The petroleum papers Inside the far-right conspiracy to cover up climate change
Book - 2022
"Drawing from hundreds of confidential oil industry documents spanning decades, this explosive work of investigative reporting reveals for the first time the far-right conspiracy that's stopped the world from preventing the climate crisis. In The Petroleum Papers, investigative journalist Geoff Dembicki tells the story of how the American oil companies that founded the tar sands in Alberta, Canada--home to the third-biggest oil reserves on the planet--ignored warnings about climate devastation as early as 1959. Instead of alerting the world to act on this impending global disaster, Exxon, Koch Industries, Shell and others created ad campaigns saying climate change isn't real and that alternatives to oil are an economic disast...er. These companies built a global right-wing echo chamber to ensure tar sands could keep flowing into the U.S., which helped elect Donald Trump and now leaves the Joe Biden administration with a sprawling climate mess. But Dembicki also tells the high-stakes stories of people fighting back: the Seattle lawyer who brought Big Tobacco to its knees and is now going after Big Oil, a young Filipina activist who saw her family drown in a climate disaster, and a former engineer at Exxon who was pushed out for asking too many hard questions. With experts now warning we have less than a decade to get global emissions under control, The Petroleum Papers provides a step-by-step account of how we got to this precipice and the politicians and companies who deserve our blame."--
- Subjects
- Genres
- Informational works
- Published
-
Vancouver ; Berkeley ; London :
Greystone Books
[2022]
- Language
- English
- Corporate Author
- Main Author
- Corporate Author
- Physical Description
- 285 pages ; 24 cm
Issued also in electronic format - Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN
- 9781771648912
- Introduction
- I. The First Warnings (1959-2013)
- "Just another storm"
- "Men on a hunt"
- "A gift from God"
- "We were all so desperate"
- A "hellish cloud"
- "Operation Oilsands"
- "A million pieces"
- II. The Early Construction of Denial (1968-1988)
- "He seemed embarrassed"
- "Ahead of the game"
- "Very strong interests at stake"
- "Pitted against our very survival"
- III. Solutions Known and Sabotaged (1988-2002)
- "Threaten the existence"
- "I feel embarrassed"
- "We have to get this right"
- "Americans can't hear the whistle"
- "The dumbest-assed thing"
- IV. A Public Awakening (1997-2008)
- "Victory will be achieved"
- "They lied about everything"
- "Saudi Arabia of the western world"
- "What Makes Weather?"
- "Global energy powerhouse"
- V. Blame Canada (2006-2010)
- "Back off dudes!"
- "A full-on barney"
- "Public embarrassment"
- "They're struggling forward"
- "Global warming!"
- VI. The Climate Goes to Court (2008-2014)
- "The island is sad that it's going away"
- "A way to justify exploitation"
- "I remember being angry every day"
- VII. Well-Oiled Allies (2016-2019)
- "Stacked with friends"
- "Friends in unexpected places"
- "It just kept going and going"
- "This is an avalanche"
- "We are the beating heart"
- "They surrounded me"
- VIII. The Right to Live (2020-2022)
- "Robbed of their options"
- "Why wouldn't I choose the right thing to do?"
- "Is there risk?"
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review