Merchants of Climate Doubt

Merchants of Climate Doubt

Posted by Ed Leaver 20 January 2013.

Perhaps the most intriguing challenge faced by writers of popular articles on climate change is the wide-spread popular denial that climate change is happening all, or if it is happening, that mankind has anything to do with it, or if we do have anything to do with it, that its anything serious, or if it is anything serious, that there’s anything we can do about it, or if there is anything we can do about it, that its too late now and why didn’t you warn us sooner?

Why do so many people believe there is scientific controversy about global warming, when in fact that is not the case? To be sure, there certainly is debate about such things as the rate of Greenland and Antarctic glacial ice melt, how much sea level will rise and by when, the global effect of individual volcanos, and the distribution of the increased temperature and its effect on specific agricultural regions and crop types. But the overall conclusion that the planet is rapidly warming due mostly to anthropogenic greenhouse gases and black carbon was firmly established – and largely accepted by the public – twenty years ago. What changed?

Today’s post was inspired by Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming,1 a highly readable and entertaining scholarly book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway (2010), who chronicle the efforts, beginning in the mid 1950’s, of a few prominent scientists to obscure the scientific record and confuse popular understanding of health and environmental issues surrounding tobacco smoke, acid rain, the Stretegic Defense Initiative, second-hand tobacco smoke, pesticides, the ozone hole, and most recently global warming. As the methods exposed by Oreskes and Conway are widely (or wildly) used today, it behooves one to review their origins and effectiveness so they may be more readily recognized. Merchants of Doubt is complemented by an October 2012 PBS Frontline documentary ”Climate of Doubt”. We discuss each and cite some recent examples of what they doubt about.

1 Merchants of Doubt

Contents

1 Merchants of Doubt
 1.1 The Usual Suspects
 1.2 Fred Seitz and the Oregon Petition
 1.3 Following the Money
2 Climate of Doubt
3 Roy Spencer
4 Comparison of Atmospheric Temperature with CO2 Over The Last 400,000 Years
5 Driftwood on Ice
6 Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
 6.1 Other

List of Figures

1 Response to the survey question
2 Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time

”With the carefulness of historians and the skill of master storytellers, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway lay out the sordid history of tobacco industry protectionists, who framed the debate as scientifically ‘unproven,’ gaining decades of market share for those merchants of death – who knew all along the risks of their products. Merchants of Doubt shows that some of the very same individuals were part of the plan to frame the climate change debate as unproven, using the same tried and true tactics of misrepresentation of facts, non-representative scientists, and industry-friendly legislators. Again, tried and true public reframing of reality worked. But now all this chicanery is exposed for the deception it has been.” – Stephen H. Schneider, professor, Stanford University, author of Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth’s Climate

”If you read just one book on climate change this year, read Merchants of Doubt. And if you have time to read two, reread Merchants of Doubt.” – Grist

Merchants of Doubt Table of Contents:

Introduction
1. Doubt is our Product
2. Strategic Defense, Phony Facts, and the Creation of the George C. Marshall Institute.
3. Sowing the Seeds of Doubt: Acid Rain
4. Constructing a Narrative: The Fight over the Ozone Hole
5. What’s Bad Science? Who Decides? The Fight over Secondhand Smoke.
6. The Denial of Global Warming.
7. Denial Rides Again: The Revisionist Attack on Rachel Carson
Conclusion: Of Free Speech and Free Markets
Epilogue: A New View of Science

Merchants of Doubt sets the (fabricated) Global Warming controversy into the larger context of an on-going and deliberate corruption of the scientific method and values dating back over fifty years. Corruption not by the scientists involved in the primary research, but rather by a loose collaboration between corporate interests whose business goals are challenged by legitimate and widely accepted scientific findings, and free-market fundamentalists whose ”less is best” ideology is challenged by the international cooperation and treaties required to sucessfully address trans-national environmental issues such as acid rain, ozone depletion, and anthropogenic greenhouse gas.

