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Senator Whitehouse: What phony op-eds about climate change have in common
BEGINNING IN 1999, the Department of Justice pursued (and ultimately won) a civil lawsuit against several major tobacco companies. By denying the negative health effects of tobacco, the suit alleged, the industry was engaging in fraud. Today, researchers often compare the fossil fuel industry’s support for an array of groups that propagate climate change denial to the tobacco industry’s pattern of denial of the dangers of its product. Last spring, I wrote an opinion piece recommending a similar civil investigation into the fossil fuel industry for spreading fraudulent information about climate change. At a subsequent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, I asked Attorney General Loretta Lynch whether the Justice Department had taken steps consistent with a civil fraud investigation to explore the industry’s possible culpability.
An extraordinary barrage of opinion pieces ensued, more than 100 all told, asserting—wrongly—that any such investigation would be a violation of the First Amendment. I say “wrongly” because it is actually settled law—even cited in the tobacco case itself—that fraud is not protected speech under the First Amendment. This raises the question whether the phony “science” supporting climate denial has a twin in equally phony “opinion” writing.
Although the opinion pieces appeared in many outlets, they shared common markers. They regularly confused civil law with criminal law, suggesting that I wanted to “slap the cuffs on people” or was seeking “prosecutions.” They regularly conflated investigation with prosecution, as if the industry would not be able to defend itself through the investigative process. They almost always overlooked the government’s victory in the tobacco fraud lawsuit. Ignoring the tobacco lawsuit allowed these writers to feign horror over use of the civil RICO statute, which many pieces pointed out was designed to go after “mobsters.” But the civil RICO law has been used to sue other organizations, including, of course, the tobacco industry. Last, the pieces suggested that I wanted to target “scientists” or “people who disagree” with me (not the fraud standard, obviously). In sum, these op-eds’ common markings indicate orchestration off a central script.
...
The climate denial apparatus illuminated by the work of these writers and others is the untold story behind our obstructed American politics of climate change. This recent outburst of error-plagued criticism is connected to that apparatus, and seems designed, like climate denial “science,” to protect the fossil fuel industry—in this case, from any investigation—by deploying a common array of falsehoods, omitted facts, and misstatements of the law, all in a four-alarm tonal realm between dudgeon and hysteria. The breadth of the op-ed assault suggests that a new level of critical scrutiny will be needed at honorable editorial boards to make responsible choices between legitimate and honest opinion and clever, made-to-order, industrial-scale dissemination of industry propaganda.
http://www.cjr.org/first_person/climate_change_department_of_justice.php
An extraordinary barrage of opinion pieces ensued, more than 100 all told, asserting—wrongly—that any such investigation would be a violation of the First Amendment. I say “wrongly” because it is actually settled law—even cited in the tobacco case itself—that fraud is not protected speech under the First Amendment. This raises the question whether the phony “science” supporting climate denial has a twin in equally phony “opinion” writing.
Although the opinion pieces appeared in many outlets, they shared common markers. They regularly confused civil law with criminal law, suggesting that I wanted to “slap the cuffs on people” or was seeking “prosecutions.” They regularly conflated investigation with prosecution, as if the industry would not be able to defend itself through the investigative process. They almost always overlooked the government’s victory in the tobacco fraud lawsuit. Ignoring the tobacco lawsuit allowed these writers to feign horror over use of the civil RICO statute, which many pieces pointed out was designed to go after “mobsters.” But the civil RICO law has been used to sue other organizations, including, of course, the tobacco industry. Last, the pieces suggested that I wanted to target “scientists” or “people who disagree” with me (not the fraud standard, obviously). In sum, these op-eds’ common markings indicate orchestration off a central script.
...
The climate denial apparatus illuminated by the work of these writers and others is the untold story behind our obstructed American politics of climate change. This recent outburst of error-plagued criticism is connected to that apparatus, and seems designed, like climate denial “science,” to protect the fossil fuel industry—in this case, from any investigation—by deploying a common array of falsehoods, omitted facts, and misstatements of the law, all in a four-alarm tonal realm between dudgeon and hysteria. The breadth of the op-ed assault suggests that a new level of critical scrutiny will be needed at honorable editorial boards to make responsible choices between legitimate and honest opinion and clever, made-to-order, industrial-scale dissemination of industry propaganda.
http://www.cjr.org/first_person/climate_change_department_of_justice.php
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