Oil Firms Knew Decades Ago Fossil Fuels Posed Grave Health Risks, Files Reveal

By Oliver Milman, Guardian UK

18 March 21

Exclusive: documents seen by Guardian show companies fought clean-air rules despite being aware of harm caused by air pollution

he oil industry knew at least 50 years ago that air pollution from burning fossil fuels posed serious risks to human health, only to spend decades aggressively lobbying against clean air regulations, a trove of internal documents seen by the Guardian reveal.

The documents, which include internal memos and reports, show the industry was long aware that it created large amounts of air pollution, that pollutants could lodge deep in the lungs and be “real villains in health effects”, and even that its own workers may be experiencing birth defects among their children.

But these concerns did little to stop oil and gas companies, and their proxies, spreading doubt about the growing body of science linking the burning of fossil fuels to an array of health problems that kill millions of people around the world each year. Echoing the fossil-fuel industry’s history of undermining of climate science, oil and gas interests released a torrent of material aimed at raising uncertainty over the harm caused by air pollution and usedthis to deter US lawmakers from placing further limits on pollutants.

“The response from fossil-fuel interests has been from the same playbook – first they know, then they scheme, then they deny and then they delay,” said Geoffrey Supran, a researcher at Harvard University who has studied the history of fossil-fuel companies and climate change. “They’ve fallen back on delay, subtle forms of propaganda and the undermining of regulation.”

The effects of burning large amounts of coal, oil and gas from factories, cars and other sources has long been evident, with major cities in the US and Europe sometimes shrouded in smog before the advance of modern clean-air laws.

From the 1960s, however, a mass of historical documents from corporate archives at libraries in the US and Canada, scientific journals and paperwork released in legal cases shows the oil industry began to grasp the damage to health caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

In internal memos and reports, Imperial Oil, an Exxon subsidiary, acknowledged in 1967 the petroleum industry is a “major contributor to many of the key forms of pollution” and took surveys of “mothers who worried about possible smog effects”.

In an internal technical report in 1968, Shell went further, warning that air pollution “may, in extreme situations, be deleterious to health” and acknowledging the oil industry “reluctantly” must accept that cars “are by far the greatest sources of air pollution”. The report states that sulphur dioxide, given off by the burning of oil, can cause “difficulty in breathing” while nitrogen dioxide, also given off by vehicles and power plants, can cause lung damage and that “there will be a clamor to reduce [nitrogen dioxide] emissions, probably based on suspected long-term chronic effects”.

Small particles given off by fossil fuels, meanwhile, are the “real villains in health effects”, the Shell report admits, as they can bring toxins, including carcinogens, “deep into the lungs which would otherwise be removed in the throat.”

These microscopic specks of soot and liquid, known as particulate matter, are expelled when fuels are burned and inhaled by people. In 1971, Esso, a forerunner to Exxon, sampled particles in New York City and found, for the first time, the air was rife with tiny fragments of aluminum, magnesium and other metals. Esso scientists noted that gases from industrial smokestacks were “hot, dirty and contain high concentrations of pollutants” and suggested further testing was needed for symptoms including “eye irritation, excess coughing, or bronchial effects”.

By 1980, Imperial Oil had outlined plans to investigate incidences of cancers and “birth defects among industry worker offspring.” Esso experts, meanwhile, raised the “possibility for improved particulate control” in new vehicle designs to reduce the emission of harmful pollution.