SMOKE AND FUMES 13 recognizing that the combustion of all then recoverable fossil fuels would raise atmospheric CO2 to 850 ppm, driving global temperatures still higher. Despite this professed uncertainty, Robinson and Robbins summarized by reiterating, “On the basis of our present knowledge, significant temperature changes could be expected to occur by the year 2000 as a result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. These could bring about long term climatic changes.”98 They repeated their earlier warnings that “there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe …[and that] the prospect for the future must be of serious concern.”99 They marked again the irony that the abundant pollution by carbon dioxide and particulate matter, “which we generally ignore because they have little local effect, may be the cause of serious worldwide environmental changes.”100 Perhaps for this reason, the Supplemental Report did not revisit or alter the Research Needs identified in the original report. © girlart39/Pixabay Robinson and Robbins acknowledged the widespread inference in the available science that “a given increase in atmospheric temperature could cause a gradual melting of the polar ice caps” and that this melting, if it occurred, “would obviously result in inundation of coastal areas.”96 They also acknowledged a longterm, detailed study that had indeed found apparent relationships between Antarctic ice caps and the global climate. Remarkably however, and in stark contrast to their treatment of other issues and the warnings of their earlier report, Robinson and Robbins summarily disregarded these findings and their implications, on the grounds that they were “based on what has occurred in the past, and with our present knowledge we are not justified in predicting future effects of CO2 based on these correlations.”97 The Supplement omits several paragraphs from the earlier report summarizing the potential environmental and human impacts of climate change. Finally, and notably, the Supplemental Report included two paragraphs of “Summary and Conclusions” with respect to CO2. The first of these paragraphs briefly and accurately summarized the report’s findings with respect to rising CO2 levels, the role of fossil fuel combustion, and the likelihood that atmospheric CO2 would continue to grow as fossil fuel use continued. In stark contrast to the body of the report (and to the 1968 original), however, the second summary paragraph downplayed the potential implications of that increase for global temperatures, sea levels, and the environment—focusing exclusively on the uncertainties that made it impossible to draw any conclusions.101 We know that industry scientists were aware, or should have been aware, of Robinson and Robbins’ reports for two reasons. First, an internal API document titled Environmental Research, A Status Report, published in January 1972, outlines all of the research funded by CAWC up to that point in 1972.102 The status report acknowledges both the original 1968 SRI report and the 1969 Supplemental Report, including explicit references to the discussions of carbon dioxide contained therein.103 Second, the National Petroleum Council (NPC) submitted a report to the Department of Interior in 1972 entitled Environmental Conservation: The Oil and Gas Industries.104 An advisory body populated and funded by the petroleum industry, the NCP advises the federal government on questions that concern the industry.105 High-level executives from across the oil and gas industry were expressly listed as authors and editors of the 1972 report and of its component chapters, including an extensive chapter on “Air Pollution.”106 By no later than 1968, the petroleum industry as a whole was on notice of climate change, its most probable causes, its potential risks, and the pressing need to research technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In its chapter on air pollutants, the 1972 NPC report acknowledges Robinson & Robbins’ report, describing it as a “careful study” by “eminent scientists” and as an authoritative source on atmospheric pollution.107 The report draws heavily from every aspect of Robinson and Robbins’ work, with the conspicuous exception of its section on carbon dioxide. That NPC addressed carbon dioxide as an atmospheric pollutant, but did not reference either version of the SRI report the industry itself had commissioned. Instead, it relied almost entirely on a 1965 publication from the American Association for the Advancement of Science called Air Conservation.108 The four-page section in