This documentary is as false and phony as it is possible to create such a vehicle. They start of with the notion that the smoking of tobacco causes lung cancer. There is however not a single scientific article published which shows a correlation between the smoking of tobacco and subsequently retrieving lung cancer. Then they go on to argue that the evidence for the thesis that smoking causes lung cancer is found inside internal documents from the seven big corporations of Tobacco. Public relations firm Hill and Knowlton reportedly said to the heads of all the big tobacco companies: "You can't deny the evidence. You can't say smoking doesn't cause cancer. But what you can do is cast doubt." This sentence, as is found inside a report from the big Tobacco corporations, is definite proof according the makers of this documentary that "smoking causes cancer". It is however still not a valid scientific proof. The ultimate doubt was of course the public testimony "I believe nicotine is not addictive." "The tobacco issue broke into the public consciousness in 1953", the same year as the National Security Agency (NSA) was founded. Rumors have it that the NSA was in fact founded by the Russian KGB as their North American head office. It was also the year that all wars ever since fought by the US Army were lost or tied up in sometimes the most strange ways. 1953 was also the year where the KGB started to kill off their CIA opponents by handing out poisoned cigarettes. The makers then arrive at yet another precarious carbon related issue, that of Global Warming. Again the narrative of Merchants of Doubt states that Global Warming is for real. In 1988 a physicist Dr. James Hansen working as a scientist at NASA came to the conclusion that the planet Venus was so hot at 600 degrees because of the greenhouse effect. CO2 amplifies and stores heat. Venus has 96.5% carbon dioxide and hence the conclusion has since been, if we want to fight Global Warming we need to put a halt to increasing CO2 levels. What the makers of the documentary seem to leave out is that CO2 levels on our planet Earth are very very low in comparison, and hence can never explain a thing like Global Warming. As a matter of fact according Ian Plimer, a professor in Geology, current levels of CO2 are less than 0.4%, and if through sequestering of CO2, according the Paris Climate Change Treaty, the level is halved to 0.2% we would have no terrestrial plants at all, because then the Osmotic pressure of CO2 would become to low and the process of Photosynthesis and hence the production of oxygen and growth of plants would seize to function. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEPW_P7GVB8

Merchants of Doubt Of course, there are scientists on both sides that exaggerate, but everyone knows that climate change is real, and that humans are the main cause. Ice core matches up perfectly with the start of the Industrial Revolution-(hint: that's the big one), as well as other volcanic eruptions that date further back in history; which also caused the climate to change. So that's not even a question anymore. Go back to school if you don't believe me. It's never too late. Take some environmental science courses. That way, you can just argue all your bs to the teacher. And when s/he kicks you out of the class for holding everyone back, you'll still be a hero somewhere in Texas.Weather is analyzed on a day to day basis. Climate is the study of those patterns over a long period of time. Climate change is probably a better term to use than global warming, only because people can grasp the meaning better. The United States had the hottest summer on record last year. It also had the coldest February, this year, than it has had in the last 80 to 100 years, in most states. Climate change does not mean it's just going to be hot all the time. It means the climate will change more often. We will see severe patterns of weather more frequently. I like how this documentary ties in the PR aspect. The only reason climate change became a political issue is because of the effects it has on business.Merchants of Doubt

The infamous book by Oreskes and Conway is put to the test here to see if it can become a reasonable theater experience. "Reasonable", is probably the best word for it. We see video evidence of the amazing claims in their book, it seems watered down, as a matter of fact, they have to take pains to balance screen impressions of true believers with skeptics, which is always a difficulty but it is made important by their very thesis, that the skeptics substitute their unqualified personalities for their lack of science. They try to prove this by presenting several segments with Professor Fred Singer, presenting him as a rocket scientist, implying indirectly that he should be a dunce at climate, perhaps. The only other person in the theater besides my group, said that the film was a sad experience, but that she was going to show it to her university students nevertheless "to teach them the truth". Dr. James Hansen, the original speaker-before-congress of Warming is shown commenting on his four arrests, which he admits was a sorry substitute for "banging on the president's desk". Perhaps President Obama saw this film, and got the message.There is an interview with Marc Morano which uses contrived editing to make it appear that emails with death threats received by scientists were sent by him. This is probably the lowest point of the movie. On the positive side, there is some notion of how large the energy business is, how many people depend on it, and how 'experimental' and far away the alternatives really are.There are two other characters that seem to be only in there to forward the author's point of view, one is a card mechanist/magician who gives the moral point of view of Oreskes, that his own intentions are "honorable", but that those "deceptions" which are not admitted are not. Another is Michael Schirmer, the administrator of the American Skeptics Society, someone who has always given me the creeps, since he doesn't come across as a real scientist, which he again does in this movie, with his pat anecdote about how he had to switch sides in order to agree with Global Warming, and also his shouting match with a doubter in his audience. The other is Bill Nye, who is an actor, but whom the narration represents as a typical scientist being talked over by the "paid professionals" of the skeptical side.You may wonder why I've given the movie less than 5 stars if I said it was above average. Well, that fact that I don't necessarily agree with most of the points or points of view that I heard is the reason, not to mention the major thesis, which is that "consensus" means that anyone who disagrees should be denied a seat at the table. If such a dogma is meant to pass as a kind of, "Communism", then it indeed passes the test.

My title says it all. And if you are on the fence this film may help you better assess what has been going on in the media. It appears that the people so thoroughly examined in the film -- lobbyists employed by the oil and gas industry (some of them formerly paid to defend tobacco) and their followers -- are now writing disparaging reviews of this excellent documentary film. I saw it at the New York Film Festival in October and have been recommending it and waiting for its release ever since. The book on which it is based -- "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming" by Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway is also excellent. I would only add that some of those so confidently opposing the well-documented scientific evidence of climate change are not even scientists.