Big Oil's Legacy of Lies Misinformation and Subterfuge (Video)

The oil industry uses its vast resources to undermine science and lobby politicians. Oil industry giants have waged war against climate action. Oil giants have created a massive web of misinformation designed to put their profits ahead of the health of people and the planet. On its own ExxonMobil has poured $30 million into funding groups denying the scientific evidence and consensus on human-caused global warming.

An eight month investigation from Pulitzer Prize winning Inside Climate News has uncovered more proof of Exxon’s malfeasance. According to this investigation Exxon knew the facts about fossil fuels role as the leading driver of climate change forty years ago. According to Exxon documents they put their concerns about profitability ahead of the science and embarked on a sophisticated campaign of misinformation. As explained by InsideClimate News, Exxon has “spent more than 20 years discrediting the research its own scientists had once confirmed.” All the way back in 1982 Exxon’s own science clearly indicated that carbon pollution would cause global temperatures to rise.

Climate scientists have asked President Obama’s science advisor John Holdren, and Attorney General Lynch to conduct an investigation “of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change.”

Exxon’s obfuscation for their own self interest at the expense of the health of Americans is reminiscent of deceit in the tobacco industry. In 1999, the Justice Department filed a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit against the major tobacco companies and their associated industry groups. Many are saying that a similar lawsuit should be filed against Big Oil.

Political leaders are asking questions including eleven House Republicans have broken ranks with their party leadership to call for action on climate change. Many are hoping that the growing awareness about the oil industry’s deceitful conduct will loosen fossil fuels hold over Republicans.

Here are some brief excerpts from the Inside Climate News investigation:

“When I arrived there, I was quite surprised to discover that people in the research lab were very aware of the increase in the growth rate of carbon dioxide measurements in Hawaii [at the Mauna Loa observatory],” Morrel H. Cohen, a senior scientist at Exxon Research from 1981 to 1996, said in a recent interview. “They were very aware of the greenhouse effect.””

One scientist, Werner Glass, wrote an analysis in 1981 for a senior vice president in which he said that it was “distinctly possible” that the projected warming trend after 2030 “will indeed be catastrophic (at least for a substantial fraction of the earth’s population).”