Who gains from saving nature
Ledger 1 : 33 — For each dollar financing nature-based solutions in 2023, about $33 financed activities harmful to nature. (UNEP)
Cases / Lobbying, PR and greenwashing · United States · 1962–1997

Harrison campaign against Silent Spring and Burson-Marsteller crisis PR

Nature's voice · report
No measurement of the harm done to me here is on record.
Did nature suffer? Not measured.
Not on record
  • The record does not name which of my species, waters, soils or forests were harmed.
What the record lacks: 1 none on record · 3 insufficient · 1 not measured See the gaps

A public-relations executive ran the chemical industry association's campaign against Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962 and later designed the Global Climate Coalition's communications. Burson-Marsteller, now BCW, handled crisis communications and set up grassroots-style groups for several industries.

$13 millionGlobal Climate Coalition spending on advertising against the Kyoto Protocol
As recorded for 1997–2001. Figure as stated in the sources.

Status Historical case; no court ruling, regulatory finding or response from the firms named is on record in the sources reviewed.

What?
A public-relations executive ran the chemical industry association's campaign against Silent Spring and later designed the Global Climate Coalition's communications; Burson-Marsteller ran crisis communications and set up grassroots-style groups for several industries. O'Dwyer's
Where?
United States (campaigns); Europe for the TASSC arm.
When?
1962 to 1997 for Harrison's work; 1993 for TASSC. O'Dwyer's
Who?
Gained
  • Velsicol, National Agricultural Chemicals Association, Monsanto — Their products and industry were the subject of Carson's book and the target of the 1962–1963 campaign.
  • Global Climate Coalition members — The coalition's public-relations campaign was designed by Harrison's firm; State Department notes said its input partly underlay the 2001 rejection of Kyoto.
Lost
None on record
Harmed
None on record
Why?
Not stated in the sources reviewed beyond the clients' interests as recorded.
How?
Trade-association public relations, parody, lobbying coalition advertising, and groups presented as grassroots organisations.
6 of 6 questions answered from the record

What happened

The record, in order.

In 1962, after the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Velsicol, the maker of the pesticides chlordane and heptachlor, threatened to sue Carson's publisher. The National Agricultural Chemicals Association launched a public-relations campaign, and Monsanto published, in its own magazine, a parody that imitated Carson's style.

E. Bruce Harrison ran the association's campaign on behalf of chemical manufacturers. He later worked for the American Petroleum Institute and, in the early 1990s, designed the public-relations campaign of the Global Climate Coalition (GCC). By 1997 the environmental public-relations firm he founded counted General Motors, BP America and Monsanto among its clients.

The GCC, formed in 1989, was a lobbying coalition of fossil-fuel producers and large users. Its own experts wrote in 1995 that the scientific basis of the greenhouse effect was well established and could not be denied; in 1996 the coalition's leadership asked for sections rebutting contrary theories to be removed from the text. The GCC spent $13 million on advertising against the Kyoto Protocol, the US Senate unanimously passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution in July 1997, and State Department notes said the 2001 US rejection of Kyoto was in part based on the GCC's input. In 1995 Harrison wrote that the GCC had successfully changed the course of press coverage of climate science.

Burson-Marsteller, now BCW and part of the advertising group WPP, ran communications for Union Carbide after the Bhopal chemical disaster, for Exxon after the Exxon Valdez oil spill and during the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. It also set up groups that looked like grassroots organisations, known as astroturf, for the timber and tobacco industries, among them the Forest Alliance and the National Smokers' Alliance. Its European arm ran the European side of the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), which Philip Morris and the firm APCO founded in February 1993.

  1. 1962Silent Spring published; Velsicol threatens publisher; association campaign led by E. Bruce Harrison
  2. 1989Global Climate Coalition formed
  3. 1993TASSC founded by Philip Morris and APCO; Burson-Marsteller runs its European arm
  4. 1995GCC experts' note says greenhouse science is well established; Harrison writes that GCC changed press coverage
  5. 1996GCC leadership asks for contrary-theory sections to be removed
  6. 1997Senate passes Byrd-Hagel resolution unanimously (July); Harrison's firm lists GM, BP America and Monsanto as clients
  7. 2001US rejects Kyoto; State Department notes cite GCC input as partly behind it

How it looked

What was shown, beside what was recorded.

Shown

  • Monsanto's magazine published a parody imitating Carson's style (1962).
    Monsanto
  • Burson-Marsteller built Forest Alliance and National Smokers' Alliance, groups that presented as grassroots organisations.
    As recorded in the sources reviewed

Recorded

  • Velsicol, maker of chlordane and heptachlor, threatened to sue the publisher of Silent Spring; the National Agricultural Chemicals Association ran a public-relations campaign; Monsanto published a parody (1962–1963).
  • E. Bruce Harrison ran the campaign against Silent Spring, then worked for the American Petroleum Institute and designed the GCC's campaign (1962–1997).
    O'Dwyer's
  • Harrison's firm counted General Motors, BP America and Monsanto among its clients in 1997.
    O'Dwyer's
  • GCC experts wrote in 1995 that the greenhouse-effect science was well established; in 1996 the leadership asked for contrary-theory sections to be removed.
  • GCC spent $13 million on advertising against the Kyoto Protocol; the Senate passed Byrd-Hagel unanimously in July 1997.
  • State Department notes said the 2001 US rejection of Kyoto was in part based on the GCC's input.
  • Burson-Marsteller ran communications after Bhopal (Union Carbide), the Exxon Valdez spill (Exxon) and Three Mile Island.
  • Burson-Marsteller ran the European arm of TASSC, which Philip Morris and APCO founded in February 1993; about $320,000 was spent in its first 24 weeks and about $880,000 in 1994, and more than 20,000 invitation letters were sent.

In court and with insurers

Every proceeding and every insurer decision on record.

Lawsuits and rulings

No court case on record. No court has ruled on this case.

Insurers

No insurer decision on record.

What nature saw

Outcomes measured on the ground, and nature's note.

Nature's report opens this page. Below: further outcomes measured on the ground.

Environmental measurement in the sources reviewed
None
The material on this case concerns communications campaigns; it contains no field measurement for the pesticides or for the climate science involved.

What we don't know

Undisclosed, unproven, untried: recorded as data.

Nature

  • Not measured Harm to nature: The record holds no measurement of harm to nature.

Record

  • Insufficient Reported but not independently verified: American Cyanamid spokesman Robert White-Stevens said on television that following Carson's path would return the world to the Dark Ages.
  • Insufficient Reported but not independently verified: Harrison's firm took on the GCC account in 1992.
  • Insufficient Reported but not independently verified: the agency Marsteller Inc. prepared the 1971 'crying Indian' advertisement for Keep America Beautiful, and Marsteller became part of Burson-Marsteller in 1979. The first claim rests on search results and the second on the researcher's memory.
  • None on record No source states what fees Harrison's firm or Burson-Marsteller received for the campaigns described.

Did the harm stop?

Not on record in the sources reviewed.

Who paid?

Not on record in the sources reviewed.

Sources

Voices on record: — Company or project— Government and regulators— Courts✓ Press and investigations— Communities and civil society— Researchers

Press and investigations

  1. E. Bruce Harrison dies at 88
    O'Dwyer's · 2021-01-25

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