By Catherine Owen Koning, Originally Published in The Monadnock Shopper News, Green Monadnock column, August 2026.
Modern living is full of misinformation – and sometimes, downright lies. This summer, the Clean Energy Team held a Climate Café to discuss what was (and still is) arguably the largest misinformation campaign in history: Big Oil’s deliberate attempts to sow seeds of doubt about climate change.
Did you ever wonder how climate change became such a partisan issue? Why one political party accepts the overwhelming scientific consensus while another denies it? Then read on.
The proof was shown clearly in the 2018 PBS Frontline documentary, The Power of Big Oil, available on YouTube. You can also listen to Season One of the podcast, “Drilled” to learn the story.
Surprisingly, from 1960-1980, the oil giant Exxon conducted research into the global greenhouse effect. They discovered that the planet was warming, and the more coal, oil and gas we burned, the hotter it would get. But Exxon realized that if people found out that the planet’s overheating was caused by burning fossil fuels, profits would drop.
So oil companies and the fossil-fuel wealthy Koch brothers started creating lobbying organizations, think tanks and fake “grassroots” groups. They funded climate deniers, individuals who did not have background in climate science but had a PhD after their names, paying them to travel the country, argue that climate science wasn’t correct, and accuse legitimate scientists of manipulating data. Big Oil’s public relations teams published “advertorials” – paid ads in leading magazines that looked like legitimate editorials, attacking the certainty of climate change’s causes and impacts, despite what their own scientists had discovered.
To be clear, the vast majority of scientists accept that climate change is real, and it is caused by humans. The planet’s climate does change naturally, but over much longer timeframes; if it weren’t for humans overheating the planet by burning fossil fuels, the planet would currently be in a long-term cooling trend!
In 1988, Dr. James Hansen, a top scientist with NASA, testified to Congress: “The Earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements…the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.” In response, in 1992, President Bill Clinton and VP Al Gore proposed a broad-based tax on energy. Big Oil lobbyists contacted Senators, and they paid ordinary citizens to “stand up behind politicians with signs about no BTU tax.” The tax did not pass.
In 2006, Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, warned of a “planetary emergency.” This shifted public opinion, and acceptance of climate change was at its most bipartisan level. A bill to control climate pollution through a “cap and trade” approach was introduced. Both presidential candidates, McCain and Obama, came out in favor, and the bill passed the House.
To stop this bill in the Senate, Exxon-Mobil and Koch Industries created “Americans for Prosperity,” a front group which spread misinformation. Along came the 2008-9 recession and The Tea Party movement. Americans for Prosperity started attacking Republicans who didn’t espouse their skeptical views on climate change. Moderate Republican senators backed away from the cap and trade bill.
According to Frontline, “Koch Industries was able to reshape the Republican Party into one that identified with the idea that climate change is not real, that the science is a hoax.”
And so here we are today, with life-threatening wildfires in Canada, killer heat waves in Europe, crazy floods in Manhattan, and a government that refuses to do anything about any of it.
“Big Oil” knew. They lied. They spread misinformation to confuse us, divide us, and profit at our expense. And now they’re trying to get away with it. Are we going to let them?
Burning fossil fuels creates many negative effects: an overheating planet; unhealthy air; bloody wars and supply line blockades, and more. Fortunately, the transition to clean energy from solar, wind, hydro and more, is already underway – and the future is exciting! Cleaner air, cheaper energy, more prosperity, fewer wars. Let’s help advance the transition – and benefit from it!
But to do this, we have to get the word out about the TRUTH about climate pollution, our overheating planet, and the massive, sustained LIES that have been told for the sake of corporate profits.