When in our own time the president of the US can publicly threaten the personal safety of a government whistleblower without rebuke, the machinations of Big Tobacco in the 1950s and 60s to suppress the ugly facts about smoking seem almost quaint – and Merchants of Doubt screening at Kino Rye Wednesday, March 11 warns us not to let down our guard.
On trial in the film – depending on your point of view – are the heroes (actual scientists) and the villains (deniers, international conglomerates, and governments) in what the “villains” plead is an ongoing debate on climate change and in which the “heroes” have already rested their case. We, the audience, must serve as jury. It’s clear from the outset which way we are expected to vote.
Presented in standard documentary form – talking heads, archive newsreel – spiced up with some entertaining diversions by a professional magician, Merchants of Doubt walks us through a line-up of the usual suspects: Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Chemicals.
What gives the movie its particular edge and its title are the on-camera profiles of the men – no women are featured on the villains’ side of the court – who supply the “false testimony” presented by corporations and conniving governments as scientific fact.
The movie’s star witness is Naomi Oreskes, a science historian and Harvard University professor whose book, “Merchants of Doubt”, underpins Robert Kenner’s 2014 documentary. “It’s kind of an amazing accomplishment when you think of it that such a small group of people have had an enormous impact on public opinion,” she says to camera.
Oreskes and her team ran a search for any scientific papers published between 1992 and 2002 containing the keywords “global climate change” and 928 of the papers found agreed that climate change was a scientifically-proven fact. What astonished Oreskes was the number of papers that disagreed. Exactly 0.
When she published her findings in the journal Science, Oreskes reports, “I received emails threatening me, saying that I was a communist, [that] I should be fired from my job.” Supporters drew her attention to the fact that her adversaries were, as she says, “the same people who had attacked scientists on all [the] issues” – ozone depletion, asbestos, acid rain, fire retardants.
Stan Glantz, an early activist in the campaign to expose Big Tobacco’s cover-up and featured at the start of the film, backs her up. “The only way these guys are actually effective is if the public thinks they’re an independent voice.” Which Merchants of Doubt graphically demonstrates they most certainly are not. Says Glantz: “They are third-party allies … [Their employers are] rich, politically powerful, and mean.”
Not featured in the documentary is just such an ally – Frank Luntz. “I test language and find words that will help my clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate.”
Luntz’s paying clients have included former president George W. Bush and the fossil-fuel industry. Among his more memorable coinages are: “energy exploration” (for oil-drilling) and “climate change” (for the less convenient truth offered up by scientist Wally Broecker’s original 1975 definition: “global warming”).
The aims of the merchants profiled here are to “discredit the science, disseminate false information, spread confusion, and promote doubt”. Which, Oreskes adds in her book, they succeed in “if they are organised, determined, and have access to power.” Which they are and do.
There are few merchants with more inside access to power than the current president of the United States. He has gone on record – it’s hard to keep him off – as siding with the deniers. “Global warming is a hoax,” is a recurring theme in his campaign speeches. “It was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”
As Kenner’s movie reminds us, this is no time to let down our guard.
Merchants of Doubt is being presented by Rother Environmental Group at Kino Rye on Wednesday, March 11 at 7pm. Tickets at the door: £5.
(Note: This a members-only screening. Tickets are strictly limited; advance booking is highly recommended. To become a member of REG go to https://greenerother.wordpress.com/membership/ or email info@rotherenvironmental.org.uk)