What Exxon Knew in 1982
If you've participated in discussion about climate change, you've probably come across the slogan "Exxon Knew." This came out as private, internal communications from within Exxon (and other fossil fuel companies) revealed that their scientists had been investigating potential catastrophic consequences of fossil fuel emissions, and they made predictions that turned out to be pretty accurate. To what extent Exxon is culpable for this is difficult to determine. However, what is clear (to me) is that Exxon and other fossil fuel companies ought to be held liable for knowingly promoting misinformation when their own scientists were telling them that there were valid concerns that continued fossil fuel emissions would have harmful consequences for humanity. Papers were published in 2021[1] and 2023[2] that evaluated the accuracy of the scientific work that Exxon knew by evaluating the internal studies that have now been made public. The above graph has been popularly shared...