Newly Unearthed Records Expose Early Big Oil Climate Denial Strategy

The Air Pollution Foundation (APF) was ostensibly established to combat the thickening smog crisis in 1950s Los Angeles. However, newly surfaced archives suggest the organization functioned as a corporate shield. Funded by the Western Oil and Gas Association—a coalition that included precursors to ExxonMobil and Chevron—the APF received roughly $1.3 million, or $14 million in modern currency, to steer the narrative surrounding industrial pollution.

In 1954, Caltech geochemistry professor Samuel Epstein warned the foundation that rising atmospheric CO2 levels from fossil fuels posed a significant threat to civilization. This scientific reality clashed with the agenda of the group’s financial backers. When APF president Lauren Hitchcock began advocating for genuine pollution controls, he was summoned to the California Club and reprimanded by industry executives. They explicitly instructed him to act as a research director for the oil industry, tasking him with publishing findings that would appear unbiased while shielding the sector from regulation.

Hitchcock resigned in 1956 after his research was gutted and the foundation officially labeled carbon dioxide emissions as harmless. Experts argue this period marked the true inception of the industry's disinformation playbook. Geoffrey Supran, a climate researcher at the University of Miami, noted that these documents prove Big Oil’s campaign to downplay product dangers parallels the tobacco industry’s historical strategies, dating back decades earlier than previously acknowledged.