8 C E N T E R F O R I N T E R N AT I O N A L E N V I R O N M E N TA L L AW surplus CO2 from artificial coal combustion will become insignificantly small as soon as equilibrium with marine carbonate is established.”40 In 1955, however, Hans Suess provided the first clear proof that, as hypothesized in 1896 by Svante and theorized by Callendar, carbon dioxide traceable to the combustion of fossil fuels was accumulating in the atmosphere,41 a phenomenon that would thereafter be referred to as the “Suess effect.” The research of Callendar, Slocum, Suess, and others was neither obscure nor hidden. Unsurprisingly, the earliest industry studies to which we have access that measure the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere appear around this time. Documentary Evidence Demonstrates Oil Industry was on Notice of Potential Climate Risks by 1957 In 1957, Suess and Roger Revelle, of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, published a landmark paper that contradicted the longstanding assumption that the oceans would absorb a large majority of artificial carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.42 Revelle and Suess predicted large increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, especially if fossil fuel combustion continued to increase exponentially.43 They noted that “[w]ithin a few centuries we are returning to the atmosphere and oceans the concentrated organic carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of years.”44 Two months after the Revelle and Suess paper was published, scientists at Humble Oil (now ExxonMobil) submitted their own study for publication on the same question.45 Significantly, the Humble Oil study acknowledges not only rising levels of atmospheric CO2, but also the evident contribution of fossil fuels to that increase and the continuing and projected rise in that fossil fuel combustion.46 In acknowledged disagreement with Revelle, however, the paper suggests that CO2 would be retained in the oceans much longer before returning to the atmosphere, which would delay the impact of fossil fuel emissions by decades or centuries.47 The Petroleum Industry Engaged in Coordinated Research and Communications on Air Pollution Issues from the 1940s Onward The Revelle and Suess study did not warn that climate change would definitely devastate the planet, but it did emphatically state that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were likely to increase significantly over the following several decades. Moreover, the report The petroleum industry has long been highly coordinated, acting through centralized industry associations. The Western Oil and Gas Association (WOGA)—now the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA)—was founded in 1907 and represents petroleum companies in the western United States.49 The American Petroleum Institute was created in 1919 to represent the American petroleum industry as a whole.50 From the time API was founded, oil companies recognized pollution issues as an area of significant common concern, and by the 1930s, they had focused particularly on the industry’s shared concerns with air pollution and the related public hostility and risk of regulation it presented. “[W]ithin a few centuries we are returning to the atmosphere and oceans the concentrated organic carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of years.” — HANS SUESS & ROGER REVELLE, 1957 provides definitive evidence that, by 1957, at least one oil company—a subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey (now ExxonMobil)—was aware that the byproducts of fossil fuel combustion were accumulating in the atmosphere and would likely continue to do so. An internal account of industry-funded research projects in 1958 indicates that at least one project funded by the American Petroleum Institute (API) was measuring the proportion of atmospheric carbon “of fossil origin,” i.e., the Suess effect.48 Funded under the auspices of the American Petroleum Institute’s Smoke and Fumes Committee, the research into atmospheric carbon was part of a broader research program targeting atmospheric pollutants of concern to the oil industry as a whole. This history provides clear documentary evidence that key oil and gas industry actors were collaborating in and through API to investigate carbon dioxide as an atmospheric pollutant by no later than 1958. As discussed more fully below, they were doing so within the context of a longstanding campaign to combine industry-funded science with active public relations efforts to increase public skepticism of air pollution science and regulation. In the 1940s, Los Angeles, California, grappled with increasingly severe and debilitating smog. In late 1946, executives from the major petroleum companies represented by WOGA established the “Committee on Smoke and Fumes of the Western Oil and Gas Association” to fund research into the causes of air pollution in Southern California.51 The committee was explicitly created not just to conduct research, but also to communicate that research to the media, public, and decision makers with the express goal of discouraging pollution regulations the industry deemed costly and unnecessary.52 A report on the Committee’s work by Esso (now ExxonMobil) executive G.A. Lloyd highlighted the central role that understanding and shaping public opinion played in the work and the objectives of the Smoke and Fumes Committee. Highlighting that an “Information Committee” populated with public relations representatives was a key part of the enterprise, Lloyd outlined their key priorities. The highest of these priorities was to collect, evaluate, and