Documents show oil industry knew and understood climate dangers, but continued to pursue profit

In 1968, a pair of scientists from Stanford Research Institute wrote a report for the American Petroleum Institute, a trade association for America’s oil and natural gas industry. They warned that “man is now engaged in a vast geophysical experiment with his environment, the earth” — one that “may be the cause of serious world-wide environmental changes.”

The scientists went on: “If the Earth’s temperature increases significantly, a number of events might be expected to occur including the melting of the Antarctic ice cap, a rise in sea levels, warming of the oceans and an increase in photosynthesis.”

That 48-year-old report, which accurately foreshadowed what’s now happening, is among a trove of public documents uncovered and released Wednesday by the Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law. Taken together, documents that the organization has assembled show that oil executives were well aware of the serious climate risks associated with carbon dioxide emissions decades earlier than previously documented — and they covered it up.

Carroll Muffett, the center’s president, told The Huffington Post the documents not only reveal that the industry, including Humble Oil (now Exxon Mobil), was “clearly on notice” about the potential role of fossil fuels in CO2 emissions no later than 1957, but was “shaping science to shape public opinion” even earlier, in the 1940s.

Read The Huffington Post Australia story - "New Documents Show Oil Industry Even More Evil Than We Thought.”