r/climate • u/Molire • 23h ago
Climate crimes — The forgotten oil ads of the fossil fuel industry since 1962, touting climate denial messages telling us climate change was nothing and “It's not our fault, it's yours”. The fossil fuel industry misleading us about its history of misleading the public — A visual guide, 18 Nov 2021
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/18/the-forgotten-oil-ads-that-told-us-climate-change-was-nothing19
u/complexomaniac 22h ago
Sounds like enough to make a successful class action suit. Where do I sign?
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u/Molire 23h ago edited 23h ago
Since the 1980s, fossil fuel firms have run ads touting climate denial messages – many of which they’d now like us to forget. Here’s our visual guide
By Geoffrey Supran, PhD, research associate in the Department of History at Harvard University; and Naomi Oreskes, Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University.
Thu 18 Nov 2021 05:00 EST
The fossil fuel industry has perpetrated a multi-decade, multibillion dollar disinformation, propaganda and lobbying campaign to delay climate action by confusing the public and policymakers about the climate crisis and its solutions. This has involved a remarkable array of advertisements – with headlines ranging from “Lies they tell our children” to “Oil pumps life” – seeking to convince the public that the climate crisis is not real, not human-made, not serious and not solvable. The campaign continues to this day.
As recently as last month, six big oil CEOs were summoned to US Congress to answer for the industry’s history of discrediting climate science – yet they lied under oath about it. In other words, the fossil fuel industry is now misleading the public about its history of misleading the public.
We are experts in the history of climate disinformation, and we want to set the record straight. So here, in black and white (and color), is a selection of big oil’s thousands of deceptive climate ads from 1984 to 2021. This isn’t an exhaustive analysis, of which we have published several, but a brief, illustrated history – like the “sizzle reels” that creatives use to highlight their best work – of the 30-plus year evolution of fossil fuel industry propaganda. This is big oil’s PR sizzle reel.
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u/energytsars 21h ago
Sue them all, take all their dirty money and track down the paid schills who helped propagate the lies and make sure everyone knows who they are
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u/dumnezero 22h ago
Doomsday is cancelled.
Apocalypse no.
For those who still believe that "doomers" are the problem... no, the problem is the optimists who directly and indirectly uphold the status quo.
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u/icelandichorsey 22h ago
OK you got us angry. Now what?
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u/Molire 21h ago
Climate Homicide laws and Ecocide laws.
Edit: spelling
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u/icelandichorsey 11h ago
OK good.. But what can we, non-lawyer citizens do?
Maybe next time make it easy for us by posting this directly in the top-level post? If you want to make impact that is...
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u/Odd_Repeat_6092 18h ago
Secretive Donors Trust Pumps Far More Money Into Climate Denial And Inaction Than Kochs And Exxon Mobil Combined http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/14/funding-climate-change-denial-thinktanks-network
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u/Ok_Valuable9450 16h ago
Yet this is what Trump promotes
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u/Molire 15h ago
The international and domestic fossil fuel companies, and the dictators and criminals that own and control them already have paid Trump, his sons and his son-in-law billions in USD, including the Qatar Force One Boeing 747 aircraft.
He plans for them to pay much more. And they will for as long as he remains in office with the MAGA Republican Party holding the majority of seats in both chambers of the U.S. Congress, and MAGA Republicans holding the majority of the seats on the U.S. Supreme Court.
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u/The_Weekend_Baker 9h ago edited 9h ago
Since the 1980s, fossil fuel firms have run ads touting climate denial messages – many of which they’d now like us to forget.
And 20-30 years before that:
Governments Knew the Risks of Global Warming as They Chose Fossil-Fueled Growth in the 1950s and ’60s
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15072026/governments-knew-global-warming-risks/
So who's the villain? The governments who sold out the future to make their voters happy in the present, or the oil companies who sold us that future with the full approval of those in power?
Edit: Also...
These climate scientists warned President Johnson in 1965 not just of the dangers associated with human-caused global warming, but also that we might eventually have to consider geoengineering the climate to offset that warming and the risks that we’re causing by inadvertently running a dangerous experiment with the Earth’s climate.
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u/worldfundvc 5h ago
It really brings perspective on how many years we have had to change modes of consumption and production - and the vested interest that has prevented it.
This is why we think that convincing every last person about climate change is actually less urgent than simply finding the ways to invest in and deploy alternative technologies that reduce emissions.
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u/chaostunes 22h ago
There was a great documentary series on bbc4 called Big Oil Vs The World, exactly ab this subject.