B 5 NOVEMBER 2021 • VOL 374 ISSUE 6568 science.org SCIENCE
INSIGHTS | PRIZE ESSAY
demand for energy with an indefinite need
for fossil fuels; casting itself as an impartial
supplier. The benefits of fossil fuels are pre-
sented as profound and explicit, whereas
their consequences are an ambiguous cli-
mate “risk.”
Consumer demand is one aspect of the cli-
mate problem and its solution. However, the
disproportionate fixation of ExxonMobil, a
fossil fuel supplier, on demand-side respon-
sibility is reminiscent of the tobacco indus-
try’s well-documented effort “to diminish
its own responsibility...by casting itself as
a kind of neutral innocent, buffeted by the
forces of consumer demand” ( 8 ).
Today, narratives focused on personal cli-
mate responsibility are pervasive in shaping
the agenda of many scholars, policy-makers,
and members of the public. Yale University,
for instance, refuses to divest from fos-
sil fuel companies because “consumption
of fossil fuels, not production, is the root
of the climate change problem” ( 13 ). The
Republican Party’s 2020 climate agenda
was premised on the idea that “fossil fuels
aren’t the enemy. It’s emissions” ( 14 ). Even
the Paris Agreement does not mention fossil
fuels ( 15 ).
The fossil fuel industry is priming us
to see ourselves as “consumers first and
citizens second” ( 16 ). Experiments indicate
that messages framed in terms of indi-
vidual behavior decrease people’s willing-
ness to take both personal and collective
climate actions ( 17 ).
Will Big Oil continue to follow in
Big Tobacco’s footsteps ( 18 )? Already,
ExxonMobil’s public relations focus on meet-
ing the demand of its consumers has begun
to be repackaged by its lawyers to exonerate
the company and blame its customers. In
2018, a lawyer defending ExxonMobil and
other companies against a climate lawsuit
argued that it is not “the production and ex-
traction of oil that is driving these emissions.
It’s the energy use” ( 19 ). “It’s the way people
are living their lives.” Fossil fuel firms could
also invoke legal defenses that cite their pro-
lific “risk” rhetoric as evidence that the public
knew about and voluntarily assumed the risk
of climate change—just as tobacco compa-
nies argued that their customers had been
warned about the risks of smoking.
Both in the court of law and the court
of public opinion, we must learn from the
history of the tobacco industry to protect
the future climate. It took 20 years for Big
Tobacco’s blame game to falter ( 20 ). We can-
not afford to wait that long to stop smoking
our planet. jREFERENCES AND NOTES- L. Ly, “New York City sues Big Oil for allegedly misleading
consumers about climate change,” CNN (2021); https://
perma.cc/M8QQ-JSU6. - Columbia Law School, Arnold&Porter, “U.S. Climate
Change Litigation” (2021); https://perma.cc/
ZHZ3-5HTX.
3. J. Cook et al., “America misled: How the fossil fuel
industry deliberately misled Americans about climate
change” (George Mason University Center for Climate
Change Communication, 2019); https://perma.
cc/7942-6FWJ.
4. Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Exxon Mobil
Corporation, 1984CV03333 (2020); https://perma.
cc/4KLX-X9PZ.
5. G. Supran, N. Oreskes, One Earth 4 , 696 (2021).
6. S. Risi, R. N. Proctor, To b. C o n t r o l 29 , e41 (2020).
7. S. Coll, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power
(Penguin Books, 2012).
8. R. N. Proctor, Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette
Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition (Univ. California
Press, 2012).
9. ExxonMobil Corp, “Climate change” (corporate.exxon-
mobil.com); https://perma.cc/E42Q-MJU6.
10. Chevron Corp, “Climate change” (chevron.com);
https://perma.cc/6H9L-N4GE.
11. ConocoPhillips, “Managing climate-related risks” (cono-
cophillips.com); https://perma.cc/QSP7-DEVF.
12. B. Van Gorp, in Doing News Framing Analysis: Empirical
and Theoretical Perspectives, P. D’Angelo, J. A. Kuypers,
Eds. (Routledge, 2009), pp. 84–109.
13. Yale University Investments Office, “Climate change”;
https://perma.cc/9UVU-YK8F.
14. J. Siegel, “How House Republicans won over con-
servatives to gain consensus on a climate agenda,”
Washington Examiner (2020); https://perma.cc/
HF83-EMGD.
15. G. Piggot, P. Erickson, H. van Asselt, M. Lazarus, Clim.
Policy 18 , 1189 (2018).
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17. R. Palm, T. Bolsen, J. T. Kingsland, Weather Clim. Soc. 12 ,
827 (2020).
18. L. C. Friedman et al., Am. J. Public Health 105 , 250
(2015).
19. City of Oakland v. BP P.L.C., 18-16663, Transcript of pro-
ceedings (2018); https://perma.cc/EJ4Y-HDQV.
20. P. Mejia et al., Am. J. Public Health 104 , 1048 (2014).
10.1126/science.abm3434