Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

During the acid rain politicization, the public became aware that “human activities might be damaging the Earth’s protective ozone layer” (107). Commercial airlines were attempting to design an aircraft that could fly faster than sound(supersonic transport or SST) and discovered the threat posed by chlorofluorocarbons. There was concern that the water vapor dispersed by this fleet of vehicles would deplete the ozone, although there was research on both sides. Ozone depletion was known to correlate to an increase in UV radiation, which in turn correlated to an increase in skin cancer, making this depletion problematic. Similarly, although it was originally thought that nitrogen oxides did not cause ozone depletion, after a conference it was concluded that more research was necessary to understand the concentration of nitrogen oxides in the stratosphere and in turn better understand the effect of further radiation therein. One scientist, Harold Johnston, wrote a sensational paper which was rejected by peer review because it was highly biased and made unfounded claims, such as widespread blindness.

Although Johnston rewrote this paper, the original version was leaked to the press, which led Congress to fund the Climate Impact Assessment Program, involving a thousand scientists. CIAP found that SSTs could deplete the ozone by 10-20%, but the Department of Transportation whitewashed the Executive Summary to suggest that a technologically-improved SST would not deplete the ozone. This version was then given to the press. The scientists were branded as alarmists, and most newspapers refused to publish their articles. Science, however, agreed to publish a letter on the misrepresentation of the report, and the DOT acknowledged in a letter that they had misled people via the summary, but no one outside of those who read Science ever heard this admission.

Although SSTs were eventually found to be expensive and therefore their production was halted, the ozone argument forced NASA to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement. Researchers found that the chlorine released from rocket boosters destroyed the ozone, although this report was initially buried. When scientists went to present their findings, NASA asked them not to mention that rockets released chlorine and instead to link chlorine to volcanoes, which the scientists did because NASA had paid for their work.

Other scientists presented similar findings of the destructive nature of chlorine, including some who spoke on the decomposition of common industrial chemicals, chlorofluorocarbons, which released chlorine into the stratosphere. “The revelation that mundane items like hair spray could destroy the Earth’s ozone and increase cancer rates produced a media firestorm” (112) and Congress responded with unaccustomed speed to meet public outcry.

“The Ozone War”

“The aerosol industry responded almost immediately” (112), putting out research from their own trade associations and giving $5 million in grants to fund more research. They also created the Aerosol Education Bureau and the Council on Atmospheric Sciences as PR organizations, in order to defend their products. However, the Ford administration established a panel, the Inadvertent Modification of the Stratosphere, which found that without clear evidence otherwise, CFC emissions should be banned, placing the burden on the National Academy of Sciences (not usually a regulatory body) to decide whether aerosols should be prohibited. Known opponents (and proponents) were not allowed to be involved with the decision, although they were allowed to present their expertise. The NAS was under considerable pressure, and the aerosol industry got scientist Richard Scorer to go on a PR campaign to denigrate the work of opposing scientists. Scorer “insisted that humans were incapable of harming the environment…[as] human activities were too small to have any impact of the atmosphere” (114). Although he was eventually discovered to be a pawn of the aerosol industry, his arguments never went away. The industry decided to blame volcanoes for chlorine emission, creating a research program to study this alleged phenomenon, the results of which they said were inconclusive.

The industry challenged each aspect of the scientific argument: “‘They said there was no proof that fluorocarbons even got into the stratosphere, no proof that they split apart to produce chlorine, no proof that, even if they did, the chlorine was destroying ozone’” (115), despite that every one of these statements had been proven false by research. Indeed, a study eventually demonstrated the presence of chlorine monoxide in the stratosphere, which could only exist when CFCs react with ozone to produce it: “it was a fingerprint—a telltale sign that CFCs had been there all along” (116).

However, other new data also reduced the original estimate of ozone depletion. Not knowing what to make of this new data, the NAS postponed the reports until they could understand the scientific consequences of this finding, much to the irritation of government agencies funding the panels. However, the industry believed this represented a win, and announced to the press that “the new data brought depletion estimates ‘nearly to zero’” (117), a patently false claim.

When the panel’s report finally came out, suggesting a short period of research before CFC regulation, the aerosol industry tried to spin it in their favor, stressing the uncertainty of the data. However, the public had mostly stopped buying aerosol products: “the ban on propellant use, which took effect in 1979, was merely the coup de grace” (118).

“Holes in the Ozone Layer”

The 1985 British Antarctic Survey discovered the presence of extremely low ozone levels over Antarctica, much to the shock of the scientific community. At first, many scientists believed that the satellite used didn’t appear to have collected data that aligned with this belief, but later it was found that the data had been misinterpreted: no one believed that the ozone could get as depleted as it was, and so the satellite had catalogued it as an error. After double-checking, scientists found that the ozone hole covered all of Antarctica:

While almost no one lived within the boundaries of the depleted region, if it grew very much, it would reach populated landmasses in Australia and South America. And since no one knew the mechanism that produced the hole, no one could be certain that it would not grow (120).

