big oil astroturfed a campaign against nuclear in the 70s. It was framed as hippies warning nuclear would mean certain death for everyone.
that perception stuck
that perception stuck
Now I'm sure some oil and gas companies decided to fund some of these groups because they saw these people could be useful, but that doesn't mean the movement was astroturfing.
Astroturfing is pretending their is a movement when there isn't. The anti-nuclear movement was real, big oil just wrote some of them checks because they realized what was bad for nuclear was good for them.