Oil Industry Even In 1950s Knew About Fossil Fuel Effect On Climate Change: Report

Climate change is an issue that has been getting pushed under the carpet by Big Oil companies about 20 years earlier than thought, says a new report.

Even as Amoco, Exxon, Mobil, Phillips, Shell, Sunoco and Texaco shared climate research findings between 1979 and 1983, a few new leaks by the Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) show that research was conducted as far back as 1957.

"This story is older and it is bigger than I think has been appreciated before," said Carroll Muffett, president of CIEL.

The industry studied the links between fossil fuels and climate change ever since 1957 and also shaped science and research data released to the public, so that they could alter public opinion in order to benefit them, as far back as the 1940s.

Check out a CIEL website  containing documents, scientific articles, oral testimonies and patents covering more than 50 years of research in this industry.

"They offer compelling evidence that oil executives were actively debating climate science in the 1950s, and were explicitly warned about climate risks a decade later," CIEL said. "Just as importantly, they offer glimpses into why the industry undertook this research, and how it used the results to sow scientific uncertainty and public skepticism."

Both Big Oil and Big Tobacco tend to hide information on the impact of climate change on the health of the industries.

Still, Big Oil is a kind of villain that downplays the harmful effect of fossil fuels on climate change and supports the climate deniers in Congress.

"Like Big Tobacco, Big Oil spent decades orchestrating a deception campaign that undermined our public health," said Jeremy Funk of Americans United for Change. "After similarly damning internal tobacco industry memos surfaced of a coordinated cover-up of their products' dangers, states and consumers' families were rewarded billions of dollars in damages and tough new regulations were put in place by the court system and Congress."