Thread by @GeoffreySupran

OUT NOW: #AmericaMisled, a new report from colleagues & I synthesizing a decade+ of research showing how the fossil fuel industry deliberately denied Americans their right to be accurately informed about climate change, & how to fight back. THREAD

bit.ly/americamisled

2/n: The goal of this report from @mason4c, @Harvard & @BristolUni is not novel scholarship, but to raise awareness about what we know: that the fossil fuel industry has deliberately polluted the information landscape, undermining Americans' chances of a just & stable future.

3/n: Here and below are some quick takeaways from this report co-authored by @johnfocook @STWorg @NaomiOreskes @maibached & myself...

4/n: First, despite everything the fossil fuel industry has ever told the public, the climate crisis isn't fundamentally complicated. What every citizen needs to know about global warming can be summed up in 10 words.

5/n: Second, the facts are unequivocal. Climate scientists are as sure that burning fossil fuels causes global warming as public health scientists are sure that smoking tobacco causes cancer.

6/n: Third, scientists working for Big Oil knew about the potential warming effects of CO2 as early as the 1950s. Exxon’s internal documents show that their own scientists were explicitly aware of the potential dangers of human-caused climate change caused by their products.

7/n: Fourth, #ExxonKnew its products could lead to catastrophic global warming, but instead of taking action or warning the public, the fossil fuel industry spent millions of dollars on disinformation campaigns *designed* to obscure the scientific reality.

8/n: Fifth, we can’t force Big Oil to quit denial & delay (not yet, anyway). But we can make it harder for them to mislead Americans, by neutralizing their disinformation through 'inoculation': communicating facts; revealing misleading sources; & exposing denialist techniques.

9/n: Inoculating the public against fossil fuel interests' disinformation means pulling back the curtain on climate denial. What do we find?

Well...rubbish! 💩 Denialist arguments are incoherent and
often contradictory.

10/n: One of the best ways to inoculate Americans against climate denial is to expose the motives fueling it: money and/or ideology.

Fossil fuel interests deny the problem exists because they don’t like the proposed solutions. Denial isn't about scientific evidence at all.

11/n: Another way to inoculate the public against climate disinformation is to expose the 5 key techniques of science denial.

12/n: Once we know the techniques of denial, we can start to discern and deconstruct it. For example, here's America's Denier-in-Chief's favourite talking point, “Cold weather disproves global warming," dismantled into its constituent denialist parts.

13/n: Here's how an ExxonMobil advertorial on climate change in @nytimes falls apart when its denialist techniques are deconstructed.

14/n: Our report closes with a simple message: the fossil fuel industry's deliberate climate denial "has seriously hurt the American people...Their legacy is the death,
destruction, and injustices of irreversible global warming.
Big Oil is the new Big Tobacco."

15/n: Tomorrow, New York takes Exxon to court. On Wed, Congress will "Examin[e] the Oil Industry's Efforts to Suppress the Truth about Climate Change."

Help spread the message of #AmericaMisled so the arc of history may bend more quickly towards justice.

https://twitter.com/GeoffreySupran/status/1184867220544864256?s=20

16/n: Terrific initial coverage of our #AmericaMisled report by @latimes: latimes.com/environment/st…

Exxon executives “were hearing one thing from the scientists they employed, they were telling the public another, investors a third, and themselves a fourth.” Great reporting by @vicenews on our #AmericaMisled report ⬇️ vice.com/en_us/article/…