How Big Oil Built the American Dream — SkimNews
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- Big Oil launched century-long campaigns to link fossil fuels with the American Dream, using ads, films, and media partnerships to normalize petroleum-dependent lifestyles
- Energy Transfer produced a viral ad showing life unraveling without oil, illustrating how deeply fossil fuels are woven into daily routines like dating, cooking, and transportation
- Union Oil Company spent 30% of its ad budget by 1949 promoting the 'American way of life' as tied to free enterprise and petroleum, targeting magazines like Better Homes and Gardens
- General Motors showcased a fossil-fueled future at the 1939-1940 World’s Fair with 'Futurama,' a sprawling diorama of highways and suburbs seen by millions as the vision of progress
- Oil industry executives framed petroleum as patriotic during WWII, arguing in internal memos that protecting the 'American way of life' justified their central role in national security
- Robert Brulle notes that dependence on oil was not inevitable but socially engineered, with trade journals and PR efforts shaping cultural norms around cars, kitchens, and suburban living
Why it matters: The fossil fuel industry’s century-long campaign to equate oil with the American Dream has made climate policies feel like identity threats, complicating clean energy transitions by framing them as attacks on lifestyle and freedom, not just technology shifts.
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