InsideClimate News Launches

On September 16, 2015, InsideClimate News began publishing an eight-month investigation revealing that Exxon’s own scientists warned executives as early as 1977 that burning fossil fuels was heating the planet, yet the company then worked at the forefront of climate denial for decades. The nine-part investigative series “Exxon: The Road Not Taken” exposed how Exxon conducted cutting-edge climate research in the 1970s-80s, confirming human-caused global warming, then systematically funded campaigns to manufacture doubt about the scientific consensus its own scientists had confirmed.

Bombshell Documents Reveal Corporate Knowledge

The investigation uncovered internal Exxon documents showing senior scientist James Black delivered sobering warnings to company executives about carbon dioxide warming the planet in 1977. Internal research from 1977-1982 created remarkably accurate climate models predicting global temperature increases from fossil fuel emissions. A 1982 internal report to Exxon management stated that consequences could be “catastrophic” and that significant fossil fuel consumption reductions would be necessary. The investigation was independently corroborated by simultaneous reporting from the Los Angeles Times and Columbia University, with both teams finding identical patterns of corporate knowledge and subsequent denial.

#ExxonKnew Movement and Public Impact

The series spawned the popular hashtag #ExxonKnew and fundamentally changed public discussion around corporate accountability for climate change. The investigation was named a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, recognizing its impact on understanding decades of corporate deception. The reporting revealed that Exxon’s shift from climate research leader to climate denial funder represented a conscious decision to protect profits by undermining science the company knew to be accurate. The phrase “Exxon Knew” became shorthand for corporate climate fraud, drawing explicit parallels to tobacco companies that hid cancer research.

Legal and Political Consequences

Within weeks of publication, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued Exxon a subpoena seeking extensive disclosure of records about the company’s climate science research and internal communications spanning four decades. The investigation sparked numerous climate liability lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, with plaintiffs citing the #ExxonKnew evidence as proof of knowing deception. The reporting provided the evidentiary foundation for legal theories holding fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change damages they knew they were causing while publicly denying the science.

Significance

The #ExxonKnew investigation represents one of the most consequential pieces of investigative journalism in climate change history—providing documentary proof that the world’s largest fossil fuel companies knew about climate change decades ago and chose to fund denial campaigns rather than take action. The investigation transformed climate change from an environmental issue to a corporate fraud story, with clear villains knowingly deceiving the public about existential threats. The reporting demonstrated how wealth from fossil fuel extraction was systematically deployed to undermine scientific understanding of the very environmental damage that extraction caused. The investigation’s impact continued for years, spawning legal accountability efforts and fundamentally altering public understanding of climate denial as industry-funded fraud rather than legitimate scientific debate.