Front Groups, Think Tanks, Public Relations Firms and Lobbyists manipulate science. Corporate investment in the U.S. is to support scholars whose views are compatible with their own views by funding them in universities or non-university research institutes otherwise known as think-tanks. This approach is a way for corporations to counter some of the anti-business research that is being produced in universities.
A recent paper by Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Orekes reveals the misleading information provided by ExxonMobile on Climate Change.
“Available documents show a discrepancy between what ExxonMobil’s scientists and executives discussed about climate change privately and in academic circles and what it presented to the general public. The company’s peer-reviewed, non-peer-reviewed, and internal communications consistently tracked evolving climate science: broadly acknowledging that AGW is real, human-caused, serious, and solvable, while identifying reasonable uncertainties that most climate scientists readily acknowledged at that time.
In contrast, ExxonMobil’s advertorials in the NYT overwhelmingly emphasized only the uncertainties, promoting a narrative inconsistent with the views of most climate scientists, including ExxonMobil’s own scientists. Likewise, the company’s peer-reviewed, non-peer-reviewed, and internal documents acknowledged the risks of stranded assets, whereas their advertorials do not. In light of these findings, we judge that ExxonMobil’s AGW communications were misleading.”