Suppose your business involves persuading people to jump off a two hundred foot cliff onto the rocks beneath.
You might come to a scientist, e.g. me, and ask for an opinion on what would happen to a person if they did that. This would not be difficult! I could tell you at once: they would break a bunch of bones and almost certainly die.
But suppose you don't WANT this to be the answer, because, after all, this is your business, your livelihood, you don't WANT to hear that bad things will happen to the people you persuade to jump off the cliff. How could you get a different answer, one that is more useful to you?
Well, you could ask a different, more specific question. When a person jumps off the cliff and hits the rocks, which bone will they break FIRST?
This would be a much more difficult question to answer; I would have to tell you that it would depend on a lot of details, how exactly you fell, which part of you struck the ground first... what exactly would happen would be very hard to predict.
This answer is MUCH more helpful to you. With this answer under your belt, you can prepare your press releases. Something like the following:
"While scaremongers claim that jumping off a cliff onto the rocks beneath might be harmful, in fact there is no scientific consensus on this point. When asked, Dr Wells said that it would be very difficult to make any prediction."
You have your quoted authority and you have told no lies, and you can get back to work at Jump Off This Cliff Onto The Rocks (Incorporated) with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart.
This was the playbook of the tobacco industry, back when they needed it to be plausible that inhaling clouds of toxic smoke might not be bad for you. It's the playbook of polluting industries in general.
And it is the playbook of the fossil fuel industry now.
Do not be fooled by the merchants of doubt.