ABSTRACT
A scientific consensus regarding climate change broke into the public sphere in 1988, detailing the connection between the burning of fossil fuels, the emission of greenhouse gases, and potentially catastrophic global warming. Since that pivotal year, a countermovement funded by a very profitable fossil fuel industry has been consistently successful in casting doubt on the science and buying decades to continue business as usual. Doubt has greatly benefited the fossil fuel industry. Unfortunately, the benefit of the doubt comes at the expense of the public good. This study highlights a long-standing specialty within the field of public relations, which first cast doubt upon the scientific consensus regarding the health consequences of such products as tobacco, thereby placing industry profits above the public’s well-being. It then reveals how the fossil fuel industry has appropriated this well-established specialty field and details the players and tactics of the resulting climate change countermovement. It further delves into specific characteristics of human psychology to explain the success of countermovement campaigns, to demonstrate how Big Oil makes us think, and to account for the relatively muted public response to what many climate scientists regard as an existential threat to human civilization. Finally, this study suggests how to detect future attempts at mind engineering as Big Money funds expansive campaigns organized by specialists adept at casting doubt upon a scientific consensus.
