Jennifer Jacquet Bücher

From an astute observer of business behavior and expert in climate denial comes a thought-provoking explanation of how corporations delay, distract, and deflect blame and spread disinformation surrounding health issues, pollution, and climate change. “Brilliantly subversive and witty. If you want to be a vile, greedy capitalist, this how-to book will be a great help. And if you want to identify vile, greedy capitalists, it will show you how to recognize them. A landmark book.” —Brian Eno Are you a corporation out to make your fortune at any cost? Are you worried about “facts” and “experts” getting in the way of your profits? Do you wish you could make scientists, journalists, and anyone who asks questions about your suspect business practices disappear? Now you can. Whether you are selling tobacco, dealing in oil, or pushing pharmaceuticals, denying climate change or exploiting workers, The Playbook is here to help you obfuscate your way to what you want. Including how to: Massage the statistics to suit your needs. Or, even better, fund studies to make up some new ones Attract and cultivate university professors who have an axe to grind and are short of cash Make your problem somebody else’s problem—ideally the government’s Remember: Tame journalists, PR firms, think tanks, lawyers, and threats of physical violence are your friends! Follow these rules and you are guaranteed to make a killing. It’s economic sense, after all.

This is a handbook for business executives advising who to hire, how to recruit experts, how to obfuscate and how to relentlessly and effectively challenge the threat of science, policy, reporters and activists.It is an outline of corporate scientific denial and obfuscation techniques, highlighting the tactics used to contradict climate change, ignore health risks and undermine worker safety. The machinery of deception works like a casino, with its deliberative architecture and design - the dimmed chandeliers, the comfortable furniture, the dealers, the drinks - to keep the customers inside comfortable and gambling for as long as possible.The Playbook helps any business buy time if it is threatened by science, the most reliable form of the knowledge the world has ever known. Part strategy, part social history, part resistance, it illuminates the methods and motives of many successful scientific denial campaigns, and the social forces that may outwit them.