If countries cannot keep fossil fuels in the ground then they should at least keep their ads off the air.

“Godfathers of climate chaos” in the coal, oil and gas industries have used slick advertising campaigns (not to mention lobbying and legal action) to distort their record of environmental damage UN secretary general António Guterres said last week. If you think you’re immune to these tactics, research suggests otherwise.

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Advertising encourages the public to use a particular product or service. Laws have prevented tobacco companies from doing this in the UK and elsewhere for several decades after the medical case against smoking hardened. The same restrictions must now apply to fossil fuels, the overwhelming cause of climate change, says Peter Dietsch, a professor of philosophy at the University of Victoria.

To slow and eventually halt global heating, the consumption of fossil fuels and related products must fall rapidly.

“And yet, advertising for such goods and services is everywhere, encouraging fossil-fuel consumption: flights to Rome, pickup trucks and SUVs, cruises to Alaska, steak from Argentina and so on,” Dietsch says.

Read more: Cigarette ads were banned decades ago. Let's do the same for fossil fuels

Climate change already kills a comparable number of people to smoking, Dietsch argues, albeit indirectly: deadly........

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