In perhaps one of the most cynically ironic twists in the field of climate science, new research suggests ExxonMobil may have had keener insight into the impending dangers of global warming than even NASA scientists but still waged a decades-long campaign to discredit research into climate change and its connection to the burning of fossil fuels.
Despite its public denials, the major oil corporation worked behind closed doors to carry out an astonishingly accurate series of global warming projections between 1977 and 2003, according to a study published Thursday in Science.
“Exxon didn’t just know some climate science, they actually helped advance it,” said Geoffrey Supran, lead author of the study and former researcher in the department of the history of science at Harvard University. “They didn’t just vaguely know something about global warming decades ago, they knew as much as independent academics and government scientists did. And arguably, they knew all they needed to know.”
