How ExxonMobil’s PR Machine Impacted The Climate Change Debate
Our DeSmog UK epic history series continues asExxonMobil uses its PR power to change the public’s mind on climate change.
The basic tenet of ExxonMobil’s strategy was clear: it would use PR, not to change their image, but to change the public’s mind.
Exxon’s longstanding senior environmental advisor was a large, bullish, but “brilliant”, nuclear engineer, heroically named Arthur G Randall III. He went by the name of “Randy”.
Though Randy was nearing the end of his career, he was a powerful force within ExxonMobil’s Washington network.
The Action Plan
In April 1998, four months after BP boss Lord Browne praised the new Kyoto Protocol to limit emissions, the hardliners came together to create an “Action Plan” to combat America’s growing fondness for fighting climate change.
The “Global Climate Science Communications Team” was led by the American Petroleum Institute (API), an industry lobby group bankrolled by Exxon and increasingly used as a political cover for their activities.
Randy was one of just a few industry representatives present; apart from this, the group was dominated by think tank representatives from the Heartland Institute, the Marshall Institute, and Frontiers for Freedom.
The group had a singular clarity of vision. The problem was that the public was sympathetic to the Kyoto Protocol. But this was alterable.
Media Outreach
The environmentalists’ Achilles heel was the public’s understanding of the science. By recruiting and training “a team of five independent scientists to participate in media outreach”, industry representatives would ensure that “a majority of the American public” recognise that significant uncertainties exist in climate change.
They would have a direct outreach programme to engage with colleges, the press and politicians “about uncertainties in climate science.”
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