essential2life

The global chemical industry has a rich history of investment in campaigns to educate the public about what it does. Beginning in the 1930s, first Dupont then the industry overall promised “Better Living Through Chemistry.” In the 1990s, the industry promoted its own environmentalism. The 2005 launch of the American Chemistry Council’s essential2life campaign was yet another update. This essay examines the shifting logics of chemical industry public education campaigns, focusing particularly on the disavowals of the essential2life campaign. The essay also raises questions about forms of collective deliberation—among scientists, among activists and within industry—that reduce vulnerability to what Kirsch and Benson call “corporate oxymorons,” facilitating critical awareness of ways vested interests shape articulations of history and knowledge.