Nonetheless, Global Warming and mankind’s contributions thereto are by far the most consequent scientific pseudo-controversy before the public eye today, and it is useful to know the techniques employed by the Denial Movement did not spring fully-formed in response to findings in the field of climatology alone. The disinformation infrastructure that opposes Anthropogenic Global Warming today has been in place for decades. Oreskes and Conway trace its origins back to the tobacco wars of the 1950’s:

”Call it the ‘Tobacco Strategy’. Its target was science, and so it relied heavily on scientists – with guidance from industry lawyers and public relations experts – willing to hold the rifle and pull the trigger. Among the mulitude of documents we found in writing this book were Bad Science: A Resource Book – a how-to handbook for fact fighters, providing example after example of successful strategies for undermining science, and a list of experts with scientific credentials available to comment on any issue about which a think tank or corporation needed a negative sound bite.2

”In case after case, Fred Singer, Fred Seitz, and a handful of other scientists joined forces with think tanks and private corporations to challenge scientific evidence on a host of contemporary issues. In the early years, much of the money for this effort came from the tobacco industry; in later years, it came from foundations, think tanks, and the fossil fuel industry. They claimed the link between smoking and cancer remained unproven. They insisted that scientists were mistaken about the risks and limitations of SDI. They argued that acid rain was caused by volcanoes, and so was the ozone hole. They charged that the Environmental Protection Agency had rigged the science surrounding secondhand smoke. Most recently – over the course of two decades and against the face of mounting evidence – they dismissed the reality of global warming. First they claimed there was none, then they claimed it was just natural variation, and then they claimed that even if it was happening and it was our fault, it didn’t matter because we could just adapt to it. In case after case, they denied the existence of scientific agreement, even though they, themselves, were pretty much the only ones who disagreed.”

1.1 The Usual Suspects

The ”handful of scientists” refered to in the book’s subtitle include Robert Jastrow, William Neirenberg, Frederick Seitz, and S. Fred Singer. These men were highly respected in their original fields of scientific expertise (which were not geoscience or climatology), and in Washington for their invaluable contributions to Cold War weapons programs. At age 88, Fred Singer remains an active and sought-after speaker on the climate-change denial circuit today.

The authors identify over 16 think tanks, committees, and coalitions that participate in or channel funding to the disinformation campaign. These include

Such a list cannot possibly be inclusive, as any of these – or anyone else – can quite easily set up another either corporate or non-profit front to perform similar function under a different name. Expect to see new faces playing old games and new variants. See for instance The People Behind the Parties - and the Democratic Party - at the DNC and Merchant of Climate Doubt Hosts the Hottest Parties at the DNC.

Also, any given institution is the product of its personnel at any point in time, and its not impossible for separate groups within a think tank to persue separate goals simultaneously. The money is green either way, and for example The American Enterprise Institute recently (13 November 2012) hosted an all-day conference on The Economics of Carbon Taxes and its ramifications in Washington, D.C. co-sponsored with the Brookings Institution, International Monetary Fund, and Resources for the Future. (Related: How Would We Implement A Carbon Tax?, and Exxon: Carbon Tax Would ‘Play A Significant Role In Addressing Rising Emissions’.)

There is a subtle difference between books and white papers published by a private entity funded by unknown sources for unknown reasons, and an academic publication in a peer reviewed journal. Research misconduct by the former is frequently rewarded. By academics – including national labs which usually are administered by universities, it is punished.11 For this reason denialists often aspire to credibility by attempting publication in respected peer-reviewed climate journals. Sometimes their attempts are successful. Sometimes with unfortunate results.

 

1.2 Fred Seitz and the Oregon Petition

From his Wikipedia page, Frederick Seitz (1911-2008) was a reknown solid-state physicist. President of the United States National Academy of Sciences from 1962-1969, he was also founding chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute (1984), and served in that position until 2001. He worked as consultant to the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company from 1979 through 1988. As noted above, Marshall Institute was initially founded by Fred Seitz to defend President Reagan’s SDI program from domestic scienitific criticsm, efforts which gained the Institute White House access on a range of issues, submitting reports on ozone and global warming that were not subject to peer review.12

In 1997 Seitz solicited signatures from the American scientific community on a petition ”refuting” global warming,13 in coordination with Arthur Robinson, a chemist, who composed an ”article” never published in a scientific journal but helpfully summarized in The Wall Street Journal, and formatted similar to those published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), that repeated a range of fallacious arguments that had been thoroughly refuted by professional peer-reviewed climate science, including an assertion that there was no warming at all.14.

