This call for you to see the film “Merchants of Doubt” isn’t about smoking. Nonetheless … Is there anyone who does NOT think smoking tobacco causes cancer and otherwise devastates way too many lives? Regardless, people mostly don’t know how systematically corporations obfuscated about tobacco and health.
“Obfuscate” -- a great word -- means to confuse or stupefy, to obscure. With government help and bolstered by a micro-set of scientists, corporations confused and stupefied the public as to the dangers of smoking. Bad on bad, they intentionally manufactured a more dangerous product.
“Merchants of Doubt” isn’t particularly about the evils of the tobacco industry, although the filmmakers point them out to set up what the film IS about. It’s about the evils of fossil fuel related institutions that obfuscate about global climate change and threatened natural resources. These ramifications can dwarf anything the tobacco industry accomplished.
Different than other dire documentaries, “Merchants of Doubt” rakes the muck of these behaviors in an overarching way. It reveals how the same tactics employed to work the evils of the tobacco industry have been and continue to be employed by the fossil fuel industrial complex. Indeed, some of the same people are implicated in both campaigns.
Unashamed promoters know “that if you can do tobacco” you can obfuscate anything. They have shilled against rightful awareness concerning DDT, ozone, acid rain, and more. Maybe you wouldn’t see a film called “Merchants of Obfuscation.” You must see “Merchants of Doubt.”