UCS Attacks Exxon For Misleading Public Over Climate

The Union of Concerned Scientists has become the latest in a long line of organizations to criticize Exxon Mobil for spending millions of dollars to manipulate public opinion over climate change.
Drawing parallels with the tactics of the tobacco industry, the UCS’s report is called “Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to ‘Manufacture Uncertainty’ on Climate Change”.
According to the UCS it “offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry’s disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue.
According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public.
“ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer,” says Alden Meyer, the UCS’ Director of Strategy & Policy. “A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years.”