chp1: rational fossil fuel companies

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@@ -303,15 +303,26 @@ served as the main scapegoat of green rhetoric. For example, \[EXAMPLE\].
 However, there's no particular reason to think that the fossil fuel industry is
 scientifically incompetent or unable to act rationally. In fact, fossil fuel
 companies are if anything astonishingly capable of mustering scientific and
-technological resources to act rationally. \[EVIDENCE\] \[NB. RATIONAL !=
-PLANNING FOR PEAK OIL!\]
+technological resources to act rationally. Fossil fuel extraction makes
+intensive use of technological and scientific resources, from the geological
+surveying needed to identify reserves to the hydraulic engineering needed to
+pump gas and oil from underground or subsea reservoirs. Despite these
+technological and scientific challenges, fossil fuel companies among the world's
+profitable. Adding together the most recent annual profits from the five largest
+state-owned fossil fuel companies and the five largest public fossil fuel
+companies produces a number well over $500 billion [@energy-profits-jun-25].
 
 Even the production of so-called 'fake science' can be seen as the result of the
 fossil fuel industry acting rationally on the basis of the scientific evidence.
-\[EVIDENCE\] As has been pointed out time and time again \[EVIDENCE\], the
-fossil fuel industry is following a path well-trodden by the tobacco industry,
-who have long since proven that science is up for sale \[EVIDENCE\] \[SEE
-DAVID'S COMMENTS, log#2026-06-09\].
+As has been pointed out time and time again, the fossil fuel industry is
+following the tobacco industry's strategies and even hiring the same PR
+consultants in their campaign to use science to influence public opinion. Their
+borrowed tactics include manufacturing uncertainty by funding contrarian
+scientific research, giving cash to scientists who publicly promote contrarian
+points of view in the media, calling for more research as a delaying tactic, and
+so-called 'information laundering' -- using secret donations to thinktanks with
+opaque financial models to hide their involvement in the production of
+information favourable to their bottom line [@smoke-mirrors-hot-air].
 
 The problem for the world is not that people aren't listening to the science,
 but rather that fossil fuel companies, and other business lobbies, have an
@@ -464,7 +475,6 @@ catastrophic language is counter-productive in this context.
 
 ## TODO
 
-- Incorporate evidence: the fossil fuel industry is following a rational science-capture strategy in the style of Big Tobacco
 - Find quotes and page numbers in @{back-to-nature} and @{heat}
 - Find an example of a green rhetor promoting smart market-based fixes
 - Evidence: gilet jaune sparked by Macron attempting to implement a smart market-based climate fix