Climate science is too uncertain to act on

Climate science is too uncertain to act on
	MISLEADING
	"The science linking fossil fuel use to global warming is too uncertain to justify policies to cut emissions, as argued in public messaging by ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel interests from the late 1980s to the 2000s."
Domain	Science & Environment
Tactic	Propaganda Technique; Statistical & Evidentiary Distortion;
Era	Historical
First seen	1989
Origin	Public statements, advertorials and lobbying by fossil fuel companies and industry groups, including the Global Climate Coalition, from 1989
Last reviewed	2026-10-26
	Further reading: books on Science & Environment

From the late 1980s into the 2000s, ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel interests argued publicly that the science of climate change was too uncertain to justify action to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Research based on the company's internal documents and published papers shows that its own scientists had studied the problem in detail since the late 1970s and had produced projections of global warming that proved accurate. Peer-reviewed analyses have found a gap between what the company's scientists acknowledged internally and in scientific journals, and what its public messaging told the public. ExxonMobil disputes this characterization, and related lawsuits are ongoing.

Bullshitopedia classifies the public "too uncertain" messaging as Misleading. Uncertainty about details such as the pace and regional effects of warming was real. What the evidence shows is that the messaging emphasized uncertainty while understating the core findings the company's own scientists had accepted.

The claim

In public communications, the companies and industry groups argued that the science of human-caused climate change was unsettled, that natural variability might explain observed warming, that climate models were unreliable, and that costly action to limit emissions would be premature.

What the company's scientists knew

In 1977, James Black, a senior scientist at Exxon, briefed the company's management that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels was likely warming the planet and that the risk could become critical within decades. Over the following years, Exxon funded substantial research, including equipping an oil tanker to measure carbon dioxide in the ocean and air and building climate models. A 1982 internal report projected significant warming from rising carbon dioxide and discussed potentially catastrophic effects. Company scientists also published peer-reviewed research on climate.

In 2023, a study in the journal Science by Geoffrey Supran, Stefan Rahmstorf and Naomi Oreskes analyzed the global warming projections that Exxon and ExxonMobil scientists produced between 1977 and 2003. They found that most projections accurately predicted the warming that later occurred, at a rate of about 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade, in line with independent academic and government models.

What the public messaging said

From 1989, Exxon was a founding member of the Global Climate Coalition, an industry group that lobbied against emissions limits and emphasized scientific uncertainty. In 1997, ahead of negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol, Exxon chairman Lee Raymond told an audience in Beijing that the case for global warming was far from airtight and that it was highly unlikely that temperatures in the middle of the next century would be significantly affected by policies enacted then. The company ran a long series of paid opinion advertisements, known as advertorials, in The New York Times and other papers that questioned climate science and warned against hasty action.

A 2017 study by Supran and Oreskes in Environmental Research Letters analyzed nearly 200 of the company's internal documents, peer-reviewed papers and public communications from 1977 to 2014. It found that most internal documents and peer-reviewed papers acknowledged that climate change was real and human-caused, while most of the advertorials expressed doubt.

How it came to light

In 2015, investigations by the news organization InsideClimate News and by the Los Angeles Times and Columbia University's journalism school, drawing on internal documents and interviews with former employees, reported the history of Exxon's climate research. The reporting prompted investigations by state attorneys general and lawsuits by states and cities in the United States, alleging that the company misled investors or the public. Some cases have been dismissed; a New York case alleging investor fraud was decided in ExxonMobil's favor in 2019; others remain in litigation.

ExxonMobil's position

ExxonMobil has rejected the allegations. It has said that its climate research was conducted openly and published in peer-reviewed journals, that it has long acknowledged the risks of climate change, that the scientific uncertainties it described were real at the time, and that the reporting and studies cherry-picked statements. It has supported a carbon tax in recent years and says it backs the goals of the Paris Agreement.

What the evidence shows

The scientific consensus that human activity is causing global warming has been robust for decades and has strengthened over time. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in 2021 that it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Peer-reviewed research shows that ExxonMobil's own scientists produced accurate warming projections, and that the company's public advertising emphasized doubt to a far greater degree than its internal and scientific documents did. Whether that amounted to deception in a legal sense is being decided in court; as a matter of the public record, the "too uncertain to act" message understated what was known.

Lessons for readers

Uncertainty about details is not the same as uncertainty about the core conclusion. Ask which one a speaker is emphasizing.
Compare what an organization says in technical settings with what it says in paid advertising.
Legal outcomes and scientific evidence are different questions. A case can be dismissed for legal reasons while the documented record stands.

Sources

G. Supran, S. Rahmstorf and N. Oreskes, "Assessing ExxonMobil's global warming projections," Science 379 (2023).
Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes, "Assessing ExxonMobil's climate change communications (1977–2014)," Environmental Research Letters 12 (2017).
Neela Banerjee, John H. Cushman Jr., David Hasemyer and Lisa Song, "Exxon: The Road Not Taken," InsideClimate News, 2015.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.
ExxonMobil, public statements responding to "Exxon Knew" reporting and litigation.