There are currently over 7 billion people in the world today.
Never
before has there been this many people all needing homes, food,
clothing, technology and more.
This unprecedented demand for
essential goods now raises supply issues.
Is there enough food?
Enough medicines?
And if we are, are we producing them safely?
A growing global concern is how much big industry is hiding
regarding the safety of all these items.
Is the world getting more
polluted and toxic to meet our needs?
Of course, for unbiased and
honest answers, it is common sense to turn to science. Science - and
technically scientists - suppose to be impartial.
They use the
scientific method to discover evidence-based truths, right?
The role of science is to solve mysteries, highlight natural
occurrences and increase our understanding of how the world works.
Yet, in today's technologically advanced and social media connected
world, science has come under fire.
Its truths, methods and
practitioners are facing increasing challenges every day.
Many big companies are negatively affected when scientific evidence
expose how their products or services are dangerous and harmful.
To
prevent the truth from coming out, an intentional, systematic and
behind-the-scenes series of attacks are currently taking place to
derail science.
Big industry is fighting fire with fire, debunking legitimate
science - by using science itself.
To be more specific, industries
and corporations are systematically producing "new evidence" to
refute existing and established scientific facts.
A particular
example would be the drop in bee populations globally.
When bees started dying in large quantities in the early 1990s,
science proved that newly developed pesticides caused it.
Almost
immediately, the agrochemical industries - which produce these same
pesticides - began to fund numerous studies to discover other causes
of bee colonies' death.
The research became more intensive for
non-pesticide reasons.
There was suddenly so much information, so
much noise, that beekeepers understood less and less of what was
happening.
Today, 25 years later, people are still confused.
This blurring of scientific truth - by using science - is not a new
method. In the 1960s, tobacco companies funded numerous studies to
prove that cigarettes did not cause cancer.
Their strategy was to
sow doubt towards proven scientific evidence deliberately. They were
also establishing controversy to distract and confuse the public.
Big Tobacco's strategy is now the ultimate playbook. It is used time
and again to "debunk" anything that might get in the way of Big
Industry profits, including plastics, climate change, pesticide
poisoning and now the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is also a winning
strategy.
It's working because now there is ever-growing number of
people who do not believe in established science, or worse make up
their own version of science, sadly amplified by social media.
Ignoring scientific truths has a human cost. Using science to
undermine itself might be clever, and a means to buy time, but the
truth always comes out at the end of the day. Facts will prevail.
Directed by Pascal Vasselin, Franck Cuveillier.
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