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In 1976, beloved chef, cookbook creator, and tv persona Julia Youngster returned to WGBH-TV’s studios in Boston for a brand new cooking present, Julia Youngster & Firm, following her hit sequence The French Chef. Viewers most likely didn’t know that Youngster’s new and improved kitchen studio, outfitted with fuel stoves, was paid for by the American Fuel Affiliation.
Whereas this will likely look like any company sponsorship, we now understand it was part of a calculated marketing campaign by fuel trade executives to extend the usage of fuel stoves throughout the US. And stoves weren’t the one goal. The fuel trade wished to develop its residential market, and houses that used fuel for cooking had been seemingly additionally to make use of it for warmth and sizzling water.
The trade’s efforts went properly past cautious product placement, in accordance with new analysis from the nonprofit Local weather Investigations Middle, which analyzes company efforts to undermine local weather science and gradual the continuing transition away from fossil fuels. As the middle’s examine and a Nationwide Public Radio investigation present, when proof emerged within the early 1970s in regards to the well being results of indoor nitrogen dioxide publicity from fuel range use, the American Fuel Affiliation launched a marketing campaign designed to fabricate doubt in regards to the current science.
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