The oil industry was well aware of the science that links fossil fuel emissions and climate change decades ago, according to documents analyzed by a Washington, DC-based non-profit. The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) says that the records, amassed over four years of research, reveal the oil industry's own growing body of knowledge into the field of climate change – even as it publicly continued to cast doubt on its very existence.
CIEL has compiled a mountain of public documents on the oil industry and climate change that include scientific studies and patent documentation, among others. Carroll Muffett, the president of CIEL, spoke to Vice News about what the documents reveal.
"There are numerous points along this path where the industry was on notice that this was a rising risk."