By Jeffrey Kosiorek

If the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change is as overwhelming as some claim, a rational person might be excused for asking why politicians have not acted, debates are still featured in the media and a growing percentage of the American public believes climate change is not occurring.

“Merchants of Doubt,” the 2014 documentary film by Robert Kenner based on the Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway book of the same title, decisively answers the question by showing us the ways in which the fossil fuel industry has deployed a massive, multi-level campaign of obfuscation to sow not just doubt about climate change, but a sort of tribal belligerence towards the idea.

The film does not dwell on the evidence for rising temperatures and humanity’s culpability, leaving that to the staggering science on the topic and popular portrayals such as “An Inconvenient Truth.” In fact, Gore’s 2006 documentary plays another role in “Merchants of Doubt,” serving as a reminder of the period, less than 10 years ago, when a burgeoning majority of the American people recognized the reality of climate change. Back then, politicians of all stripes, including leading Republicans such as Newt Gingrich and John McCain, called for action to counter climate change and ameliorate its impacts. It was this public recognition of the real and deleterious effects of global weirding that caused the fossil fuel industry to take action, mobilizing a disinformation offensive of epic proportions. Backed by Charles and David Koch and other wealthy coal, oil and gas magnates, the campaign employed the same tactics and, in many cases, the same lobbying firms and “experts” the tobacco companies hired to deny the harmful effects of their product for a half century, despite clear evidence to the contrary produced by big tobacco’s own scientists. However, the deniers took the tobacco industry’s artifice much further, demonizing – and even inciting violence against – their opponents, claiming they are threats to all that is good and decent about the American way of life and, thus, creating, in a fabulous act of clever, reckless, and dishonest subterfuge, a straw man out of their own image.

Despite its depressing subject matter, “Merchants of Doubt” is an engrossing film, largely because of the way it is able to put a human face on a controversy that is often portrayed, by both sides, as being perpetrated by a cabal of secret operatives. For instance, the filmmaker includes a lengthy and colorful interview with Marc Morano, the former Bush Administration-aide; past communications director for Republican Senator — and chief climate-change denier — Jim Inhofe; and founder of the anti-climate science website ClimateDepot.com. In an amazing section of the film, Morano unapologetically describes his actions on behalf of climate denial: masquerading as a scientist on the national news, encouraging his readers to send hate mail to and publishing the personal contact information of scientists and academics who promote climate change, and, he really says this, disregarding all scientific evidence because it harms the economic interests of his clients and, by extension, himself.

The documentary also takes us through the heart-wrenching struggles of Bob Inglis, who, after becoming convinced of the science behind climate change and the dangers global warming presented while serving as a Republican Congressman from South Carolina, sought to rally his colleagues to action and present the facts to his constituency. Not only was he promptly voted out of office, but he became a pariah within the party, despite his continued sympathy and public support for the larger conservative movement. These stories and others, all weaved into a compelling whole, make for a powerful and enlightening film that would also be highly entertaining, if its subject matter was not so infuriating.

Jeffrey Kosiorek is an environmental historian based in Peoria.

A Free Public Screening for “Merchants of Doubt” is scheduled for 7 p.m. March 9 at the Illinois Central College Performing Arts Center, 1 College Drive, East Peoria. The screening is co-sponsored by ICC Student Association for the Environment, Community Word and Central Illinois Healthy Community Alliance. Convenient free parking. Handicapped accessible.