By Kelle Louaillier, The New York Times
To the Editor:
Kudos to The Times for peeling back the mask hiding the fossil fuel industry’s web of influence across our political system. The article provides some of the most comprehensive examples to date of the avenues that corporations and their billionaire benefactors, including the Koch brothers, use to bend the rules in their favor.
The fossil fuel industry’s strategy is the same one that Big Tobacco and other abusive industries have employed for decades to profit at the expense of the public. This playbook directs industries to question the science, create controversy, shift the blame, invoke “freedom” and pay spokespeople to spew misinformation. In fact, it’s the same guide the chemical and pharmaceutical industries have used to weaken protections for millions of people around the world.
It’s time we see this playbook for what it is, and restrict the control and influence of transnational corporations. Our health and the stability of our planet depend on it.
A version of this letter appears in print on June 11, 2017, on Page SR8 of the New York edition with the headline: The Politics of Climate Change.
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