Corporate discourse on climate change

Corporations seek to manage democracies to suit their own interests through the exercise of persuasion, propaganda, political influence and financial power. This is particularly evident when corporate interests conflict with the public interest, as is the case with environmental protection. Effective government measures to avoid global warming have been thwarted for three decades as a result of corporate efforts. Corporations have sought to undermine public pressure for government action by casting doubt on global warming predictions by funding and promoting dissident scientists, front groups and think tanks. They have diverted blame from themselves in industry-sponsored educational materials. They have ensured government policy responses favour market-based economic instruments through commissioned research, lobbying and the political weight of business coalitions. They have fostered faith in spurious alternative technological solutions such as clean coal. In all these ways corporations have ensured that they can continue business despite the environmental consequences that will ensue.