Exxon's Richard Werthamer (right) and Edward Garvey (left) are aboard the company's Esso Atlantic tanker working on a project to measure the carbon dioxide levels in the ocean and atmosphere. The project ran from 1979 to 1982. Courtesy of Richard Werthamer/Inside Climate News

Nov. 17, 2015

In late October, news that Exxon Corp. had conducted long-term research into climate change and the role of fossil fuels made it into the mainstream  media. Online journal Inside Climate News released a series of reports based on eight months' investigative research into internal Exxon records, showing that the company began studying climate change as early as 1977. Over 10 years, it heavily funded a wide range of research into concerns ranging from the capacity of the world's oceans to absorb CO2, to computer modeling to forecast climate change. Exxon research departments' findings were reported in-house and to the scientific community.

Then in 1998, Exxon made an abrupt about-face on the issue. According to ICN, Exxon's communication of its own research findings stopped, and the company launched into multiple climate-change denial efforts.

The following report excerpts highlights of Inside Climate News' wrap-up story published Oct. 22 and advance-published by The Dallas Morning News Oct. 18.

“At a meeting in Exxon Corp.'s headquarters, a senior company scientist named James F. Black addressed an audience of powerful oilmen... As he flipped through detailed slides, Black delivered a sobering message: carbon dioxide from the world's use of fossil fuels would warm the planet and could eventually endanger humanity…. It was July 1977… well before most of the world had heard of the looming climate crisis." 

“A year later, Black… took an updated version of his presentation to... Exxon scientists and managers…"  He warned that independent researchers estimated "a doubling of the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by... 4 to 5°F... And as much as... 18 F at the poles. Rainfall might get heavier in some regions, and other places might turn to desert."

"'Some countries would benefit but others would have their agricultural output reduced or destroyed,' Black said, in the written summary of his 1978 talk... “'Present thinking holds that man has a time window of 5 to 10 years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.'"

"Exxon responded swiftly…" launching "its own extraordinary research into carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and its impact on the earth." The program included "both empirical CO2 sampling and rigorous climate modeling.”

The brain trust that Exxon assembled "would spend more than a decade deepening the company's understanding of an environmental problem that posed an existential threat to the oil business." The company budgeted more than $1 million to outfit a supertanker to sample carbon dioxide in the ocean, along a route from the Gulf of Mexico to the Persian Gulf, seeking to decipher "one of the biggest uncertainties in climate science... How quickly could the deep oceans absorb atmospheric CO2?"

The answer would reveal "how long it had before CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere could force a transition away from fossil fuels."

Climate forecast modeling was another challenge taken on by Exxon's researchers. In September 1982, this effort culminated in Roger Cohen, head of theoretical sciences at Exxon Corporate Research Laboratories, reporting on Exxon's analysis of climate models:  "a doubling of the carbon dioxide blanket in the atmosphere would produce average global warming of 5°F, plus or -1.7... "

"''There is unanimous agreement in the scientific community that a temperature increase of this magnitude would bring about significant changes in the Earth's climate… Including rainfall distribution and alterations in the biosphere.'"

Internal documents show that Exxon viewed synthetic fuels as as an alternative to shrinking supply of conventional oil, but an imperfect one. The company was concerned about reports that “synthetic oil made from coal, tar sands and oil shales could significantly boost CO2 emissions."

Several motives underlay the research effort, according to documents of company executives and scientists obtained by Inside Climate News. A sense of public responsibility entered in, as well as scientific aspiration. The researchers also believed that "unbiased science would give...[Exxon] legitimacy in helping shape climate-related laws that would affect its profitability." 

Exxon researchers did contribute to climate science, publishing "at least three peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals" and financing a global warming conference in 1982.  At the same time, the company soft-peddled the climate problem to shareholders and in annual reports filled with the SEC, according to Inside Climate News.  

In 1988 these concerns were eclipsed by climate change's eruption into the public media.  NASA's Dr. James Hansen, a leading climate expert, testified before Congress, and the New York Times announced in banner headlines “Global Warming has Begun.”

Exxon Corp. immediately reversed direction. The company launched into clmate-change denial efforts including a corporate alliance it founded to discourage government action, funding to a right-wing denial think-tank, campaign contributions and lobbying efforts. 

Read the full report on Inside Climate News. 


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