18 As a scientific consensus emerged in the early 1990s that human-caused climate change was underway, Mobil Oil Corp scientist Leonard Bernstein drafted a 1995 internal ‘Primer on Climate Change Science’ for the industry’s Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which explicitly rejected contrarian claims that were beginning to circulate: “Contrarian theories…do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change” [67]. GCC members included dozens of corporation and trade associations, such as Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, the National Coal Association and the American Petroleum Institute. Although the report argued against the IPCC’s conclusion that year that “a discernable human influence on global climate” had already been detected, it emphasized that “the scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.” There are clear discrepancies between this private acknowledgment and numerous contemporary and subsequent public communications by both GCC and its member fossil fuel companies and trade associations that promoted doubt about the potential for human-caused greenhouse gas emissions to impact the climate. There is a large literature compiled by journalists and academics demonstrating this broad spectrum of communications, from direct public statements to indirect funding or orchestration of climate disinformation through third-party individuals and organizations. As just one example, in 2009 The New York Times reported the discrepancy between the GCC’s private acknowledgment and the GCC’s public assertion, in a scientific “Backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, that “the role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood” [68,69]. Q23: Are you currently undertaking similar studies for other fossil fuel companies? A23: Yes, but will not discuss these until they have passed peer-review. Q24: Is there anything else you would like to say about your research that may be relevant to this national inquiry? A24: I have three additional observations about our research and relevant context: (1) We are confident in our results. Any analysis of words is subject to interpretation. It is for this reason that we used established social science methods and subjected our analysis to peer review, to verify that our claims are supported by evidence, were analyzed according to tested methods, and are not just a matter of subjective opinion. The statistical tests of our content analyses are consistently high. While one might disagree about the interpretation of specific words, the overall trends are clear even on casual inspection. (2) Our results do not stand in isolation, but compliment and