Big oil, big tobacco, big lies

Just as big tobacco deliberately misled the public on the cancer-causing effects of smoking, big oil attacked scientists who warned of the impending climate disaster and their attempts now to help ‘solve’ the problem should be shunned by governments, write Kelle Louaillier and Bill McKibben

OVER the last few years, a growing number of people have been taking a hard look at what is happening to our planet — historic rising sea levels, massive floods — and acknowledging, finally, that human activity is propelling rapid climate change. But guess what? Exxon (now ExxonMobil) had an inkling of this as early as 1978.

By the early 1980s, Exxon scientists had much more than an inkling. They not only understood the science behind climate change, but also recognized the company’s own outsize role in driving the phenomenon.