Corporate Discourse on Climate Change

Politicians in the many nations have not been responsive to community concerns about global warming because of a highly successful corporate campaign of misinformation and persuasion. Corporations that would be affected by measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions set out to confuse and deceive the public and policy-makers on the issue. They used corporate front groups, public relations firms and conservative think tanks to cast doubt on predictions of global warming and its impacts, to imply that governments do not know enough to act, and to argue that the cost of reducing greenhouse gases is prohibitively expensive and to promote doubtful solutions such as ‘clean ’ coal. Since the 1970s corporations have increasingly set the political and the public agenda of democratic nations through their use of business organizations, public relations, lobbying, and funding of third parties such as media, think tanks and advocacy groups. This is particularly true of environmental issues and global warming provides a good illustration of how these promotional activities have determined public policy. Public respect for business was at an all time low during the 1970s and ‘for the first time since the Great Depression, the legitimacy of big business was being called into question by large sector