Apparently, Exxon has known since the late 70s that global warming was indeed happening and man's carbon emissions was causing it. Like the cigarette industry, they've been publicly contradicting their own science since the 80s and funding a climate denial network of useful idiots. As a reward for their loyalty to the corporation, the climate dupe's legacy will be the butthurt of never again being taken seriously on any subject.
Inside Exxon's Great Climate Cover-Up: From Early Climate Change Researcher to Epic Climate Denier
NERMEEN SHAIKH:...[L]ong before Pope Francis started his ascent through the ranks of the Catholic Church, there was another leader in the climate movement, and one you might least expect - Exxon. Now, ExxonMobil, the oil giant, is recognized by the environmental community as one of the worst offenders on environmental issues. Environmental disasters, from the 2013 Pegasus tar sands pipeline rupture to the 1989 Valdez oil spill, have made the company a leading target of environmentalists, as has its funding for climate change deniers and its backing of organizations, including the American Enterprise Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council, known for opposing the Kyoto Protocol and other environmental regulations.
AMY GOODMAN: But a new investigative series by the Pulitzer Prize-winning news organization InsideClimateNews.org has uncovered that decades ago, Exxon was actually on the cutting edge of climate research. Here's a clip from the PBS series Frontline, which partnered with InsideClimate News on the project...
NEELA BANERJEE: We found the trail of documents that go back to 1977. Exxon knew carbon dioxide was increasing in the atmosphere, that combustion of fossil fuel is driving it, and that this posed a threat to Exxon. At that time, Exxon understood very quickly that governments would probably take action to reduce fossil fuel consumption...
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/9/2...imate_cover_up
Frontline:
Investigation Finds Exxon Ignored Its Own Early Climate Change Warnings
In 1978, the Exxon researchers warned that a doubling of CO2 levels in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius and would have a major impact on the company's core business. "Present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical," one scientist wrote in an internal document...
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15...global-warming