In this episode, Ralph and Luc spotlight what the oil companies knew about CO2’s impact on the climate, and how they lied to you to sustain their fossilized business model – even if it risks drilling us into oblivion… This argument will soon be heard in court as part of a series of lawsuits against Big Oil.
We start by looking into the history of scholarship on this issue, dating back to the 19th Century.We highlight the record of what the oil companies such as Exxon and the American Petroleum Institute were saying behind closed doors – and contrast this with their contemporaneous public statements.
We draw upon scholarship uncovered by Naomi Oreskes and the #ExxonKnew movement.
Sources:• If you would like to read California's lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP and the American Petroleum Institute for deceiving the public for decades, you can access it here:https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/FINAL-9-15-COMPLAINT.pdf
• We quote from the 2010 book Merchants of Doubt; How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway.
• We also sample a couple clips from the 2014 documentary derived from it, also titled Merchants Of Doubt, directed by Robert Kenner and co-written by Kim Roberts.
• We cite reporting from this 2017 article from the Center for Public Integrity: “The United States of Petroleum” by Jie Jenny Zou, accessible at
https://apps.publicintegrity.org/united-states-of-petroleum/
• You can read Edward Teller’s “Energy Patterns of the Future” 1959 Presentation at the Energy and Man conference organised by the American Petroleum Institute in full here:https://www.planetaryhealthforbusypeople.com/whats-now-and-whats-new/edward-teller• We sample a couple clips from the 1981 British TV documentary by Thames Television called “Warming Warning”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMjnvfkeJJ0&list=PL7WD0g9dS3jlkXemuiPdoj4RF416JTpn6&index=3
• We read from Exxon's 1982 internal primer on the CO2 "Greenhouse Effect", which was made accessible thanks to reporting by Inside Climate News in 2015, and is accessible here:https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/1982-Exxon-Primer-on-CO2-Greenhouse-Effect.pdf
• We also read from the oil companies' advertorials, as highlighted in a 2017 research article: "Assessing ExxonMoblil’s climate change communications (1977-2014)" by Naomi Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f
• We refer to elements from the 2021 book The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet by Michael E Mann.
• We also cite the 2023 Science article "Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections" by Geoffrey Supran, Stefan Rahmstorf, and Naomi Oreskes:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063
• We excerpted a clip from Naomi Klein's June 2023 appearance on the podcast "The Audit", hosted by Dave Anthony and Josh Olson on David Sirota's Lever Network, which you can listen to in full here:
https://www.levernews.com/the-audit-the-climate-change-misinformation-machine
(This episode is also available as a video on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muNF_1mC3FI&list=PLwI-SH3khGtbDQ76_3VXTO3AaLkZ-sqnA&index=3 )
Chapters:0:00:00 Introduction - Current lawsuits against Big Oil0:07:16 History of science of C02 and climate change in the 1800s0:12:10 History of science of C02 and climate change in first half of the 1900s0:17:41 What changed after World War II0:19:10 Gilbert Plass and Edward Baxter in the 1950s0:23:25 Edward Teller at API's "Energy and Man" conference in 19590:25:40 API's Report in 19680:27:23 National Petroleum Council's Report in 19720:28:52 Exxon’s internal communications from the late 1970s0:35:26 Exxon’s internal corporate primer in 19820:36:36 The Global Climate Coalition and laundering legitimacy0:40:01 Clip from British ITV documentary “Warming Warning” from 19810:42:29 “Changing Climate” Committee and Thomas Schelling in 19830:47:19 Creation of the IPCC and James Hansen’s testimony in 19880:48:39 Exxon’s “emphasise the uncertainty” Memo in 19880:50:59 James Hansen reflects on his testimony and what followed0:52:20 Clip from Royal Dutch Shell's “Climate of Concern” video from 19910:53:38 API President’s comment on scientific consensus in 1996