The seedling of doubt - Merchants of Doubt

Doubt is the product

What this book says, and the film elucidates is there is a selective specific group of "scientists" who have a particular playbook to discredit, confuse and "muddy the waters" against scientific research for their sponsors. What these group of people or interest groups have learned from the days of dealing with the tobacco industry, is that they need not concern themselves with trying to prove anything or to disprove the scientists. All they need is to seed doubt and confusion in the market of public opinion, their main motto is "Doubt is our product". As, when people are confused and the policies are difficult to interpret because they are complicated, ambiguous, inconclusive, etc then there will be great difficulty in organizing widespread opposition to it. They deliberately frustrate governments into inaction, blocking them by using their lobbyist and "experts" and hence stop all ways of finding effective solutions to solve these problems. Because of the delay, their sponsors will continue to rake in massive amounts every single day - i.e as business as usual. From their internal documents and research (delivered by a whistle-blower), the tobacco industry had known from the 1950's, that smoking contributed to lung cancer, it caused cardiovascular diseases, and nicotine was addictive. Their research was even more detailed and extensive than the government's own. But the top executives of the seven largest American tobacco companies testified in Congress on questioned by members of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health and the Environment in 1994 that they did not believe that cigarettes were addictive, that the evidence that cigarettes cause lung cancer, heart disease, and other problems is not conclusive. This is what these paid "scientists" do and if it were not for whistle blowers, we would have not known, that there is a systematic organized policy to misinform the public and continue making profits.

They used their experience in seeding doubt in with the tobacco industry in others. They had a playbook

1. Manufacture doubt 
2. Question the science
3. Create controversy and confusion
4. Find friendly scientist
5. Use a third party to attack
6. Attack the messenger
7. Shift the blame
8. Delay tactics

This has been used by often the same players with a high degree of success in the coal industries, pharmaceuticals, asbestos industries, acid rain, chemicals, second-hand smoke, and flame retardants. By using a variety of skills of sowing confusion, discord and fighting the science, they were able to delay effective legislation on these products. They have been able to use their influence to block regulation and control.

The way to look at it in simple terms if the house is burning, the firemen not acting to until they are absolutely sure what caused the fire. I know it is kind of a hyperbole, but I think for us to understand the content we have to go on the extreme in some circumstances. 

The problem with the climate

James Hansen was working for NASA, in 1988 he was looking at Venus and looked at why it was so hot with a surface temperature of up to 600 C, it was further away from the Sun than Mercury but its surface temperature was far hotter. This was to due to the greenhouse effect, he decided to look at Earth's gases and especially Carbon dioxide greenhouse gases and found that the Earth's temperature is rising.  He looked at the graph of gases and other data and believed that Earth was warming and it was an anthropogenic i.e. due to human activity. Of course, these industries all got together as they did with the tobacco industries and played by the rule book. They formed a super pact with money, expertise, corporate lawyers, journalists, sympathetic "scientists" and politicians, etc they were able to modify public opinion. They denied whether the Earth was warming initially. Then later when it was shown that it was warming, they claimed that it was not due to human activity. That it was due to the normal cyclic temperature changes, due to the wobble of the globe. Later it was claimed to be due to solar cycles which are causes due to changes in the internal activities of the Sun. They have scientists working for them in physics and nuclear energy who printed papers claiming the opposite. They came up statements like it is still a controversial statement that "human activity was warming the climate". Dr. Naomi Oreskes looked at 928 scientific documents on climate change between 1993 and 2003, all of them accepted that it was due to human activity and wrote a paper "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change". There was a backlash and she was attacked on social media. But there was a general consensus on the reality on anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. But, by saying it was still "controversial" and not "generally accepted", they were are seeding doubt. But they were fighting a losing battle, by this time countries had come together and agreed on cutting CO2 emissions targets were set with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 at Rio de Janerio.  In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was concluded and established legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2008–2012

Acid falling from the sky

Acid Rain they used their playbook, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, and sulphur trioxide, which when mixed with water formed sulfurous acid, nitric acid, and sulfuric acid. The resulting acids are precipitated to earth as rain or snow with very negative consequences: on the one hand the damage to nature in the form of acidification of soils, lakes, and seas with consequent damage to terrestrial and marine flora and fauna. 

They tried to attack the science and claimed that it was due to volcanic activity. Hence, these group of scientists who were acting as mercenaries, they got together and played by their accepted playbook. These were not particularly experts in the fields, they had not done any research in that field or peer review but were in a kind of "think tanks" which were sponsored by the very industries which they were supposed to regulate. But in this instance, because the particular atoms could be identified they were problems. The atoms used in industries are quite different from those in volcanoes. There are isotopes of Sulphur and Nitrogen and since they can be measured and identified. 

In 1979, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) implemented the Convention on Long-Range Trans-boundary Pollution. In 1985 most UNECE members adopted the Protocol on the Reduction of Sulphur Emissions, agreeing to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 30% (from 1980 levels) by 1993. 