”Seitz’ (cover) letter emphasized his connection with the National Academy of Science, giving the impression the whole thing – the letter, the article, and the petition – was sanctioned by the Academy. Between his mail-in card and a Web site, he gained about fifteen thousand signatures, although since there was no verification process there was no way to determine if these signatures were real, or if real, they were actually from scientists.15 In a highly unusual move, the National Academy held a press conference to disclaim the mailing and distance itself from its former president.16 Still, many media outlets reported on the petition as if it were evidence of genuine disagreement in the scientific community, reinforced, perhaps, by Fred Singer’s celebration of it in the Washington Times the very same day the Academy rejected it.17”

This description had earlier been noted by a young Canadian researcher at climatesight.org. More recently (July 2010), Brian Angliss posted a statistical analysis of the petition’s significance: Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project. Among many other interesting results, Angliss observed

”OISM signatories represent a small fraction ( 0.3%) of all science graduates since 1971, even when we use the OISMs own definition of a scientist”.

Peter T. Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change (EOS Volume 90 Number 3 20 January 2009) ”It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.”

[Picture]


Figure 1: Response to the survey question
”Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” (Doran 2009). General public data come from a 2008 Gallup poll. Source: http://www.skepticalscience.com/OISM-Petition-Project-intermediate.htm.

Dr. Seitz has passed, but the Petition Project – also known as the Oregon Petition – lives on and today boasts over 31,000 signatures, whose only requested requirement is that the signer hold a minimum of Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in some field. The petition was sponsored by OISM, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.18 Many skeptical claims about global warming have appeared in The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (previously known as the Medical Sentinel), and as of January 2013, the petition project website includes an article ”Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” by Arthur Robinson, Noah E. Robinson and Willie Soon, published in that journal in 2007.19 Although the article was thoroughly refuted the following year by Climate Institute Chief Scientist, former senior global change scientist to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, former President of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences Dr. Michael MacCracken in Michael MacCrackens analysis of errors in Robinson, Robinson, and Soon 2007 contrarian article, (again as of January 2013) no mention of any such critical commentary is made on the Petition Project’s web page.

In contrast, in a 2012 study, James Powell found 13,950 peer-reviewed scientific articles published between January first 1991 and November 9th 2012 that have the keyword phrases ”global warming” or ”global climate change:”

By my definition, 24 of the 13,950 articles, 0.17 percent or 1 in 581, clearly reject global warming or endorse a cause other than CO2 emissions for observed warming. The list of articles that reject global warming is here. The 24 articles have been cited a total of 113 times over the nearly 21-year period, for an average of close to 5 citations each. That compares to an average of about 19 citations for articles answering to ”global warming,” for example. Four of the rejecting articles have never been cited; four have citations in the double-digits. The most-cited has 17. For an analysis of the 113 citations, see here. Only 50 of the citing articles are truly independent and peer-reviewed.

Of one thing we can be certain: had any of the 24 articles presented the magic bullet that falsifies human-caused global warming, that article would be on its way to becoming one of the most-cited in the history of science. If there were such an article, one would not have to hunt for it.

Also referenced at The Earth Is Warming And Human Activity Is The Primary Cause: The Climate Science Paradigm Grows Stronger.

1.3 Following the Money

ExxonMobil 246-48. ”We have seen throughout this story how the merchandising of doubt was aided and abetted by ideologically motivated think tanks that promoted and spread the message. We’ve documented that several of these think tanks had links to the tobacco industry. Journalists Chris Mooney, Ross Gelbspan, and Bill McKibben have documented how these think tanks were in turn funded by conservative foundations including Scaife, Olin, and Adolph Coors, and giant corporations such a ExxonMobil.20 In 2005, for example, Chris Mooney documented how in just a few years ExxonMobil had channneled more than $8 million to forty different organizations that challenged the scientific basis of global warming...”

In addition to pro-business and conservative thinktanks, these included ”quasi-journalistic outlets like TechCentralStation.com (providing ‘news, analysis, research,and commentary’ that recieved $95,000 from ExxonMobil in 2003), a FoxNews.com columnist, and even religious and civil rights groups.”21 Mooney showed that former ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Lee Raymond served as vice-chairman of the board of trustees for the American Enterprise Institute, which received $960,000 from ExxonMobil, which in 2002 had earmarked $60,000 for ”legal activites” by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.22

On his website Global Warming, Man or Myth?. Prof. Scott A. Mandia discusses more of the Global Warming Denial Machine, in particular a 2007 report by The Union of Concerned Scientists titled: Smoke,Mirrors & Hot Air - How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science, showing again how ExxonMobil waged a successful and sophisticated global warming denial campaign:

In their 64 page document, (the UCS) show that ExxonMobil:

  1. Manufactured uncertainty about climate change by raising doubts about even the most certain science.
  2. Used a tactic known as information laundering by using seemingly independent front groups that pretended to be doing science but were instead just waging public relations for the company. Virtually all of these front groups publicize the work of the same people and these people typically serve as board members or scientific advisors for each of these groups. This tactic creates the illusion that there are many organizations and many people with doubts about global warming.
  3. Funneled about $16 million to these front groups to manufacture this uncertainty.
  4. Paid guilt-less scientists to cherry-pick data and misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific evidence whereby these scientists then used this misinformation to persuade the general public and the media that there was still no scientific consensus.
  5. Shifted the focus away from global warming action by questioning if the data was ”sound science”.
  6. Used its extraordinary access to the Bush Administration to block regulation and to shape governmental communications about global warming.

