Propagandist Reconstruction, or PR of news, science data, other persons' views and different opinions is a long-term stalwart in modern society. From organizing public support for wars, even when the public itself may be attacked or be subject to economic loss, to ensuring that political leaders are re-elected, or that women start smoking and the public keeps buying the consumer products which generate the highest profits, the role of "communication" is primordial. What is called Public Relations is also and most basically propaganda.
At critical moments, when a big lie starts being exposed in public, or a previous completely accepted and slickly sold "truth" starts to slip in the opinion polls and lose traction in the minds of average consumers, the role of PR is critical. The propaganda machine goes into overdrive, but due to the presence of "new truths" now also competing for dominance, the so-called public debate is necessarily chaotic and clumsy, unsure and uncertain.
The year-long and massive PR campaign on Climate Change and Anthropogenic Global Warming, ending in farce and chaos at the December 2009 Copenhagen "climate summit", was in political leadership terms a minority endeavour. Only four world leaders, albeit from 4 major countries of the "Old World" OECD, continued an unstinting campaign on CC and AGW, using every emotive trick in the book in their "landmark" speeches on these subjects, right up to the end. Until December 2009, the four leaders Obama, Merkel, Sarkozy and the soon-voted-out Brown gave regular interviews where PR of the type "catastrophe", "saving the planet", "our last chance" was regularly utilised. The alternatives offered by these four-only leaders was typically confused - supposedly an "ecological" society using "green energy" would arise, but this would magically not affect sales of BMW cars, Boeing airplanes or French nuclear reactors.