A hole in the sky

During the 1970's people wanted to go faster and longer, they were doing research into SST (Supersonic Transport) since the planes would fly inside the stratosphere layer and scientists were afraid that its emissions would damage the atmosphere. As at that time they were aware that ozone did protect us from ultraviolet rays which caused some form of cancer. The emissions of jets engines included Carbon dioxide, Nitrogen oxides, Water, Sulphur oxides, Hydrocarbons, Soot, etc. In the 1985 British scientist had noted very low levels of Ozone over Antarctica in the South Pole. They speculated that there will be high levels of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC). One of the problems was that if there were low qualities of Ozone in the atmosphere that NASA must have picked it up. Unfortunately, the satellite had picked up the level, but it had discounted it and considered it as an error because such a low level of Ozone in the atmosphere was considered an abnormality and did not fit in any theoretical stimulation or model and hence was considered an aberration. But when the story back to leak out that CFC was causing Ozone Zone deletion and NASA had not picked it up. The usual "experts" came with their playbook,

1. CFC could not reach up high up into the atmosphere.
2. CFC, if it did reach the stratosphere, it could not break down and react with Ozone, stripping of an atom of Oxygen.
3. Why had not NASA picked up the Ozone depletion

After identifying the low-level Ozone "errors" actual data NASA came up with a map of Ozone Depletion map. With further visits to Antarctica and measurements of Chlorine Monoxide, That more than anything pushed public opinion. While others were debating and pushing against the band of CFC others had pushed forward with legislation and international agreements.  In 1987, DuPont testified before the US Congress that "We believe there is no imminent crisis that demands unilateral regulation." Due to the dangers predicted countries, the countries entered the Montreal Protocol but by this time they had stopped using CFC as refrigerants and solvents as well as propellants in aerosol cans in the US and found cheaper and more reliable alternatives and as a result the Ozone hole in Antarctica is slowly recovering. Due to its widespread adoption and implementation, it has been hailed as an example of exceptional international co-operation, with Kofi Annan quoted as saying that "perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol". After being awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for "for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone", the "merchants of doubt" attacked the Nobel Prize committee as well. In its citation, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Dr. Rowland, Dr. Molina and Dr. Crutzen, "have contributed to our salvation from a global environmental problem that could have catastrophic consequences."

Public smoking - passive smoking, the case for second hand smoke.

The issue of whether tobacco caused cancer had already been established by this time. Research by the tobacco industries showed that there was a risk from side-stream smoke and it was worst than if inhaling it through a cigarette filter. They had started by changing the components in the paper, changing the components of the cigarette but this information remained a secret to the general public. Research by scientists was now beginning to demonstrate increase incidences of lung cancer (adenocarcinoma) in non-smoking Japanese women. Research had shown that side-stream smoke contains more carcinogens (cancer causing substances) than mainstream smoke. Hence putting the passive at a greater risk than the person actually smoking. Of course, the tobacco industry pull out it's usual guns and played by their play book.

Rachel Carson - Mass murderer.

Rachel Carson wrote her book "Silent Spring" in 1963, then the Republican Nixon Administration, in 1970 banned DDT use in the US. In her book Dr Rachel Carson, showed how the pesticides affected all the animals the birds and fish. But it seems recently that scientists have return to her despite being almost half a century after her death and destroyed her legacy. Some saying  “banning DDT killed more people than Hitler”. But the effort was to paint her as being hysteric and the use of science and facts, with the use of legalization and regulation to protect the environment. That is why the "merchants of doubt" were against the US's EPA - Environmental Protection Agency. Hence if the could prove the narrative that science had got it wrong once it would be easier to show how regulation will not work. These merchants of doubt have been successful in promoting this alternative narrative.

Rachel had been right and the effects of DDT are still seen in the food chain years after it was banned. Also studies with the rates of cancer has also been seen to increased and fertility in humans have also been reduced, these have been attributed to widespread pesticides abuse.

Trumpism - In Final

While listening to the audio book in the gym a lot of people who listen in on it, when the earphones were off, claimed that is how Trump speaks. The US political system has been highly polarized a lot of people have been distrusting science and due process due to what is believed to be controversies and arguments between the scientist. Also Trump is known to go out on hyperbole and use the term "fake news" to denote certain things. He was famously stated that climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese, to make the "U.S. manufacturing non-competitive". One of his first acts was to reduce the regulations and laws issue by the government to protect the public. He is also trying to dismantle the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rolling back Obama's climate protection regulations. Scientist are not renowned public speakers and most of the research is in scientific journals. People are not fully aware of the scientific process and procedures, and do not understand that questioning and validating, does not mean it is false it just helps in the scientific process. Any science discovery is suppose to be placed before your peers, who are suppose to approach it with a high degree of skepticism and doubt. But when an alternative narrative comes along sponsor by big money these scientist are easily swept away not in a scientific journal but in the tabloids. The message need not be true but if it is simple and taken to the court of public opinion then it is judged and implemented.

How do we control these Merchants, we have to be careful who we listen to. If the person is currently working in the field or an advisor. Who are the sponsors is it the government or a super pact. And is the article peer reviewed and published in a reputable journal or a tabloid paper.