America Misled: Fossil Fuel Execs Lied to the Public About Climate Science for Years

Climate disinformation has had many negative effects. It reduces public understanding of climate change (3) , lowers support for climate action(4_ , cancels out accurate information (5,6), polarizes the public along political lines(7) , and reinforces climate silence–the lack of public dialogue and private conversation about climate change (8) . Climate deniers directly impact the scientific community–and, in turn, its ability to serve the public good–by forcing climate scientists to respond to bad-faith demands (9) and arguably causing a chilling effect pressuring scientists to underplay scientific results (10,11,12). Strategies proposed to counter climate disinformation include political mechanisms, financial transparency, legal strategies, and inoculation of the public (13) https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/America_Misled.pdf

A new report on what Rex Tillerson and others were up to has come out just in time for the ExxonMobil trial. By Brendan O’Connor, Vice.com Oct 21 2019

On Monday, just days before ExxonMobil goes on trial in New York state for allegedly lying to its investors about the risks of climate change, a team of academic researchers released an extensive report detailing the company’s decades-long campaign to mislead the wider public about the reality of the climate crisis.

Per the suit and the report, as executives at the fossil fuel company—like Rex Tillerson, who left ExxonMobil in 2017 to become Donald Trump’s secretary of state—were hearing one thing from the scientists they employed, they were telling the public another, investors a third, and themselves a fourth. Often, the arguments employed by the fossil fuel industry to minimize climate change didn’t make sense when considered together, a dynamic the authors of the Center for Climate Change Communication report called “contradictory contrarianism.” (Ironically, the center is housed at George Mason University, which is also home to several Koch brothers projects, like the Mercatus Center; the Koch family is among the most aggressive funders of climate denial networks.)

“Climate denial lacks consistency because it is not about scientific evidence—it is about how to continue business as usual in the face of climate disruption,” the researchers write. “Climate deniers reject climate science because they are averse to proposed or perceived solutions to climate change.“

As recounted by the report, energy companies knew climate change was real for decades, but they responded not by working to change the practices that were contributing to it but by deceiving the public, a campaign that included a now-infamous full-page advertorial in the New York Times on the “Unsettled Science” of climate change. These companies attempted to create a false narrative that there wasn’t scientific consensus about the fact of human-caused climate change, and persuade influential media outlets to cover the issue as if there was doubt. (On that front, they succeeded.)

At ExxonMobil, according to the New York Attorney General, that aversion to the truth ran so deep as to have distorted its business practices. The company is alleged to have defrauded its investors by telling them that it was anticipating rising “proxy costs” related to environmental regulations and taxes, but not disclosing the full amount of those costs and sometimes failing to incorporate them in public-facing financial projections.

“Exxon provided false and misleading assurances that it is effectively managing the economic risks posed to its business by the increasingly stringent policies and regulations that it expects governments to adopt to address climate change,” the initial complaint, filed by the New York AG just over a year ago, reads. “Instead of managing those risks in the manner it represented to investors, Exxon employed internal practices that were inconsistent with its representations, were undisclosed to investors, and exposed the company to greater risk from climate change regulation than investors were led to believe.”

At least two reports issued to concerned shareholders in 2014, titled “Energy and Carbon-Managing the Risks” and “Energy and Climate,” were approved by top executives, including Tillerson, Climate Liability News reports. According to the New York AG, both reports contained fraudulent information.

The AG’s office began investigating ExxonMobil under Eric Schneiderman, who resigned after being accused by multiple women of physical abuse. His appointed successor, Barbara Underwood, brought the charges under New York state’s Martin Act, a sweeping anti-fraud law; Letitia James, has continued prosecuting the case after winning the office in 2018.

The charges stem in large part from investigations stimulated by reporting from InsideClimate News, which showed ExxonMobil had been conducting research into the potential impact of climate change on its business as early as the 1970s, even as it poured millions of dollars into disinformation campaigns undermining public understanding of what was to come.

