Merchants of Doubt summary

Despite their best efforts, the tobacco industry couldn’t keep its product’s harmful effects under wraps. But when scientific evidence of smoking’s health risks first came to light, it only concerned the act of smoking itself. In fact, the dangers of passive tobacco smoking weren’t proven and acknowledged until the 1980s!

In 1980 and ‘81, British and Japanese studies proved that non-smokers experienced decreased lung function after being in smoky environments. Then, in 1986, the US Surgeon General reported that second-hand smoke was as dangerous as smoking. And finally, in 1992, the US Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, issued a report detailing second-hand smoke’s harmful effects.

Nuclear war has been a major topic of conversation since the first atomic warheads were developed and, as recently as the 1980s, the conversation about how to prevent such a catastrophe was in full, heated swing. In fact, fear of nuclear war prompted scientists to wage their own war, against a government defense protocol of the 1980s.

Here’s what happened:

The latter half of the twentieth century saw the emergence of environmental issues that demanded the attention of scientists and politicians. One such problem was acid rain. In fact, the phenomenon has been studied in detail since the 1960s, and plenty of scientific evidence has been compiled on its origins and effects.

Acid rain is essentially rain with a lower than normal pH concentration. It leads to a variety of problems such as decreased forest and plant growth, and it can kill animals such as fish. Over time, scientists began to trace acid rain to the burning of fossil fuels and determined that the pollution that causes it often occurs in a different geographical area than where the rain itself falls.

It’s common for science to advance slowly, especially when industry interests are at stake, and this was especially true throughout the scientific discussions regarding the depletion of the ozone layer. It should thus come as no surprise that the conversation about whether there is in fact a hole in the ozone layer dates back almost 50 years.

In the 1970s, scientists presented indisputable evidence that certain chemicals were causing the depletion of the ozone layer. Researchers had been investigating the effects of various chemicals on the ozone layer as early as the late-1960s, and in 1970, scientist James Lovelock shared his work: he hypothesized that certain chemicals, called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which were commonly used in aerosol products like hair spray, were in fact concentrating in the Earth’s stratosphere, potentially depleting the planet’s ozone.

It’s clear that there have been alarming cases in which the public was misled about dire environmental issues, and another excellent example is global warming. Despite clear scientific proof, global warming wasn’t taken seriously until the 1980s.

Why?

Now that you know how science can be appropriated for political ends and lobbying, it’s time for one last example: the pesticide dichlordiphenyltrichlorethan, or DDT. DDT was banned in 1972 because of its devastating environmental effects, which were first made public in the 1960s.

Here’s what it does: