Intentional efforts by a number of companies and organizations have created barriers to meaningful climate action. From lobbying to creating junk science websites, a panoply of coordinated activities have sown the seeds of doubt in the minds of many and effectively wasted decades. Social scientists have been studying these efforts, who funded them and how they continue to block and delay action on climate change and steer research away from anything that might jeopardize the hegemony of the fossil fuel industry. 

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In May, 2021 the Trustees of Princeton announced that the University would “create an administrative process to determine what expert input is needed to establish, implement and sustain actionable criteria for dissociation from fossil fuel companies participating in campaigns that spread disinformation about climate change.”

However in September 2022 they announced that climate disinformation is too hard to evaluate quantitatively and the University has a “commitment to embracing the vigorous exchange of ideas”. This position ignores the extenisve scholarship on the subject and allows the University to continue its relationships with companies like BP and Shell, despite extensive evidence that they participated in, and continue to participate in, disinformation, denial and greenwashing.