“For 60 years, the fossil fuel industry has known about the potential global warming dangers of their products. But instead of warning the public or doing something about it, they turned around and orchestrated a massive campaign of denial and delay designed to protect profits,” one of the report’s authors, Geoffrey Supran, told the Los Angeles Times. “The evidence is incontrovertible: Exxon misled the public.”

James has reportedly asked the court to force the fossil fuel company to pay between $476 million and $1.6 billion in penalties, although that number could grow. ExxonMobil generated about $279 billion in revenue last year.

America Misled: How the fossil fuel industry deliberately misled Americans about climate change

Over the past few decades, the fossil fuel industry has subjected the American public to a well-funded, well-orchestrated disinformation campaign about the reality and severity of human-caused climate change. The purpose of this web of denial has been to confuse the public and decision-makers in order to delay climate action and thereby protect fossil fuel business interests and defend libertarian, free-market conservative ideologies. The fossil fuel industry’s denial and delay tactics come straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. As a result, the American public have been denied the right to be accurately informed about climate change, just as they were denied the right to be informed about the risks of smoking by the tobacco industry. While fossil fuel companies attacked the science and called on politicians to “reset the alarm,” climate-catalyzed damages worsened, including increased storm intensities, droughts, forest damage and wildfires, all at substantial loss of life and cost to the American people. 

This report explores the techniques used to mislead the American public about climate change, and outlines ways of inoculating against disinformation.

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How the fossil fuel industry polluted the information landscape

Key points

1. Internal corporate documents show that the fossil fuel industry has known about the reality of human-caused climate change for decades. Its response was to actively orchestrate and fund denial and disinformation so as to stifle action and protect its status quo business operations.

2. As the scientific consensus on climate change emerged and strengthened, the industry and its political allies attacked the consensus and exaggerated the uncertainties.

3. The fossil fuel industry offered no consistent alternative explanation for why the climate was changing—the goal was merely to undermine support for action.

4. The strategy, tactics, infrastructure, and rhetorical arguments and techniques used by fossil fuel interests to challenge the scientific evidence of climate change—including cherry picking, fake experts, and conspiracy theories—come straight out of the tobacco industry’s playbook for delaying tobacco control. These key points reflect the position of experts studying climate denial and the history of fossil fuel interests, based on thousands of pages of documented evidence.

The purpose of this web of denial has been to confuse the public and decision-makers in order to delay climate action and thereby protect fossil fuel business interests and defend libertarian, free-market conservative ideologies1 .

The fossil fuel industry’s denial and delay tactics come straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. As a result, the American public have been denied the right to be accurately informed about climate change, just as they were denied the right to be informed about the risks of smoking by the tobacco industry. While fossil fuel companies attacked the science and called on politicians to “reset the alarm,” climate-catalyzed damages worsened, including increased storm intensities, droughts, forest damage and wildfires, all at substantial loss of life and cost to the American people2.

Climate disinformation has had many negative effects. It reduces public understanding of climate change3 , lowers support for climate action4 , cancels out accurate information5,6 , polarizes the public along political lines7 , and reinforces climate silence–the lack of public dialogue and private conversation about climate change8 . Climate deniers directly impact the scientific community–and, in turn, its ability to serve the public good–by forcing climate scientists to respond to bad-faith demands9 and arguably causing a chilling effect pressuring scientists to underplay scientific results10,11,12. Strategies proposed to counter climate disinformation include political mechanisms, financial transparency, legal strategies, and inoculation of the public13.

Inoculation involves explaining how and why climate deniers mislead, in order to neutralize the influence of their disinformation. This report explores the techniques used to mislead the American public about climate change, and outlines three ways of inoculating against disinformation:

1. Communicating facts (this is a necessary but insufficient condition in the face of disinformation).

2. Revealing misleading sources (explaining why, how and from whom the disinformation arose).

3. Explaining denialist techniques (explaining fallacies and tactics used to mislead).

Media coverage of America Misled