When Pope Francis used his bully pulpit to speak out about climate change, conservative global warming deniers were quick to dismiss him. U.S. Sen. James Inhofe said, "The pope ought to stay with his job, and we'll stay with ours." Inhofe's "job" has literally been to spread disinformation on behalf of the fossil fuel industry in order to stymie action against climate change.

Now, the Union of Concerned Scientists has released a damning new report on how fossil fuel companies have known the risks of climate change for years and worked actively to deceive the public. Dubbed "The Climate Deception Dossiers," it includes a collection of secret documents and memos over a 27-year period from companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell, obtained through a variety of Freedom of Information Act requests, lawsuits and whistleblower leaks. The 85 memos, numbering a total of 330 pages, are available for public viewing.

Nancy Cole, one of the report's authors, told me in an interview on "Uprising" that what the documents show in stark relief is that for years fossil fuel companies worked to generate uncertainty in climate science to impact public perceptions. By creating confusion among ordinary Americans, they were able to successfully derail meaningful change. "The fossil fuel companies are simply playing off the same playbook as the tobacco companies and other industries that have sought to deny and deceive the public about the harm of their products," Cole explained.

Sowing doubt is a popular tactic used by industry groups to stave off regulation. In fact, a 1969 memo by a tobacco executive explicitly stated that "doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy." Just as this strategy enabled an industry that has led to millions of deaths worldwide, fossil fuel companies are spreading doubt through campaigns of disinformation that are likely to cause a similar, if not greater, death toll.

A 1998 memo from the American Petroleum Institute spells out that strategy very clearly: "Victory will be achieved when average citizens 'understand' (recognize) uncertainties in climate science; recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the 'conventional wisdom.' "

As Cole noted, "They don't have to win. They just need to sow doubt, they need to make uncertainty their product. That makes it harder for the public to rally around the solutions that we should have been working around for decades and it gives policymakers an excuse for not taking action."