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Renewed exposure of dirty tricks campaigns by fossil fuel industries

Fossil fuel industry’s dirty tricks campaign exposed, Independent Australia,   DeSmog Blog 4 November 2014 A leaked tape from an oil and gas industry conference shows how Big Carbon uses dirty tricks to undermine science, vilify its critics and discredit journalists who criticise the use of fossil fuels, writesSharon Kelly via DeSmogBlog.

Leave it to Washington’s top attack-dog lobbyist Richard Berman to verify what many always suspected: that the oil and gas industry uses dirty tricks to undermine science, vilify  its critics and discredit journalists who cast doubt on the prudence of fossil fuels.

In a speech at an industry conference in June, surreptitiously recorded by an energy executive, Rick Berman ‒ the foremost go-to guy for Republican smear campaigns ‒ gave unusually candid advice to a meeting of drilling companies.

“Think of this as an endless war,” he told executives in a speech, which was leaked to the New York Times by an attendee at the conference who was offended by Berman’s remarks. “And you have to budget for it.”

He said the industry needs to dig up embarrassing tidbits about environmentalists and liberal celebrities, exploit the public’s short attention span for scientific debate, and play on people’s emotions:

“Fear and anger have to be a part of this campaign. We’re not going to get people to like the oil and gas industry over the next few months.”

Berman also advised that executives continue to spend big:

“I think $2 to $3 million would be a game changer. We’ve had six-figure contributions to date from a few companies in this room to help us get to where we are.”

But always cover your tracks, he suggested, adding that no-one is better equipped at doing so than his firm:

“We run all this stuff through non-profit organisations that are insulated from having to disclose donors. There is total anonymity. People don’t know who supports us. We’ve been doing this for 20-something years in this regard.”……….

Berman described the job of convincing people as he sees it — introducing just enough doubt that even if people don’t support an issue, they’re confused enough to write it off.

“Instead of getting the ‘he said she said’ debate, what you will get with the factual debate, often times, you’re going to get into people get overwhelmed by the science and ‘I don’t know who to believe. But if you got enough on your side you get people into a position of paralysis on the issue. You get into people’s minds a tie. They don’t know who is right. And you get all ties because a tie basically ensures the status quo.”………

But the industry itself is desperate as public concerns about climate change increase and popular sentiment turns against more drilling. And desperate times mean desperate measures.

The recording is by no means the first evidence of these aggressive and ad hominem tactics.

Last month, DeSmog described how the industry’s attack machine has gone after major foundations and endowments, attempting to frame their donations to environmental groups as an insideous conspiracy to undermine American energy production instead of a response to the growing number of problems related to fracking………..

Listen to the audio recording of Berman spilling his secrets in full………..

http://www.independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/fossil-fuel-industrys-dirty-tricks-campaign-exposed,7064

November 10, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster, USA