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— BUSINESS: Document trove details links between tobacco, oil industries — Wednesda... Page 2 of 3
John Hill, founder of what is now
Hill+Knowlton Strategies. Photo by
Hill+Knowlton, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Carroll Muffett said in a statement.
1990s for his work - also studied lead in gasoline for Ethyl Corp. in 1962. Ethyl was a
j 0j nt venture between General Motors Corp. and Standard Oil.
"From the 1950s onward, the oil and tobacco firms were using not only the same PR
firms and same research institutes, but many of the same researchers," CIEL President
"Again and again we found both the PR firms and the researchers worked first for oil, then for tobacco," he said. "It was a
pedigree the tobacco companies recognized and sought out."
CIEL alerted ClimateWire to the existence of the tobacco documents and has been researching for years what the oil industry
knew about climate change and what it did in response.
The examination of the tobacco documents has been more recent for CIEL, which calls its project comparing the tobacco and
oil industries "Smoke & Fumes."
The group's new research is part of a building debate about oil companies' knowledge over the decades about climate
change. It also is part of a push from environmental groups to make the legal case that fossil energy companies have lied for
decades about global warming risks, just as tobacco companies lied about the connection between smoking and cancer.
Last week. House Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) subpoenaed the attorneys general of
New York and Massachusetts, who are each investigating if Exxon Mobil Corp. misled investors and the public about climate
change threats, and several environmental groups (ClimateWire. July 14).
Smith and his colleagues maintain that the attorneys general colluded with environmentalists in their investigations. They say
such probes violate First Amendment protections of free speech.
The Stanford Research Institute link
Another connection between oil and tobacco companies, according to CIEL, is the Stanford Research Institute, now known as
SRI International after splitting with Stanford University in 1970.
Founded in 1946, SRI studied smog and pollution generally and received funding from tobacco and oil companies,
SRI scientists also generated climate change research for the American Petroleum Institute in the 1960s and '70s.
Spokespeople for Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell PLC said they hadn't heard of the Stanford Research
Institute before, declining to comment further. And API spokesmen did not respond to request for comment.
A bloq post from the Independent Petroleum Association of America called the document release a "desperate move" and the
latest in a coordinated attempt to hurt the fossil fuel industry.
In a 1968 report prepared for API in New York City, SRI scientists Elmer Robinson and R.C. Robbins acknowledged some
uncertainty concerning the relation between carbon emissions and rising temperatures, yet said carbon dioxide was the most
likely cause of the "greenhouse effect."
"If the earth's temperatures increase significantly, a number of events might be expected to occur, including the melting of the
Antarctic ice cap, a rise in sea levels, warming of the oceans, and an increase in photosynthesis," they wrote.
Robinson followed up in an API-commissioned study dated 1971.
"If there were a long term and significant increase in the pollutant content of the atmosphere either of particles or of carbon
dioxide, the potential damage to the global environment could be severe," he said.
"Even the remote possibility of such an occurrence justifies concern," added Robinson, one of the first scientists to link the
burning of fossil fuels with global warming. He died earlier this year at 91.
The documents show oil companies tested toxicity in cigarettes in the 1950s, and some, including Exxon and Shell, patented
cigarette filters worldwide for decades. They also indicate that tobacco companies went to SRI for help in creating small
testing kits the size of suitcases to assess smoke.
The Smoke and Fumes Committee
In 1946, API established its own body to study pollution from the oil industry. It was called the Smoke and Fumes Committee.
Wary of government regulation to slash pollution from refineries and other operations within their supply chain, as well as
public concern about smog in cities such as Los Angeles, petroleum officials at API and member firms offered alternative
theories of how smog was created.
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