These front groups and their spokespeople are listed below:

Steve Conner The Independent 24 January 2013: Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science. Audit trail reveals that donors linked to fossil fuel industry are backing global warming sceptics.

A secretive funding organisation in the United States that guarantees anonymity for its billionaire donors has emerged as a major operator in the climate ”counter movement” to undermine the science of global warming, The Independent has learnt.

The Donors Trust, along with its sister group Donors Capital Fund, based in Alexandria, Virginia, is funnelling millions of dollars into the effort to cast doubt on climate change without revealing the identities of its wealthy backers or that they have links to the fossil fuel industry.

However, an audit trail reveals that Donors is being indirectly supported by the American billionaire Charles Koch who, with his brother David, jointly owns a majority stake in Koch Industries, a large oil, gas and chemicals conglomerate based in Kansas.

Mention PBS News Hour funding controversy ”Petroleum Broadcasting Corporation”

The term ”junk science” gets bandied about fairly regularly in the anthropogenic global-warming (AGW) pseudo-controversy. It did not originate there. Indeed, Oreskes and Conway trace its roots back to the early nineties and the tobacco industry’s fight against EPA regulation of secondhand smoke:

No one in 1993 would have argued the EPA was a perfect agency or that there weren’t some regulations that needed to be revamped; even its supporters had said as much. But the tobacco industry didn’t want the EPA to work better or more sensibly; they wanted to bring it down. ”The credibility of EPA is defeatable, but not on the basis of ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) alone. It must be part of a larger mosaic that concentrates all of the EPA’s enemies against it at one time...”23

”Junk science” quickly became the tag line of Steven J. Milloy and a group called TASSC – The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition – whose strategy was not to advance science, but to discredit it. Milloy – who later became a commentator for Fox News – was affiliated with the Cato Institute and had previously been a lobbyist at Multinational Business Services – a firm hired by Philip Morris in the early 1990’s to assist in its defense of secondhand smoke...24

Such is not of mere historical significance. One of the leaders of the fight against EPA’s regulation of secondhand tobacco smoke was Dr. S. Fred Singer, a physicist and first director of the National Weather Satellite Service who, in the mid-1990’s co-authored a major report attacking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the health risks of secondhand smoke.25 Singer went on to become a sought-after speaker in the Global Warming Denial movement, and was featured in the October 2012 PBS Frontline Documentary Climate of Doubt. There, in the penultimate interview, the reporter touched upon several themes central to Merchants of Doubt: the attacks upon Roger Revelle, Ben Santer, and Justin Lancaster, and Singer’s involvement on the denial side of secondhand smoke, acid rain, and ozone depletion.

Additional sources may be found at www.merchantsofdoubt.org and Wikipedia. Naomi Oreskes’ October 18 2010 Kansas State University lecture is available on YouTube.

2 Climate of Doubt

Merchants of Doubt was published in 2010, shortly before the ClimateGate emails scandal discussed previously in Why Anthropogenic Global Warming. Although utterly spurious, the controversy engendered over the purloined out-of-context communications was quite successfully exploited by those who, for whatever personal, professional, or ideological reasons would prefer no societal action be taken on Climate Change. In a 23 October 2012 documentary, PBS Frontline explored the resulting massive shift in public opinion on climate change. Its title, Climate of Doubt, was a direct tribute to Oreskes and Conway, and a principal reason explicitly given by leading members of the Climate Change opposition (Fred Singer, Christopher Monckton, ...) was precisely that postulated by Oreskes and Conway in their conclusion to Merchants of Doubt: effective action to combat global climate change requires effective international coordination. The requisite international treaties will of necessity infringe upon the individual signatories’ future free-market self-determination in energy matters engendering the release of greenhouse gas. This is purely an ideological issue. Science has nothing to do with it. But the ideology wins if the true scientific facts can be successfully denied.

