A key organizer and funder of the “Exxon Knew” campaign – which hinges on the debunked allegation that ExxonMobil knew about climate change long before the public and subsequently tried to cover up this knowledge and mislead the public – also credits itself for its “early recognition” of the issue in the 1980s. In an essay detailing the rationale behind its grantmaking, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) states that it knew about climate change before the public or governmental bodies:
“Beginning in 1986, the RBF made grants to Sweden’s Beijer Institute to promote research on global warming. These grants evidence the Fund’s early recognition of the significance of climate change, which was not yet understood by the public or recognized by national and international governmental bodies.”
It’s interesting that a group that manufactured an entire campaign to sue oil and natural gas companies for climate change on the basis that they “knew” about it before anyone else, could be charged with a similar allegation.
Astoundingly, noted Rockefeller lackey Bill McKibben criticized ExxonMobil this week for “understanding climate change in the 1980s.” Yet, as an article from the Washington Post recently noted, it wasn’t until 2005 – almost 20 years later – that RBF undertook greater efforts around climate change:
“The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, founded in 1940 by five sons of John D. Rockefeller Jr., became interested in global warming in 1986 but sharpened its focus on sustainable development and climate change starting in 2005.”
In other words, the Rockefellers are trying to have it both ways. They were allegedly at the forefront of understanding climate change before anyone else in the 1980s, even though they didn’t really begin to act on it until 2005, and they want praise for that. At the same time, they’ve funded dozens of hit jobs against the company to which they owe their immense fortune, alleging that ExxonMobil had the very same understanding they did, but that this should be punished, in line with their stated goal “to establish in public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm.”
A Case of “Cultural Amnesia”
This finding supports Nathaniel Rich’s bombshell 2018 New York Times Magazine article that concluded “everybody knew” climate change was happening by the late 1970s and 1980s. Rich argues that from 1979 to 1989, the world had its best opportunity to address global warming, and “nothing stood in our way – nothing except ourselves.”
During an interview with PBS NewsHour, Rich called the idea that energy companies knew about climate change and the rest of us didn’t until James Hansen testified before Congress in 1988, “one of the worst examples we have of the cultural amnesia of this country and especially around this issue.”
This contention exposes the false narrative of “Exxon Knew” and the heart of its allegations that ExxonMobil covered up the risks of climate change, and therefore prevented global action on the issue from taking place sooner. The world was engaged, long before the supposed “disinformation campaign” that environmental activists cite ever began; throughout the 1970s and 1980s, global warming received wide media attention and was the subject of multiple Congressional hearings. As one Climatewire headline makes abundantly clear: “Every president since JFK was warned about climate change.”
It’s easy (and for anti-fossil fuel activists, lucrative) to point fingers, but addressing climate change requires collaboration and concrete action. Hashtags don’t quite fit that bill, especially as their potency gets watered down by the fact that #EverybodyKnew, including, it seems, the Rockefellers.
