Earth Equity News

Naomi Oreskes Uncovers Climate Change's Merchants of Doubt. By Justin Gillis, New York Times, 6/15/2015. A profile of a historian of science who has become an attack dog on the prowl against climate deniers, particularly those who borrow from the "Merchants of Death" playbook of the tobacco lobby. "Documents pried loose by lawyers showed that the industry had paid certain scientists to contrive dubious research, had intimidated reputable scientists, and had cherry-picked evidence to present a misleading picture. The tobacco industry had used these tactics in defense of profits. But Dr. Oreskes and Dr. Conway wrote that the so-called merchants of doubt had adopted them for a deep ideological reason: contempt for government regulation. The insight gave climate scientists a new way of understanding the politics that had engulfed their field.