 

3 Roy Spencer

For those who hadn’t read Merchants of Doubt, Spencer gives a textbook example of How it is Done.

Roy Spencer’s 2011 paper on climate sensitivity

But that is a peer-reviewed science journal. Lets look at some examples from *real* science – as practised on web logs.

4 Comparison of Atmospheric Temperature with CO2 Over The Last 400,000 Years

West Virgina Fossils is an interesting site chock full of useful geological information, and one or two biases.

Over the last 400,000 years the natural upper limit of atmospheric CO2 concentrations was about 300 ppm. Today, CO2 concentrations worldwide average about 380 ppm. Compared to former geologic periods, concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere are still very small and may not have a statistically measurable effect on global temperatures. For example, during the Ordovician Period 460 million years ago CO2 concentrations were 4400 ppm while temperatures then were about the same as they are today: Climate and the Carboniferous Period. (Monte Hieb, March 2009)

Emphasis added, because one should note that the emphasized statement is directly contradicted by the quoted ”Climate and the Carboniferous Period” reference, which in fact says exactly the opposite:

”Average global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were hot- approximately 20 C (68 F). However, cooling during the Middle Carboniferous reduced average global temperatures to about 12 C (54 F). As shown on the chart below, this is comparable to the average global temperature on Earth today!

”Similarly, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm – comparable to average CO2 concentrations today!

However, both articles supply the desired graphs of CO2 concentration vs. time, and ”Climate and the Carboniferous” is quite informative:

Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time

Figure 2:

Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya – 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period).
Figure from Climate and the Carboniferous Period.
Temperature after C.R. Scotese http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm.
CO2 after R.A. Berner, 2001 (GEOCARB III).

5 Driftwood on Ice

The Resilient Earth is a weblog hosted by Doug L. Hoffman. Its title suggests Dr. Hoffman’s belief that the earth’s cimate is in some powerful sense ”resilient”, and invites the immediate questions ”Which Earth?”, and ”Resilient against what?” and ”How resilient is our species?”

These are not specious questions.

* Projection. He who is without sin. He who first insinuates ”liar or fraud” should look to his own motivations. Law of Projection: We tend to attribute to others that which we most fear in ourselves. So let us look at what Dr. Hoffman might have to fear

* HTM ”possibly as much as 4C higher” becomes ”was 4C higher”. With no corraborating citations. The 800ky plot in http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/All˙palaeotemps.png does not support this, showing a few tenths to at most 1C. Also Holocene Climate Optimum.

* Contention that since climate nodels cannot reproduce the HTM ice differential between western Greenland and Ellesmere Island, therefore all climate models are worthless. Look at Hoffman’s bio, and that of his longtime collaborator. Hoffman is delberately dragging a red herring. Or wookie.

6 Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon (Robinson et al. paper published in Journal of American Physician and Surgeons (2007) 12, 79-90)

An earlier 1998 version served as a Frederick Seitz vehicle. The 2007 update is reviewd by Michael MacCraken at Analysis by Michael MacCracken of the paper ”Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide”, by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon (published in Journal of American Physician and Surgeons (2007) 12, 79-90)

Prepared 07-22-08 by MacCracken (Climate Institute, Washington DC) does a thorough job on this one, his review speaks for itself. Possibly references Oreskes and Conway. If not, they should be notified. You won’t have to say much other than the Robinson et al. paper’s figure appears as last (and un refuted) reference at Background: ”Is human activity a substantial cause of global climate change?” , who really should know better

Fox News on climate: skip the science, report the ”controversy”(may need ")

It’s Not Denial.

6.1 Other

1©2010 by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Bloomsbury Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-60819-394-3. 355 pages, 698 citations. Oreskes is a professor of history and science studies at University of California San Diego. Her study ”Beyond the Ivory Tower,” published in Science, was a milestone in the fight against global warming denial. Conway has published four previous books, including Atmospheric Science at NASA: A History.

2Bad Science: A Resource Book, BN (Bates Number): 2074143969, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.

