“I’m not a scientist, but I occasionally play one on television.” Marc Morano, executive director of ClimateDebot.com, chuckles to himself after making this statement during a key interview with the filmmakers of Merchants of Doubt. It’s a bold and gregarious confession by one of America’s most successful professional “skeptics,” lobbyists posing as experts who are paid by corporations to debunk environmental concerns like global warming through shock-and-awe sensationalism.
