The 1998 internal industry memo laid out the tactic to "identify, recruit and train" a small team of unknown scientists (namely Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon, and others). The scientists and their (unpublished) views would be brought before editorial boards, science classes and other key areas of society by specific "grassroots" organizations toward creating a "debate" around global warming where one essentially did not exist. And that is exactly what came to be.

The impacts of ExxonMobil's disinformation campaign are all too clear. A study by Naomi Oreskes published in Science magazine showed that out of a large random sample of 928 peer-reviewed journal articles published on global climate change over a decade, not a single one of them disputed the consensus view that human activity is a primary cause of global warming. Another major study covering roughly the same period then showed that 52 percent of news articles on global warming in mainstream press were falsely pitched as a debate "giving the impression that the scientific community was embroiled in a rip-roaring debate on whether or not humans were contributing to global warming" (Boykoff).

Not surprising, the key architects of the plan included ExxonMobil's then-lobbyist Randy Randol and some of the biggest deniers of today like Myron Ebell, Steven Milloy and Frederick Seitz. All the groups named in the memo received funding from ExxonMobil, often for work on climate change, including Competitive Enterprise Institute, Frontiers of Freedom, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (Junkscience.com), The George C. Marshall Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council, and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).

Although the industry plan was launched to defeat the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, the memo noted that it "will be continued thereafter," until "there are no further initiatives to thwart the threat of climate change."

ExxonMobil's role in blocking action on global warming did not start or stop with its funding of organizations that deny the science and mislead the public. Internal documents show that ExxonMobil has had direct access to the White House. Noting that ExxonMobil is "among the companies most actively and prominently opposed to binding approaches [like Kyoto] to cut greenhouse gas emissions," the Bush administration has even thanked ExxonMobil for its "active involvement" in crafting U.S. global warming policy.

In 2006, ExxonMobil was labeled "the highest-profile corporate skeptic about global warming." (Steve Mufson, "Energy Firms Come to Terms With Climate Change," The Washington Post, November 24, 2006.) The characterization followed repeated interviews with the company's leadership that revealed its consistent commitment to denying the realities of global warming.

"At a minimum, there's an enormous amount of uncertainty around this whole question [of global warming]," said current ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson in March 2006. (Jeffrey Ball, "Prototype of Texas Oilman," The Wall Street Journal. March 8, 2006; Page B1.) Such statements by Tillerson echoed the beliefs of ExxonMobil's previous CEO, Lee Raymond who told The Wall Street Journal in 2005 that "it's yet to be shown how much of this [global warming] is really related to the activities of man." (Jeffrey Ball, "Exxon Chief Makes A Cold Calculation On Global Warming," Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2005.)

Finally, after finding itself in a firestorm of criticism from the groups of Exxpose Exxon, the public, respected scientists in the U.S. and in the U.K., and U.S. policy makers, ExxonMobil began to acknowledge the science of global warming. In an effort to paint itself as "misunderstood," the company tried to mollify the press by cutting its funding to a small handful of the most notorious denier groups such as The Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Yet, to this day, the company still focuses on the so-called "uncertainties" of climate science. "We know our climate is changing, the average temperature of the Earth is warming, and greenhouse gas emissions are increasing," Tillerson said, adding that much uncertainty remains. (Ben Geman, "Energy companies 'broadly misunderstood,' Exxon Mobil CEO says." E&E publishing, February 13, 2007.)