Episode Details

There's an unspoken rule in the social impact sector: we tell the truth, we follow the science, we play fair. But those rules are increasingly a losing strategy, because the industries we're up against don't have to win the argument. They just have to muddy it. Joelle Lester, Executive Director of the Public Health Law Center, has spent 25 years studying how Big Tobacco manufactured doubt, and how that same playbook now drives opposition to progress on climate, food, and public health.

Episode Highlights: 

[00:04:00] Merchants of doubt: how the tobacco industry wrote the playbook for manufacturing scientific uncertainty
[00:09:00] Why philanthropy needs to step up right now, and which foundations are leading
[00:15:00] The strategic calculus of when to resist publicly versus when to go underground
[00:24:00] Why scientists with integrity are at a structural disadvantage against opponents with none
[00:33:00] “Cultural engineering” — Alessandra Orofino: why culture is always upstream of public policy 
[00:40:30] Why public health groups need to get better at storytelling and soundbites

Notable Quotes: 

Joelle Lester [00:05:00]: "The art of it is that they don't try to disprove it. They just try to raise doubt in people's minds about how believable the science is." 

Joelle Lester [00:41:05]: "Having all the evidence and having the legal authority and being right is not getting us where we need to go."

Resources & Links:

• Public Health Law Center — https://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/
• Cooking with Smoke report — https://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/sites/default/files/resources/Cooking-With-Smoke.pdf
• Merchants of Doubt (book & film) — https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/

Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday.

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