3”(L)aunched by (Philip Morse PR firm) APCO Associates in November 1993, with measures to hide the Philip Morse connection... Scientific advisors included Fred Singer, Fred Seitz, and Micheal Fumento – names familiar from both Bad Science and earlier arguments over tobacco, acid rain, and ozone...” APCO vice president Neil Cohen later boasted about this as a general strategy. See Jane Fritsch, Sometimes Lobbyists Strive to Keep Public in the Dark New York Times, March 19, 1996. (Merchants of Doubt pgs 150-51,315

4Originally founded to promote democracy, in 1993 the Institution undertook the promotion of secondhand smoke: The EPA and the Science of Environmental Tobacco Smoke, Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, May 1994, BN: TI31749030, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, was written by (AdTI advisory board member) S. Fred Singer and Kent Jeffreys... a lawyer with the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Republican Party.” See also The Tobacco Institute 1995 Proposed Budget, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. (Merchants of Doubt pgs 152, 316)

5Competing in the ”A half truth beats a full lie” catagory, Cato assisted in propagating, in the face of direct criticism from climatologist and IPCC founder Bert Bolin, incomplete and thus highly misleading partial results excerpted from Hansen et al.’s contribution to the IPCC’s first assessement of state of the climate in May 1990, an early (and effective) denial effort headed by Bill Neiremberg and the Marshall Institute. (Merchants of Doubt pgs 186-190)

6Originally established by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies founder Robert Jastrow to defend President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative from attacks by other scientists (Merchants of Doubt pg 37-38, 54, 56-58, 186), Marshall Institute maintains a recurring presence in the Merchants narrative, participating in creating the appearance of science (p. 244), and obfuscation of ozone depletion (125, 134, 135), secondhand smoke (148), and global warming (186-90, 213). (Reagan tilted in favor of detente in late 1983, after Operation Able Archer nearly proved his critics correct. SDI itself lurched on for nearly another decade.)

7Suggested as channel to obscure money between Philip Morse and the Marshal Institute:

Craig L. Fuller to Jim Tozzi, 13 July 1993, BN: 2046597569, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.

Chris Mooney, ”Paralysis by Analyis: Jim Tozzi’s Regulation to End All Regulation,” Washington Monthly (May 2004); Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science (New York: Basic Books, 2005); see Mooney’s chapter 8 for his discussion of Tozzi’s role in the Data Quality Act.

Memorandum from James Tozzi to Jim Boland, 29 December 1993, BN: 2024207141, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.

(Merchants of Doubt pp. 148, 314-15)

8Heartland has extensive, continuing programs to challenge climate science. See News, Heartland.org ”Global Warming: Was It Ever Really a Crisis?”; Heartland Institute, Global Warming Facts; see also Andrew C. Revkin, ”Skeptics Dispute Climate Worries and Each Other”, New York Times, March 8, 2009. (Merchants of Doubt pg 217, 329)

9Heritage Foundation grew directly out of the SST (Supersonic Transport) debate of 1971. ”By the mid 1980’s the Heritage Foundation was supported by a wide range of banks and corporations, including General Motors, Chase Manhattan, and Mobil Oil.” See John B. Judis, The Paradox of American Democracy, (New York: Pantheon Books, 2000) 124-27, 310; also Edward J. Feulner Jr. interview by Adam Meyerson, ”Building the New Establishment,” Policy Review 58 (Fall 1991): 6-16 (Merchants of Doubt pg 125, 310)

10 Science and Environmental Policy Project. (Merchants of Doubt pg 143).

11For a somewhat controversial example see the Curious Case of Ward Churchill.

12Merchants of Doubt pg 244

1314, Merchants of Doubt 244

14Merchants of Doubt 245 Arthur B. Robinson and Zachary W. Robinson, ”Science has Spoken: Global Warming is a Myth” Wall Street Journal December 4, 1997. The non-reviewed text appeared as ”Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon. Published by Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, 1998, later republished in The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, 2007; 12(3), 79.

1517

1618

1719, Merchants of Doubt pg 245

1821

19”Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon. Published in The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, 2007; 12(3), 79.

2025 Merchants of Doubt pg 246

21Chris Mooney ”Some Like It Hot” 36 - 94

22Merchants of Doubt 246-47

23Victor Han to Ellen Merlo, Subject: Burson/ETS, BN: 2023920035, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library

24Merchants of Doubt pg. 150

25”Several years earlier the U.S. Surgeon General had declared that secondhand smoke was hazardous not only to smokers’ health, but to anyone exposed to it. Singer attacked this finding, claiming the work was rigged, and that the EPA review of the science – done by leading experts from around the country – was distorted by a political agenda to expand government control over all aspects of our lives. Singer’s anti-EPA report was funded by a grant from the Tobacco Institute, channeled through a think tank, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution.” (S. Fred Singer and Kent Jeffreys, The EPA and the Science of Tobacco Smoke, Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, University of Virginia, 1994, BN: TICT00025555 and BN: TI31749030, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.) Merchants of Doubt page 6.