Q&A: 'Merchants of Doubt' Author on the Origins & Persistence of Climate Denialism

Naomi Oreskes discusses the network of pundits and scientists who have delayed action on climate change, and how they did it.

When science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway published their 2010 book Merchants of Doubt they exposed how a small network of hired pundits and scientists delayed legislative action on issues ranging from tobacco to flame retardants to climate change for decades.

Five years later, a film based on the book is in theaters—and is as relevant as ever.

A small group of industry-funded scientists and commentators continue to sow doubt about the science of climate change in Congress and in the media.  The oil and gas industry has poured millions of dollars into the communications strategy in an effort to continue America's reliance on fossil fuels and protect its billions in profits.  Last month, the release of public documents showed that scientist Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics had accepted fossil fuel funds for publishing papers arguing that the sun is driving modern climate change, not mounting greenhouse gases.  He also failed to disclose the funding in academic journals' conflict of interest statements.

InsideClimate News asked Oreskes how she and Conway uncovered the organized strategy to discredit climate science, Republicans' shifting approach to global warming, and what's changed and what hasn't since Merchants of Doubt was published:
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ICN:  How seriously have scientists with ties to the fossil fuel industry skewed the public and political conversation around climate change?

Oreskes:  They've completely skewed it.  If we didn't have that, there would be no debate about the science.  If we hadn't had all this disinformation, the science would be settled, people would know it, and we would be discussing how to respond to climate change. That's not to necessarily say we would have solved the problem by now.  Of course not. It is a very complicated problem.  The conversation we've been having would have been a totally different one.

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