingly independent front organisations to publicly further its desired message and thereby confuse the public
• promoted scientific spokespeople who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings or cherry-pick facts in their attempts to persuade the media and the public that there is still serious debate among scientists that burning fossil fuels has contributed to global warming and that human-caused warming will have serious consequences
• attempted to shift the focus away from meaningful action on global warming with misleading charges about the need for “sound science”
• used its extraordinary access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming.