NEW: Our latest peer-reviewed research, out today, shows that ExxonMobil uses Big Tobacco's propaganda tactics to blame individuals for the climate change it has caused. THREAD.
📰 No pay wall: bit.ly/ExxonPropaganda
2/n: This is the first quantitative, academic analysis of how ExxonMobil has used language to subtly yet systematically shape public discourse about climate change in misleading ways. It's published by me and @NaomiOreskes in the journal @OneEarth_CP.
3/n: Specifically, our computational analysis of 212 ExxonMobil documents spanning 1972-2019 shows that the company has publicly emphasised certain terms & topics, while avoiding others. This selective rhetoric mimics the tobacco industry in 3 key ways.
Let me count the ways...
4/n: 1⃣First, as noted up top, we found that ExxonMobil's public advertisements and reports consistently *shift responsibility for climate change away from itself and onto consumers*. They were "biased toward individualist framings", our study concludes.
For example...
5/n: Privately, ExxonMobil often recognised climate change as a "fossil fuel" problem caused by "fossil fuel combustion" - i.e. by the company's products.
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But publicly, they said it is due to the "energy demand" of "consumers", to be solved by "energy efficiency".
6/n: Likewise, ExxonMobil's scientists often referred to "FOSSIL FUEL emissions" and "FOSSIL FUEL CO2"...
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whereas the company's public-facing advertisements spoke only of "GREENHOUSE GAS emissions".
7/n: This, we note in our paper, "is reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s effort 'to diminish its own responsibility (and culpability) by casting itself as a kind of neutral innocent, buffeted by the forces of consumer demand.'"
8/n: 2⃣Second, we found that ExxonMobil publicly *downplays the reality and seriousness of climate change* by calling it a "risk" rather than a reality. From 2000 onwards, the single most common term accompanying mentions of "climate change" and "global warming" was "risk(s)".
9/n: Permutations included “risk”, “risks”, “potential risks”, “long-term risk”, “long-term risks”, “legitimate long-term risk”, “legitimate long-term risks”, and “potential long-term risks”.
10/n: This, we explain in our paper, is a reprisal of the tobacco industry playbook to tell the public that smoking is "a risk factor" but "not a proven cause."
And not just figuratively: ☝️ that's literally from a 1996 Reynolds tobacco company PR training manual.
11/n: Like its weaponised rhetorical cousins - “uncertainty”, “sound science”, “more research” etc. - “risk” introduces uncertainty even while superficially appearing not to. That's what makes it so insidious.
A risk is something that may or may not happen.
12/n: To this day, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips continue to call human-caused climate change a “risk” rather than a reality.
13/n: 3⃣Third, we found ExxonMobil's public communications *present fossil fuel dominance as reasonable and inevitable*.
They do so by way of "risk", individualised responsibility, plus other discourses that together construct what we term a Fossil Fuel Saviour (FFS) frame.
14/n: In this Fossil Fuel Saviour (FFS) framing of climate change, demand for energy is conflated with demand for fossil fuels, gaslighting the public into thinking that there is no alternative to our status quo, fossil fuelled-society & that we, the public, are responsible.
15/n: Again, this has the hallmarks of Big Tobacco, using rhetoric of “risk”+“demand” to justify business-as-usual. In both cases, the company is (a) an innocent supplier, simply giving consumers what they demand; & (b) a trustworthy, reliable innovator. It's a saviour complex.
16/n: All these tobacco parallels lead us to see early warning signs that Big Oil is following in Big Tobacco’s footsteps by doubling down on its rhetoric of risk and demand to defend itself against climate litigation and activism.
17/n: In this arena, the gloves seem set to come off, and Big Oil, like Big Tobacco, will flip the script, using almost the same language as in public to explicitly exonerate itself and blame its customers.
18/n: An early inkling of this is ExxonMobil, Chevron, et al.'s defence against a 2018 climate lawsuit, which argued that it’s not “the PRODUCTION and EXTRACTION of oil that is driving these emissions. It’s the energy USE.” “It’s the way people are LIVING THEIR LIVES.”
19/n: To be clear, demand is a valid and important part of the climate problem and its solution - we should each do all we can.
Our point is that for ExxonMobil, a fossil fuel SUPPLY company, to disproportionately fixate on consumer DEMAND, is misleading and misrepresentative.
20/n: We are also not saying fossil fuel interests alone have individualized climate responsibility. Rather, as our paper discusses, ExxonMobil tapped into America's uniquely individualist culture and brought it to bear on climate change.
21/n: So why do the fossil fuel industry's 'discourses of delay' matter as much as their outright climate denial?
Because narratives of personal responsibility are now *pervasive*, shaping the way many scholars, policymakers, & people perceive the climate problem & its solution.
22/n: @Yale refuses to divest from fossil fuels because “CONSUMPTION of fossil fuels, not PRODUCTION, is the root" of climate change.
The GOP's 2020 climate agenda said “fossil fuels aren’t the enemy. It’s emissions”.
Even the #ParisAgreement doesn’t mention fossil fuels.
23/n: The bottomline is that fossil fuel industry discourse has encouraged a dangerous acceleration in the individualization of climate responsibility that has helped groom us to see ourselves as consumers first and citizens second.
24/n: There’s experimental evidence to support this: one recent study indicated that messages framed in terms of individual behaviour decrease peoples’ willingness to take both personal and collective climate actions. journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/…
25/n: It doesn't have to be this way. If the history of tobacco teaches us anything, it's that together, scholarship, journalism, activism, litigation, and policymaking *can* effectively push back on the propaganda of producers of deadly products.
26/n: Dozens of cities, counties, & states are now suing Big Oil not just for outright climate denial, but also for its more subtle “deceptive marketing”.
Just this past Earth Day, NYC sued ExxonMobil et al. for their “false advertising & greenwashing”. cnn.com/2021/04/22/bus…
27/n: Comedians like @RollieWilliams, social media 'greentrolls' like @MaryHeglar, dozens of campaigns worldwide like @ClientEarth & @BrandalismUK, and even PR folks @cleancreatives are all working to delegitimise or ban fossil fuel propaganda.grist.org/energy/greentr…
28/n: IMHO, it's now time for politicians to step up too, starting with the Biden administration fulfilling its commitments to support climate litigation; ordering the Department of Justice to launch investigations; and compelling Congress to do the same.theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
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