Fight test

A few months ago I posted about a presentation by science historian Naomi Oreskes, discussing the roots of denial. John Mashey (in comments at Deltoid, since promoted to a post) draws attention to another Oreskes talk – You CAN Argue With The Facts – which looks in some detail at how the Western Fuels Association test marketed climate dissent. Oreskes is typically incisive, but I found her calm dissection of the cynical application of professional marketing techniques to create an illusion (and later, the fact) of dissent truly shocking. If you were wondering where Hansen got his “prosecute the CEOs” call from, this is the context. Required viewing for all pol sci and mass comms students (you know who you are 😉 )…