Most atmospheric chemists believed that CFCs had depleted the ozone, but many meteorologists believed that “upwelling atmospheric currents could carry ozone-poor tropospheric air into the stratosphere, creating the appearance of a hole” (121). Eventually, new evidence from studies promoted the idea that the ozone hole was a combination of both Antarctica’s peculiar meteorology and CFC emission, as ice accelerated chlorine-releasing chemical reactions and a vortex prevented clean air from being mixed in.

“Creating an Adaptive Regulatory Regime”

There was global debate about CFC emissions, namely what levels were acceptable and how regulations would be enforced. After years of debate, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) created the Montreal Protocol, which required CFC emissions to be cut by 50 percent, a figure to be revisited every few years in light of new scientific evidence. In the next few years, data showed that tighter restrictions were necessary, and that the highly-populated northern midlatitudes were being depleted of ozone as well.

“An Arctic Ozone Hole?”

“While the evidence was strong enough to warrant regulatory action, from the scientists’ perspective there were enough remaining uncertainties to justify more research” (123), including data inconsistencies. A study conducted said that something similar to the Antarctic ozone hole was taking place in the Arctic, which was cause for concern, as more people lived in the northern hemisphere. Further studies solidified this evidence, although there was no evidence of an Arctic ozone hole, just evidence of the same chemical reactions. Scientists believed this was due to the heightened temperatures in, and lack of polar vortex strength of, the Arctic. As a result, the Montreal Protocol was revised to ban the manufacture of chlorofluorocarbons and any other chemicals that emitted chlorine into the stratosphere.

“Constructing a Counternarrative”

Throughout the ozone hole study, industry representatives tried to doubt the reality of ozone depletion and/or suggest it was either inconsequential or caused by volcanoes: “Reagan’s secretary of the interior, Donald Hodel…proposed a ‘personal protection plan’ in 1987 against ozone depletion: wearing hats and long-sleeved shirts” (125). Various conservative think-tanks, funded by businessmen, corporations, and conservative foundations, promoted business interests, free market economic policies, and environmental, health, safety, and labor deregulation. Some of these think-tanks, one of which was led by Fred Singer, constructed a “counternarrative that depicted ozone depletion as a natural variation that was being cynically exploited by a corrupt, self-interested, and extremist scientific community to get more money for their research” (126).

In the media, Singer presented what he called the ozone scare: his belief that ozone depletions were localized and temporary and that there was no proof they were caused by CFCs. He also implemented the tobacco strategy of blame-shifting, by mentioning the myriad other causes of skin cancer apart from ozone depletion. He used old, already-discredited theories to prove his assertions, arguing “that the real cause of the hole was the stratospheric cooling, and this cooling was just a part of the Earth’s natural climate variability” (127).

By cherry-picking information from other studies (which themselves argued for the presence of anthropogenic global warming), Singer argued that the regulation of CFCs and the subsequent Montreal Protocol were unnecessary: \

Singer was doing just what he had done for acid rain—insisting that any solution would be difficult and expensive, yet providing scant evidence to support the claim…Singer’s story had three major themes: the science is incomplete and uncertain; replacing CFCs will be difficult, dangerous, and expensive; and the scientific community is corrupt and motivated by self-interest and political ideology(129).

The Montreal Protocol had accounted for the first idea, the second idea was untrue, and the third idea was a ridiculous assertion, given Singer’s close relationship with the Reagan administration.

The scientific community had pretty much put the CFC problem to rest, and were now looking into the problems caused by CFC substitutes, but Singer didn’t give up; instead, he started a nonprofit (the Science and Environmental Policy Project or SEPP), and through allegiance with an anticommunist church, used the media to promote his claims. Singer’s arguments were picked up by the other few conservative scientists, including Dixy Lee Ray, former chair of the Atomic Energy Commission. Ray used Singer’s arguments (in which he had cherry-picked and in fact, misrepresented data), including data about chlorine concentration (which she confused as chlorine emission) that she received second-hand from an interview with a scientist who did not study the ozone. Due to Ray’s authority as a scientist, the press believed she was credible and spread her misinformation. Ray’s misinformation was debunked by an atmospheric chemist, who demonstrated the falsehood that chlorine in the stratosphere came from volcanoes, among many other ideas. However, this correction made no difference, as Singer continued to be listened to by government committees. After this chemist won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Singer attacked the Nobel committee in the media.

“What Was This Really About?”

Singer alleged that researchers were using scare tactics to make themselves rich and gain attention, but it seems that he was doing the same. He believed that socialism or communism was the end goal for environmentalists and any scientists therein, as “environmental regulation was the slippery slope to Socialism….To fight environmental regulation, Singer and Ray told a story in which science was corrupt and scientists could not be trusted. Once planted, this counternarrative did not go away” (134). Other conservative scientists quickly jumped on the bandwagon and used this to attack science and prevent environmental regulation.