Smoke and Fumes: Six Decades of Oil-Tobacco Nexus of Deception and Attacks on Science

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
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Theย Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) today expanded its websiteย SmokeandFumes.org, featuring a new video and more internal industry documents dating back to the 1950s that reveal the nexus between the oil and tobacco industriesโ€™ shared campaigns to undermine science to delay accountability and political action to curtail their deadlyย products.

CIEL has uncovered new evidence showing that it was the work performed for the oil industry by PR firms (particularly Hill & Knowlton) that attracted the tobacco industry to follow suit โ€” in contrast to the prevailing narrative that Big Oil deployed the Tobacco Playbook to ward off responsibility for climate change resulting from its fossil fuelย pollution.

โ€œAgain and again we found both the PR firms and the researchers worked first for oil, then for tobacco,โ€ said CIEL President Carroll Muffett in a statement. โ€œIt was a pedigree the tobacco companies recognized and soughtย out.โ€

ExxonMobil’s excuse in the face ofย #ExxonKnewย has, in part, reliedย on theย defense that oil is not the new tobacco.ย At the end of the day, as Muffett points out in the video below, the final result is the same, despite who was first to devise the strategiesย of deception and attacking inconvenientย science.

The infamous โ€œDoubt is our productโ€ tobacco memo articulated the strategy most succinctly, but the whole package of deception, delay, and attacks on science have been shared, refined and endlessly deployed by both industries (and many others) since theย 1950s.

It reminds me of that oldย โ€œI learned it by watching youโ€ย anti-drug PSA. You’re both still busted, tobacco and oil industries. It doesn’t matter who cameย first.

Watch the video for the whole story, and check out SmokeandFumes.org for the incredible cache of internal documents uncovered by the Center for International Environmentalย Law.ย 

And check out the earlier videos produced by CIEL about Smoke and Fumesย too:ย 

Image credit:ย SmokeandFumes.org

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
Brendan is Executive Director of DeSmog. He is also a freelance writer and researcher specializing in media, politics, climate change and energy. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, Grist, The Washington Times and other outlets.

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