How the White House’s newest climate change deniers are helping our environment
In 1953, it was already pretty clear that cigarettes caused cancer and other negative health effects. So that year, cigarette makers got together and came up with a way to keep regulation of the industry at bay—they simply would say that it had not been “proved” that cigarettes really cause disease, diverting attention and regulation by creating doubt about the science saying otherwise. They pulled this off with giant advertising campaigns, like Camel’s which said that “doctors gravitate towards Camel products.” Big Tobacco also bankrolled think tanks and research to help fend off any significant regulation that would put their profits in jeopardy. Their strategy was even unveiled in a Brown & Williamson memo from July 17, 1963, which states that “doubt is in our product,” but little was done against the tobacco industry. This same strategy is now being employed at an even greater scale (and an even greater risk) by the climate change counter-movement.