Energy conglomerate Roxxon isn’t wasting any time. Fresh off their recent acquisition of Marvel Comics, they’ve announced The Roxxon Age of Comics begins April 2024, when readers can expect to see their favorite heroes re-imagined and repurposed to serve Roxxon’s corporate propaganda, “to defend big business and the sanctity of shareholder value!” The new Roxxon regime recruits their own version of Thor, whose job is to — what else? — fight environmental extremists:
“But when a group of insane environmental activists take ‘saving the Earth’ TOO FAR, it’s time to show them the wisdom on both sides—as Thor! But which God of Evil is prompting the kids to rebel?”
Okay, none of this is real. Rather, it’s all part of Marvel’s new metatextual narrative that cleverly brings the comics giant themselves into the story, as the publisher is weaponized by an unscrupulous corporation, to indoctrinate young readers. The marketing around the upcoming “Roxxin’ Thor” suggests his role is specifically to champion a toothless, more easily-controlled green activism that won’t be a threat to the fossil fuel industry’s bottom line.
This sort of corporate manufacturing of consent, to undermine science and scientific institutions to continue profiting from dangerous products, is very much based in reality. The tobacco industry has a long history of downplaying the health risks of cigarettes under the cloak of scientific legitimacy, but certainly the clearest real-world analog to Roxxon — and the name even is a dead giveaway — is Exxon.
A 2015 investigation by InsideClimate News uncovered, through interviews and internal documents, that at least as early as 1977, Exxon understood the oil industry’s role in climate change, 11 years before it became a public issue. As Shannon Hall writes in Scientific American:
“This knowledge did not prevent the company (now ExxonMobil and the world’s largest oil and gas company) from spending decades refusing to publicly acknowledge climate change and even promoting climate misinformation—an approach many have likened to the lies spread by the tobacco industry regarding the health risks of smoking. Both industries were conscious that their products wouldn’t stay profitable once the world understood the risks, so much so that they used the same consultants to develop strategies on how to communicate with the public.”
According to Hall, Exxon initially became leaders at the forefront of studying CO2 and climate, creating a research program where top scientists developed climate models and spent over $1 million on a tanker project to investigate how much carbon dioxide was absorbed by the oceans. That changed in July of 1977, when Exxon’s senior scientist, James Black, reported back that the scientific consensus was now that mankind’s burning of fossil fuels was very likely influencing global climate.
“A year later he warned Exxon that doubling CO2 gases in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by two or three degrees — a number that is consistent with the scientific consensus today. He continued to warn that ‘present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to 10 years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.’ In other words, Exxon needed to act.”
Instead, Exxon pretended the science was far less clear, and followed the tobacco industry model of sowing doubt and confusion in the public’s mind, to obstruct government regulation of fossil fuels. In their book Merchants of Doubt, historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway explore how such coordinated efforts to mislead the public were carried out on issues ranging from tobacco, acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, global warming, and DDT.
Casting doubt on the scientific consensus is only one of the tools Exxon uses to keep the gravy train rolling, and they’re not alone in having a profit motive to do so. Even if the often-cited 100 companies responsible for 71% of carbon emissions statistic is apocryphal, that doesn’t stop corporations from nevertheless engaging in questionable PR practices to hide their less savory activities behind the veneer of environmental friendliness, a tactic known as greenwashing.
The United Nations has cataloged a list of greenwashing tactics:
- Claiming to be on track to reduce a company’s polluting emissions to net zero when no credible plan is actually in place.
- Being purposely vague or non-specific about a company’s operations or materials used.
- Applying intentionally misleading labels such as “green” or “eco-friendly,” which do not have standard definitions and can be easily misinterpreted.
- Implying that a minor improvement has a major impact or promoting a product that meets the minimum regulatory requirements as if it is significantly better than the standard.
- Emphasizing a single environmental attribute while ignoring other impacts.
- Claiming to avoid illegal or non-standard practices that are irrelevant to a product.
- Communicating the sustainability attributes of a product in isolation of brand activities (and vice versa) – e.g. a garment made from recycled materials that is produced in a high-emitting factory that pollutes the air and nearby waterways.
The UN’s Climate Action page goes on to explain that by deceiving consumers, investors, and everyone else, public trust in the science is eroded, undermining legitimate efforts to curb climate change.
While the original Thor we know could certainly defeat an evil corporation like Roxxon, publically-owned, renewable energy stands as perhaps the greatest threat to Roxxon’s real-world counterparts like Exxon. Last May, New York State passed a bill that will serve as the nation’s biggest test of a rival energy model to private fossil fuel companies, the Build Public Renewables Act:
“The bill, included in the state’s new budget, will require the state’s public power provider to generate all of its electricity from clean energy by 2030. It also allows the public utility to build and own renewables while phasing out fossil fuels.”
If this policy proves successful, it could cause a domino effect that results in similar legislation in other states across the country. If that happens, not even a whole Roxxon Avengers may be able to stop it.
Marvel Comics
Every February, to help celebrate Darwin Day, the Science section of AIPT cranks up the critical thinking for SKEPTICISM MONTH! Skepticism is an approach to evaluating claims that emphasizes evidence and applies the tools of science. All month we’ll be highlighting skepticism in pop culture, and skepticism *OF*pop culture.
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