E. Bruce Harrison (April 3, 1932 – January 16, 2021) was a
public relations (PR) expert who organized several campaigns for the U.S. industry against
environmental legislation from the 1970s to the 1990s. He has been called the father of environmental PR.
Harrison was born in
Alabama. He started his career as a reporter at a local newspaper and the press secretary of an Alabama Democratic Senator. When ''
Silent Spring'' attacked the indiscriminate use of
pesticides
Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampric ...
, the
chemical industry
The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials (oil, natural gas, air, water, metals, and minerals) into more than 70,000 different products. The ...
lobby hired Harrison to fight the new legislation as the very first "environmental information officer".
Harrison pioneered the use of economic analysis in opposing environmental action. He developed a messaging strategy which promoted the balance of "the three Es": Environment, Energy, and Economy. In the early 1990s, he conducted a comprehensive PR campaign for the
Global Climate Coalition
The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) (1989–2001) was an international lobbyist group of businesses that opposed action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and publicly challenged the science behind global warming. The GCC was the largest industry g ...
, an industrial lobby opposing action to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. In 1995 he wrote that the "GCC has successfully turned the tide on press coverage of global climate change science".
He managed his eponymous PR firm from 1973 until 1997, when he sold it.
He co-founded it with his wife
Patricia Harrison, an American public relations executive and government official.
Legacy
Media historian
Melissa Aronczyk considered Harrison "a master at what he did".
Al Gore, former US Vice President, described the GCC campaign as the worst moral crime since the world wars.
A sub-genus of mosquito was named ''
Bruceharrisonius'' in 2003.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, E. Bruce
Climate change in the United States
American public relations people
1932 births
2021 deaths